Will the New Fantom Motivate Korg ?

billysynth · Post by **billysynth** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:59 am

I will definitely be getting an 88 key Fantom. Just the keybed and the V Piano alone, let alone everything else, is important to me. Compared to the Kronos RD3 keybed and it’s cheap plastic components it doesn’t compare to the sophisticated and solid Fantom...you pay for quality. You have to take the quality of the product into consideration not just compare the software.

The King can’t always stay on top of the hill...isn’t there something fishy about all the employees that Korg let go and all the micro plastic rubbish they have been releasing over the past few years...???

Vas

theshinenz · Post by **theshinenz** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:05 am

This is one of the better sounding demos.... with headphones it sounds pretty massive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xK33Fm ... bVb2mzCsQA

Poseidon · Post by **Poseidon** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:57 am

Roland Fantom Workstation Keyboard Demo with Daniel Fisher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCx4BYtnRYI

SKung · Post by **SKung** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 10:51 am

Very well played demo and those sounds are great. Has been much work put into these presets. I didn't find those guitar sounds convincing, but this is the same in other workstations.

In the demo I missed some organ sounds, other users observed the same. Seems like Roland skipped that one. That should keep some band keyboarders from the Fantom.

Jan1 · Post by **Jan1** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:32 pm

Initially I thought it was great to see Roland coming up with a new Fantom, but after a few demos where the beast shines in the synth dept. but is severely lacking in other areas I am not enticed to lay down 4000 Euros for it.

I have written it in the news section, I cannot fathom why Roland thought it was a good idea to abandon the acoustic modeling in exchange for the typical two dimensional nineties-like emulation of acoustic instruments.
Even the FA has more to offer in that department.
I mean, listening to some of the presets highlighted by Daniel Fischer of Sweetwater I wish Roland hadn't wasted ROM on these emulations.

IMO it is no threat to the KRONOS at all.
I'm looking forward to NAMM to see what (and if) KORG and Yamaha are going to offer.
I wish I could be more positive, but this is the way I feel about the new Fantom.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:13 pm

Jan1 wrote:Initially I thought it was great to see Roland coming up with a new Fantom, but after a few demos where the beast shines in the synth dept. but is severely lacking in other areas I am not enticed to lay down 4000 Euros for it.

I have written it in the news section, I cannot fathom why Roland thought it was a good idea to abandon the acoustic modeling in exchange for the typical two dimensional nineties-like emulation of acoustic instruments.
Even the FA has more to offer in that department.

I have the FA. It lacks seriously in string sections. No orchestra ensemble sounds worth mentioning.

Anyway, Fantom has all Integra sounds. Yes, I know, so what. Maybe Roland decided that they have pounded away at acoustic instruments, and the demand
for any ' new approach ' is not there.

My take is that Roland knows exactly what the priorities are.

If Integra does not cut it, there is MODX.

And all the VST's you can dream of via USB.

19naia · Post by **19naia** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:26 pm

I also started thinking again after watching several more demo videos.

Nothing shown in the fantom that does control surface flexibility, other than being in DAW mode. DAW mode in fantom does really nice control assignments to DAW.

But where is the info that says the fantom control surface can be put in tone adjust mode and then have each control assignable to any of a good number of parameters?
And then switch to Karma control mode to do flexible assignment of karma parameters to the controls.
And then switch to timbre/track mode for control of the usual timbre/track parameters.

And these are just the control surface utility modes in Kronos, not the usual Multi, sequencer and single modes that Roland did away with for stream line workflow.

Wave sequence, pattern RPPR, Karma, control surface assignability, multisampling, 16 separate audio tracks with the sequencer(audio tracks that are not part of the Sampling section), Vector JS control, ribbon slider,
-and what else did i not see or hear about with the new fantom?
And no word about Roland’s own Super-Natural, in the new fantom.
Ok maybe korg’s pattern RPPR is easily matched by roland's pad system and new sequencer clip system.

Fantom has its own control surface qualities like the TR system control and the 16 sample+utility pads, but those do more to bring workflow alternative than they do to bring functions that kronos cannot do in kronos’ own way.
And then that Roland makes no mention of its own Super-Natural being in the mix?

All i see so far, is innovation in the workflow.
Definitely streamlines the work flow for users, but takes away so much utility while only really adding a TR system and finally a touch screen interface.
The touch screen is very nice but nothing new and should have been something they made part of the FA, after Korg being touch screen oriented since way back in the Triton days.

Also no word yet about the impressive midi capabilities like the old fantom had.

I will wait to see if the fantom has the capability of handling system updates to at least include Roland’s own Super Natural....
and then multi sampling, some thing like wave sequencing, extensive control surface assignability across a variety of control modes.
I know Vector JS and ribbon sliders are not things that system updates can do on the fantom.

Looks more like a good contender with Montage, but not so easy a change for people used to most of Kronos work flow and features.
I hardly use Vector JS on kronos, but i always use Karma. So karma alone would make the switch hard for me.

I would still need karma for midi phrases and then export the phrases to make user arpeggios in another keyboard. Something i thought of doing only for while my kronos is in storage and i find myself on the other side of the world using some simpler and cheaper keyboard with a decent user arpeggio feature, to hold me over until i get back home to kronos.
So it would not be a fantom being used as a cheap interim keyboard while i am away from kronos.
And i don’t see fantom replacing kronos for me either.

Jan1 · Post by **Jan1** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:38 pm

GregC wrote:I have the FA. It lacks seriously in string sections. No orchestra ensemble sounds worth mentioning.

Anyway, Fantom has all Integra sounds. Yes, I know, so what. Maybe Roland decided that they have pounded away at acoustic instruments, and the demand
for any ' new approach ' is not there.

My take is that Roland knows exactly what the priorities are.

If Integra does not cut it, there is MODX.

And all the VST's you can dream of via USB.

Surely you mean that the Integra synth tones are in the Fantom, not the acoustic instrument tones?
SN in the Integra is a mixed bag, sometimes really well done, at other times not so much, but it beats the typical nineties type of emulations handicapped by limited memory and practically no performance modeling.

I think it's a shame they apparently have abandoned SN acoustic instead of developing it further, and revert back to useless plastic soundalikes. The latter is a waste of ROM to me.
The marriage between sampling and modeling can yield excellent results, but maybe that is indeed not a priority with Roland?
Time will tell if they made the right decision.

The positive thing about this Fantom is that the synthsounds can be warm, big and inspiring, and the synth engine with the dual 16-step LFO's per partial and different filter types allow for some serious sound design.
But to spend 4000 Euros on it for this reason alone?
I'll wait and see what the future brings.

psionic311 · Post by **psionic311** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:26 pm

These are the legacy presets the Fantom has re-packaged.

sinemotor wrote: I looked at the Sound List.pdf of this new Fantom and here is what I found :

-Bank B contains the first 459 patches from the AX-Edge Keytar
-Bank C is the 128 patches from the Integra-7 Synth Legends expansion.
-Bank D contains the 1109 SuperNatural Synth Tones from the Integra-7 / FA synths
-Bank E contains the 896 patches from in the XV-5080.

KK · Post by KK » Sat Sep 07, 2019 5:03 pm

Wow... A Roland Montage, sorry Montaf, Fatmon, Fantom (had to change the order of the letters).

But... But... Where is the superknob ?

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:15 pm

KK wrote:P But... But... Where is the superknob ?

its on the iPad type LCD. Try to keep up

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:13 pm

Jan1 wrote:
GregC wrote:I
SN in the Integra is a mixed bag, sometimes really well done, at other times not so much, but it beats the typical nineties type of emulations handicapped by limited memory and practically no performance modeling.

I think it's a shame they apparently have abandoned SN acoustic instead of developing it further, and revert back to useless plastic soundalikes. The latter is a waste of ROM to me.
The marriage between sampling and modeling can yield excellent results, but maybe that is indeed not a priority with Roland?
.
I get you want acoustic modeling. I don't program deeply.

I vaguely recall there are software packages that address acoustic modeling.

Some 10-20 years ago, our keyboard hardware co's did some modeling but did not follow up with more development .

So not surprising to me, Roland did not revive it on Fantom.

Mike Conway · Post by **Mike Conway** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:26 pm

Poseidon wrote:Roland Fantom Workstation Keyboard Demo with Daniel Fisher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCx4BYtnRYI

Daniel did a nice run through of the features, but when he played through more than 30min of sounds, I was not impressed. Very few orchestral sounds. No cool guitars. I even heard a lot of stuff from my old Fantom FA.

What did knock my socks off were these filter sweeps, from 8:40 - 9:10, in the Scott Tibbs video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELYQKUdIayg&t=8m40s

19naia wrote:I also started thinking again after watching several more demo videos.

Nothing shown in the fantom that does control surface flexibility, other than being in DAW mode...
...But where is the info that says the fantom control surface can be put in tone adjust mode and then have each control assignable to any of a good number of parameters?
And then switch to Karma control mode to do flexible assignment of karma parameters to the controls.
And then switch to timbre/track mode for control of the usual timbre/track parameters.

And these are just the control surface utility modes in Kronos, not the usual Multi, sequencer and single modes that Roland did away with for stream line workflow.

Wave sequence, pattern RPPR, Karma, control surface assignability, multisampling, 16 separate audio tracks with the sequencer(audio tracks that are not part of the Sampling section), Vector JS control, ribbon slider,
-and what else did i not see or hear about with the new fantom?

....Fantom has its own control surface qualities like the TR system control and the 16 sample+utility pads, but those do more to bring workflow alternative than they do to bring functions that kronos cannot do in kronos’ own way.

...All i see so far, is innovation in the workflow.
Definitely streamlines the work flow for users, but takes away so much utility...

...And i don’t see fantom replacing kronos for me either.

Again, I love the interface, but as you and others point out, so much is missing, not even a data slider. (I hate not having a data slider on my old fantom.)

Correct, it is no replacement for a Kronos with it's recordable Tone Adjust, MOD-7, Wavesequencing, 24bit audio tracks, multi-sampling, etc.

Fantom does have a virtual Vector control in its display. I also like that it has pitch/mod wheels and a joy stick.

SKung · Post by **SKung** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:30 pm

Mike Conway wrote: What did knock my socks off were these filter sweeps, from 8:40 - 9:10, in the Scott Tibbs video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELYQKUdIayg&t=8m40s

Yes, and that reminds me what a synthesizer workstation is:
Synthesizer + effects + sequencer

I think that those guys from Roland asked themselves the question if a synthesizer really has to sound like a guitar, trombone or a flute.
And I think that they answered this question with NO and I'm so glad about that.

They rather invested their time in decent filters, modulations and workflow efficiency in (synthesizer-) sounddesign and sequencing than in 'press button A and you hear the breath of the saxophone player'.

Mike Conway · Post by **Mike Conway** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:29 pm

SKung wrote:Yes, and that reminds me what a synthesizer workstation is:
Synthesizer + effects + sequencer

You left out sampling/multisampling. I realize you don't care much for guitars and saxes on such a unit, but for my work, my workstations do everything; synthesis and realistic instruments.

Sampling is not just for guitar sounds, but rather another whole level of sound design - pitch it, reverse it, chop it, stretch it, composite sounds, waveform modulate, etc. I really wish Variphrase options were part of the Fantom. Maybe in an update?

I've never been a fan of ROMpler only machines. (M1, SY85, etc.) I've always liked the workstations like the SY99 and OASYS, which were fantastic as synthesizers.

My main request for Kronos was to have more filter options. The Fantom has that covered in spades. With those Fantom filters, I could see it replacing most of my VA and analog synth needs.