For Fantom S88 Owners!!

[jacksmash]

Hi, I have a couple of questions about the Fantom S88. YES, I have done my reading up on it, on this forum as well.
The other day I went to a local music dealer to try one out. To be honest, I wasn't very impressed. I didn't really like the sensitivity of the keys, and I wasn't too impressed with a lot of the sounds.
Now mind you, I really didn't know what I was doing, so I can't really make a fair judgement.
After deciding that I would never buy one, I got a package in the mail from Roland. It was a DVD which gave a preview of the Fantom S88. I was COMPLETELY blown away. I couldn't believe how powerful it was.

So here are my questions that I would like your opinions on:

1) Is it easy to get a hold of CD-ROMS which contains other patches which are much better? For example, I would like to get an orchestral CD-ROM, but I'm wondering if the sounds are much improved over what is already on board?? I would also look into getting more guitar/bass sounds as well.

2) Is the Fantom really as flexible as they make it appear?

3) How well does work as a controller? If I were to buy a rack in the future, would I have any problems?

4) Is there anything you could tell me that I should watch out for?

Thanks for answering any of these questions.. and for those of you that have put up with my numberless questions already, I appreciate your patience. But after seeing the DVD on this thing, I realized I will not buy anything until I can afford some type of workstation - and this one seems to be the best price wise anyways.

Thanks again!!

[Drusillus]

I can't really answer your questions because I haven't got my Fantom-S (yet!) but in my opinion the Fantom-S is a great synth, and with the recent announcement of the upcoming Fantom-X series, the F-S is going for a really great price.

1) The easiest route to expanding your patch set on the F-S is with Roland's SRX series of expansion cards. In fact there is a very nice orchestral expansion card that many consider to be one of the best on any synth, rivalling many orchestral sample CDs.

Roland also recently released a free patch pack for the F-S containing over 1000 of the most popular patches from the older Fantom, XP and JV lines.

Also remember that since the F-S has sampling capabilities, you can expand your sound set with any of the commercially available sample CDs available (e.g. Spectrasonics).

As always, don't just judge a synth on its presets. Many will agree with me that presets (especially on Roland gear) sometimes don't really represent how good a synth can sound.

2) I have that same DVD that you refer to, and I would say that Yes it really is that flexible, probably even more so because that video doesn't even scratch the surface of patch programming.

3) It should work fine as a controller for rackmount gear, can't see any limitations in that area, it's a pretty universal thing.

4) Some people consider the 64-voice polyphony to be a limitation, but that will only really come into play if you do a lot of sequencing on it, playing back multiple tracks at once. For performance, it shouldn't be a problem.

On the surface it appears that it only supports WAV and AIFF files for samples, but there are several programs on the Internet to convert AKAI, Roland, and other sample formats into WAV. Plus Roland is going to be coming out with it's own sample conversion software (as part of the F-X release) that can be used with the Fantom-S as well.

For LOTS of information on the Fantom-S line, visit (one of my favorite web sites) http://www.fantom-s.info/.

[jacksmash]

Thanks for that great response!

[Karmafied]

Hi jacksmash well i have a Fantom S88 with SRX-02 concert piano,SRX-04 Symphonique Strings & SRX-06 Complete Orchestra and this workstation it`s really an amazing machine.

The keytouch it`s some hard like some Bösendorfer or Kawai concert pianos but if you play some Mozart or Beethoven`s sonatas the sense it`s incredible and of course you can adjust the Keysense in 3 levels for a range between synth or fullweighted keysense.

Now the questions:

1) Is it easy to get a hold of CD-ROMS which contains other patches which are much better? For example, I would like to get an orchestral CD-ROM, but I'm wondering if the sounds are much improved over what is already on board?? I would also look into getting more guitar/bass sounds as well.


ANSWER: YES,you can use the Roland collections or any other CD sample collection `cause Fantom can read WAV and AIFF files and if you have another sample format the convertion it`s so easy.I recomend you check the SRX boards are really a god option for obtain a great sound arsenal.


2) Is the Fantom really as flexible as they make it appear?

ANSWER: YES,this machine it`s really flexible and EASY to use,i have many synths and the most friendly and flexible it`s the Fantom.

3) How well does work as a controller? If I were to buy a rack in the future, would I have any problems?

ANSWER: As a controller the fantom it`s great you can adjust all the midi devices easily and you have many bunch of realtimer controls like joystick,knobs and the amazing D-beam.I use the Fantom as a controller with my karma as slave without problems and you can make some espectacular things with the D-beam for example i use the monsterlead from my karma and with D-Beam i play the Wah literaly in the AIR.

Well and finally i really recomend you this board `cause it`s a great tool for music creation.In the internal memory you can find a great arsenal of sounds,the piano mode it`s great and the pìano sound it`s really good even more realistic than Korg EXB-08 (i have this board),for the acoustic guitars you have the most beatiful sounds in the market and for electric guitars you have the COSM processor a great amp/cab simulation like the POD even you can use the COSM for leads and you can create some killer leads (johansson leads or monsterlead are really easy to create)
the orchestral and string sounds in the internal memory arent the best but you can use the SRX boards or some sample collections,the organs are incredibles (check the "Deep Purple" preset) and the sampler it`s so easy to use.
I can describe this machine in 2 words POWERFULL & Friendly.

[jacksmash]

Thanks for the great reply!

This helps a lot.

[wacho]

I compleatly agree with you francisco jeje the fantom is a great and powerfull tool and for the guys that are starting to get familiar with the synths and all that stuff it really is a easy to use board so i highly recomend it