NEW FANTOM-G, PLEASE TALK HERE

V-CeeOh asked/wrote: "Are you prepared to wait all that time to make music?"

There is no waiting. I'm still making music whether I have the new Fantom or not. So that is not the question or concern. I will always be able to make and track music with or without any specific tool.

Most of this for me is just determining what my next new setup or equipment might be. And truly, the new Fantom is one of the best looking products I have seen in quite some time that meet MOST of my needs. But that one factor simply is a very important need for my WORK FLOW.

A lot of my decision making on products have to do with whether I feel that a product will allow me to work without having to take me out of the creative mode. Which for me are things like changing my basic work flow (i.e.: being able to plug and play, plug and record a quick basic vocal along with one other instrument, very few menu...which is why I love the Fantom verses say a Yamaha, etc, etc, etc).

I really like the Fantom, but I don't dog any product simply due to the fact that it might not be PERFECT for my and the way I work.

So my question is NOT meant to either degrade or dog the Fantom. I already LOVE it. Now it's just whether it can do what I would need it to do to invest the very few funds that I have

Thanks for your reply and all that you do on for this community.

acoustictones

I know you never meant to "degrade" the G. Even if you were to, we all expect to hear bad opinions around here. What I mean is ... well... I've beeing playing for more than 20 years now and there has never been a keyboard that has completely fullfilled my wishes. By now, even if I could buy an Oasys, I would not for the simple reason that I know it would afect my workflow (the other reason beeing that I really don't find it THAT impressive). So I understand what you say. As opposite to other fellow members here, I can leave quite well with the 128 voices, 16 MIDI tracks, 8 audio tracks, 3 MFX, of my X8. Why should I complaint? it's the most powerfull workstation I ever had. But I did had to change my working procedures, thus my workflow, over time to adapt myself to my gear. I'm more than happy with my X8. In fact it has more then I really need. So why change for a G8? Simple, because I'm in a position to do it and what I get in return for the extra I'll pay is well worth it, from my point of view.
In the end it all resumes to this: is it worth it for YOU?. After checking for yourself (and never trusting any "forums members" opinion ), if you think so, then go for it. If not, then move forward, but don't start saying that the manufacter "should have done this "or "should have done that" (not adressing to you here). No one here is in position to state "Roland SHOULD...". If it's not good for you it will be good for somebody else. If not, Roland will suffer. I'm completely aware on what I spend my money and what I get when I buy a keyboard so can't blame anyone but myself for my decisions. If a bunch of kids don't know the same (not adressing to anyone, again) then they must grow up. But, for Christ sake, the G is 1 day old and everybody already seems to be complaining. I do not. The G will be a major "leap forward" for my playing joy - I've already said why.
So mate, thank you and take care

I love everything on the new Fantom-G except the fact that it's still not a DAW, it's still a sampling workstation. I mean, it doesn't record audio directly to hard drive or Flash memory. You must reload the audio tracks to memory, which is a big NO NO for MIDI and Audio. Imagine loading 24 tracks of audio.... it will take forever. Your clients and audience will be long gone by the time you have loaded audio songs into memory.

shakil

No, wrong, that would make no sense. You have 50 songs per Project. So just Load your Project at the beggining of the event and all the audio will be available. You're only limited by the amount of RAM.

V-CeeOh........ max ram is 512MB only.

It can be filled up very quickly, if you have samples loaded, and doing multitracking, retakes... etc. This is a big limitation for a Digital Audio Workstation. It's like having a digital recorder with 512 MB RAM, not even 512MB Hard drive. They better had kept 16 audio tracks, but make them stream from hard drive or flash.

Other than that... it's great.

V-CeeOh:

You mentioned, "You're only limited by the amount of RAM." Which I still don't quite get. If you've read my other posts, I'm actually very pleased, overall, with the new G. However, I'm puzzled by the use of a DIMM that's getting very hard to get, and more importantly, apparently the new G still only supports 512MB of sample RAM?

I installed a pricey 1GB DIMM in my Fantom-X ($300 USD). It works, albeit, unsupported (weird memory display readings). With so many more audio tracks, I would've preferred to see the new G support 4GB or even 8GB of sample RAM in a more modern (translated = cheaper, more available) RAM module.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the new Fantom G6?

According to the specs the total amount of RAM you can have is 544MB (32 on board + 512 on a DIMM). I know that we have users having larger DIMM sizes for RAM in the X but the thing is that you can't fit songs larger then 544 due the limitations in the file system. Unless this works other way in the G, namely letting the audio stream from the USB flash drive, you still would have to deal with the total 544 of RAM. Wherethere it will be possible to use larger RAM DIMMs I don't know so must stick to the actual info.

I'm pretty excited about this keyboard because it does have a few major steps up from the Fantom X series. Yes, it stays well within the family in some areas, but then again its selling for the same sort of price!

And, while they've not finished the OS 100%, I'd like to request that the Studio mode with 16 channels gets the seemless switching as well (if it hasn't already). This could be an option which only allows 8 PFXs to be allocated instead of 16, with the other 8 channels just relying on the MFXs and global effects.

The reason I ask this is because 8 parts in live isn't enough for me. I'm usually using 3-4 keyboard zones each with 2-3 layered sounds plus some sounds triggered by external keyboards. I don't need a PFX for each sound but I would like 16 parts and seemless patch changing!

Also, can you make the Octave and Coarse Tuning values in a part transpose the notes being sent to external midi instruments please? At the moment if you're sending external they don't have any effect so you can't transpose via the fantom.

I'm so glad they've finally upped the RAM patch totals as well, fitting 3 bands into 64+64 performances on the FX7 just isn't good...

OK, I'm pretty sure I'll be upgrading later in the year! Looking forward to it. Cheers,

Mike.

shakil
guess what, The Fantom IS NOT A DAW, so you can't look at it like a DAW. If you want a DAW you should ... mmm... buy a DAW or maybe buy a workstation that records to hardrive. I've got a solution for you - buy an Oasys

V said, "According to the specs the total amount of RAM you can have is 544MB (32 on board + 512 on a DIMM). I know that we have users having larger DIMM sizes for RAM in the X but the thing is that you can't fit songs larger then 544 due the limitations in the file system."

Not sure what you mean by that. By the way, I never use MIDI. I'm only using digital audio tracks in my "songs." I often use virtually all my 1GB of over-spec'ed sample RAM in my Fantom-X. I actually prefer NOT to have an HDD built-in to my Fantom. HDDs definitely have a high failure rate after a few years of use, and I suspect that the Oasys' product concept is likely to be frought with future compatiibility issues as its already-dated internal PC components become more and more difficult to source. I like the fact that there are no moving parts in the new G.

Again, sample RAM issues aside, I am very happy with everything Roland did with the new G. As I said before, it's the Fantom-X, perfected.

I'm just sticking to the specs here...
If the maximum of RAM is 544MB and the song is 1GB you wont be able to load it to RAM, right?
Now if you manage to put a 1GB DIMM at RAM and it works perfectly, you can save your songs to the card and re-load it next morning that's great. BUT that "shouldn't" happen since the specs don't say so. That's why I said we're limited to the amount of RAM without saying what that amount is

I can load/save to and from CF into and out of sample RAM, using up to 1GB of data just fine!

In that case lets just hope we can do the same with the G

Swandiver wrote:
> ... multiple arps being able to run simultaneously, like Korg's Karma (which allows 4 arps plus drum rhythm) or the Motif XS (which allows 4 arps).

Autobot wrote:
> ...Fantom G will be perfect to me only with this problem solved by Roland engineers.

Problem might not be solved as easily as one thinks, simply because of this : http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7091410.html

and this : http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7309829.html
and all of this : http://www.freepatentsonline.com/result.html?query_txt=arpeggiator ...