AUDIO ISSUES AND IdEA--I READ ALL POSTS!!!

You can store audio on USB drives; you just can't play them from USB drives. The Fantom-G timestretches and/or pitchshifts audio tracks in real time, with instant start. There will be a delay when playing a song or section of a song, even with Logic or ProTools.

So if I get you right, the only way to start a song or beat track for the background of a live song and it be in time is to have the audio in the G? Going with Logic or something of that effect will give me all the audio I want, but there will be som latency as far as getting it to start? It sounds as if I am back to the earlier posts ideas of using an mp3 player (although personally that is insane to me), or some type of dj software which I have. I guess Logic could also work as long as there were no tracks that needed to be triggered during the middle of the song. For now I am mixing down everything on my DAW and just having one final stereo track to import, maxing out my memory (to 512, have not tried 1028 and can only find EEC 1028 DIMM, no NON ECC yet to be found for me), and seeing how many tracks I can store in there. We are more of a live band anyway, just like mixing a few beat tracks with our drummer on occasion. By the way, audacity Works you are the man. Is this the best setup for me you think? I was happy you responded, you have answered all my questions well so far (except for the FC-300 question no one seems to know anything about). Thanks again!

Assuming you want access to more than 32MB of audio files at once, you must store said files within a project on an external drive (USB flash or, as some have suggested, a USB hard drive). The external drive can store as many projects as will fit.

When you turn on the Fantom-G, it automatically accesses the last active project, and automatically loads all samples stored within that project to the Fantom-G's internal RAM. All samples and audio tracks must exist in RAM for you to hear them.

RAM-based audio has numerous advantages, but it also has its disadvantages:

• Load times can be a pain, as everything has to be transfered to RAM.
• Traditional cut/copy/paste DAW editing is next to impossible, because the song's timeline is basically just triggering samples. This isn't a pointer-based system like other DAWs and standalone digital multitracks, which tell the processor to play specific parts of non-local files at specific times (and require much faster media than what flash memory typically allows).
• There will be a limited amount of memory available, as modern RAM capacities are always smaller than storage (hard disk) capacities.

So the Fantom-G is, by definition, not a DAW, because it doesn't have pointer-based audio tracks. But that's fine, because I don't think Roland's interested in throwing a VS-2480 into their keyboards. The G is an instrument first and foremost, and tracks that can be instantly triggered, timestretched, and pitch-shifted make more sense in this regard. It'd be insane to try to make the Fantom compete with the Apples and Digidesigns and Microsofts out there.

Now admittedly, Ableton Live can pull off a lot of this, because it treats audio a bit differently than Logic, ProTools, or Cubase. I believe it uses a much larger RAM buffer for one. But it's still not an all-inclusive hardware instrument.

Assuming the Fantom-G's USB Memory port is USB 2.0, Roland could possibly add HD pointer-based audio from a non-local volume, but it opens a TON of worms—one of which is "what happens when you change the tempo of a song?" Wham! Your tracks are out of sync, but only the HD audio tracks—your MIDI and RAM audio tracks are locked in. How do you explain that to newbies?

I do, however, wish Roland would allow realtime bouncedown to HD, like in the MV-8000/8800. It might be a bit weird, considering some flash drives might not be fast enough, but it's certainly doable with the right media.

G8owner14:

you have answered all my questions well so far (except for the FC-300 question no one seems to know anything about).

I'm not too familiar with the FC-300, but as I understand it, it's a straight-up MIDI footswitch, and nearly any message can be sent from any switch on any bank: CC messages, MIDI notes, System Exclusive, etc. It should work just fine with the Fantom.

Man, you rock. I can not thank you enough for all of your help. I will start playing with the project side of things until my new RAM comes in. Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you. ANYONE GOT AN FC-300 TO GET RID OF???