Will the New Fantom Motivate Korg ?

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 3:01 am

Purgatory wrote:
GregC wrote: And speaking of over priced, I have been saying for 2 years, Korg is 'over pricing ' Kronos. I would not be surprised to see a price drop.

Funny you said that, here in UK most stores had the K2 88 for £2730 until recently when the Fantom came out after a few days some have started increasing the price of the K2 61,73,88 The K2 88 is now £3000 at these same stores that had it for £2730 until recent days of the release of the Fantom.. Would that not suggest that people are going for the K2 after this release rather than the Fantom ?

Keeping an eye on other stores and have seen some go even higher than £3000 from the original £2730 they had them for over this last week.

Guessing they have realised that the Roland Fantom is over priced and does not offer enough for the money and now the K2 looks like a bargain to new buyers wanting all the capabilities of a real workstation.

Keep watching the price go up especially as the Kronos SE's are slowly running out of stock in most stores the 88 SE are almost all gone in most stores now and god knows how many Korg actually has left in stock too.

Remember the Kronos SE 88 is selling for £3580-£3650 at most places and they clearly are flying out of the stores faster than they can get new stock for them.. So the K2 is going to fill that space again soon as no more SE stock.

the SE is an outlier. Its limited, scarce, price will stick higher. I have been watching SE pricing here in US.

Ask your country disti for his reason to hike the price for the new K2.

I have noted a few times the used K2 supply in the US is placing downward pressure on the used price.

laandodeman · Post by **laandodeman** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:29 am

Any word on the hammond/leslie on the Fantom? This is one of my frustrations with the Kronos. It keeps sounding thin and doesn't cut through the mix.

laandodeman · Post by **laandodeman** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:33 am

Any word on the hammond/leslie on the Fantom? This is one of my frustrations with the Kronos. It keeps sounding thin and doesn't cut through the mix.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:16 pm

laandodeman wrote:Any word on the hammond/leslie on the Fantom? This is one of my frustrations with the Kronos. It keeps sounding thin and doesn't cut through the mix.

I know about the question but haven't seen opinions yet.

back to Kronos, what are you expecting ?

As a prior B3/147 owner , I have perspective.

for example, do you have 3 song examples, heavily reliant on that Hammond/Leslie sound, that sound thin ?

And Clarify if this is gigging/band related or home studio

Devnor · Post by **Devnor** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:18 pm

laandodeman wrote:Any word on the hammond/leslie on the Fantom?

There isn't anything new in this regard. Nothing but rompler organs.

Eduardo_Arg · Post by **Eduardo_Arg** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:38 pm

Hi Friends:

After earing lots of demos about new Fantom, certeanly Roland do a good job.-
1.- Seems that this new develope is scalable ad infinitum
2.- If Roland sustain they market behaviour, new consumer will benefit with
Axial upgrades.
3.- Filters on the surface keyboards looks fantastic.-
4.- The same with the inclusion of wheels at the same time with joystick.-
5.- Facility of use: unfinish knobs works on the same screen functions.-

Some tester mention that new keybead is the best he have tested, perfect response.-

Videos allways looks fantastic. But the best test is the one we do investing ours on a Roland dealer (or a friend who let us play his new keyboard).-

Roland is well known developing sturdy keyboards. Myself use during 10 years "the beast" A90 controller.- As that beast, new Fanton wheights 27 kg. !!!!!!! unconfortable to move on gigs (and if you added a hard case you must add 15 kgs more).-

About price, Sweetwater publish it at 3.999 meanwhile Kronos is at 3.799, not a significant difference.-

Since las 5 years i'm too happy with my Kronos 2 with NO ISSUES and although some advances that Fantom offers, i'll will keep rolling Kronos for more years.-

Regards.
Eduardo

Devnor · Post by **Devnor** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:55 pm

Mike Conway wrote:VariOS anyone?

That was 16 years ago, Mike. What about OASYS open architecture? Time to let what happened decades ago..go.

I spent my first evening with Fantom 7. Sure there's no new cutting edge synthesis onboard and stuff is missing....sampling, SN-A, EPs. Since I own other synths that do this quite well it's not an issue so moving on to strengths.

Roland nailed sequencer workflow. However you want to work, the tools are mostly there. Record tracks and group them in the clip player. If you need to edit a synth tone, it's just a couple button presses and you're there. The sequence still plays because you didn't need to drop out of combi to perform the edit. Very cool. It handled external gear nicely. First tune had Fantom sequencing all my external gear. Second tune was fantom plus an 8 part Omnisphere multi. So easy to setup. I never opened the manual the whole night.

I could return this for 1 reason...V piano cuts off on scene change. They never mentioned that and neither did Daniel Fisher at Sweetwater. Very bad. Sounds fantastic tho...much better that my stock Kronos pianos. I've found a couple workarounds not a deal killer but perhaps an annoyance more than anything else.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 2:57 pm

Devnor wrote:[quot
I could return this for 1 reason...V piano cuts off on scene change. They never mentioned that and neither did Daniel Fisher at Sweetwater. Very bad. Sounds fantastic tho...much better that my stock Kronos pianos. I've found a couple workarounds not a deal killer but perhaps an annoyance more than anything else.

That is obvious problem and a priority.
I would stick with patience.

Roland will quickly fix the V piano scene changes.

Kronos was not perfect, out of the gate, either.

Devnor · Post by **Devnor** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 3:12 pm

GregC wrote: Roland will quickly fix the V piano scene changes.

Kronos was not perfect, out of the gate, either.

RD2000 users say their units behave the same way. Seems baked in.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:07 pm

jimknopf wrote:The only hardware difference I would really pay for are the endless encoders with useful controiller information.

Other hardware advantages to me: dedicated synth knobs; controls that are well-spaced and well-differentiated from the background and from each other; faster boot time; support for multiple foot pedals; maybe the sample pads; and what looks like a better designed screen interface, with properly sized buttons and text that won't make it feel like you're operating a 10 inch interface on a 7 inch screen (but maybe that's not a "hardware" difference).

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:14 pm

Devnor wrote:
laandodeman wrote:Any word on the hammond/leslie on the Fantom?
There isn't anything new in this regard. Nothing but rompler organs.

One of the demos said the sliders could be used as drawbars... maybe that will require a future software update? Still, I'm not sure I'd be holding out for above average organs, which Roland hasn't had in any of it's non-organ-specific boards. Part of the issue may be that doing a good C/V, rotary effect, and overdrive simultaneously can't be done in an architecture with one MFX per sound. So to do it right, it would probably have to be its own "engine" that operated differently from the rest of the board, kind of the way the V-Piano seems to be.

Devnor · Post by **Devnor** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:19 pm

Scott wrote: One of the demos said the sliders could be used as drawbars... maybe that will require a future software update?

I think you can do that now...you're adjusting the levels of 8 PCM partials. When I think of Roland organs, it's that awesome theater organ in the JU80. I really like that thing but for John Lord stuff, it's never coming. Ever. The Fantom control surface not conducive to live drawbar playing. The sliders are far apart and sit low against the surface. I'm spoiled for the most part I use Hammond XK3c.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:27 pm

Devnor wrote:[tials. When I think of Roland organs, it's that awesome theater organ in the JU80. I really like that thing but for John Lord stuff, it's never coming. Ever. c.

I recall there was a John Lord SRX [ or the predecessor] board.

Realistically, you can only go so far on digital instruments vs the analog like power and brute audio of the John Lord Marshall { ? } setup

Devnor · Post by **Devnor** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:35 pm

GregC wrote: Realistically, you can only go so far on digital instruments vs the analog like power and brute audio of the John Lord Marshall { ? } setup

New crop of guitar modelers help with this. Axe FX, Kemper. HX Stomp is pretty cheap and does the Marshall thing well. Run in parallel with leslie sound.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:39 pm

Devnor wrote:
GregC wrote: Realistically, you can only go so far on digital instruments vs the analog like power and brute audio of the John Lord Marshall { ? } setup
New crop of guitar modelers help with this. Axe FX, Kemper. HX Stomp is pretty cheap and does the Marshall thing well. Run in parallel with leslie sound.

yes ! you posted this before. Its on my project list to improve on Kronos FX
by implementing Axe Fx etc. I would like to enjoy a big improvement