Fantom G sound thread

[Mauro Rosati]

I've tried to be as much impartial as I can and not having prejudgements (I've almost insulted people here when they're talking about the doubts of the sound quality in the new Fantom G) , but isn't strange that they seems to have fear to show the sounds? It seems that they aren't not so sure about the sound quality. Think about it, still no MP3s audio examples on the official site (the others had MP3 audio example and more videos available also just after the announcement), and just a crappy official video, and Warren showing just his bass guitar recording all the times, Isn't it weird?

[Diametro]

Yes, I agree. It is a little strange ... or poor planning ...

[piaknowguy]

I have played the G and was thrilled with it's sound quality! That being a personal assessment (what sounds 'great' to me may not sound so good to you), I can only console you by offering a very positive review! I am a future Fantom G owner! =)

Cheers!
PiaKnowGuy

http://www.piaknow.com

[Mauro Rosati]

Thanks for your opinion PiaKnowGuy

[piaknowguy]

Hi Mauro! I'm the tall guy in the pics! =) These were taking in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, just after the NAMM show . The Fantom shown here is a rare prototype that was hand-built and was being shipped to back to Japan on January 28th TO BE DESTROYED! =( (Apparently it's 'all-the-rage', to crush $80,000 keyboards) I thought it was cool that the serial plate was devoid of any numbers.

The instrument sounds spectacular by-the-way!! I love the 'new' feel of the keyboard, both in the tactile sense as well as the action. I find it to be quicker than the X! Pitch-bend has always been important to me. I loved playing the guitar lead sounds and being able to choose which notes I could bend without affecting the others. Although not all of the features were in perfect working order (some menu items were not available), the keyboard did receive a system update that morning. Simply plug in the thumb drive and turn it on. =)

I can only confirm all of the positive feedback that has been expressed in this forum concerning the G! It looks, feels, and sounds SEXY!

The gentleman in the picture with me is Darren Schoepp, a good friend of mine from Roland Canada. He is their V-Drum specialist, and an amazing musician!





Cheers!
PiaKnowGuy

http://www.piaknow.com

[Mauro Rosati]

Thanks for pictures and you review. So the few infos it's just because they're working on updating it and fixing bugs? That's ok, it's a good thing.

[Jimknopf]

Allen (Piaknowguy),

what did you especially like about the G sound?

- are you talking about the overall sound of the reworked engine sounding clear and punchy

- or are you talking about concrete sounds? I guess at that stage there hasn't been too much new stuff on the G. What kind of instruments have you used besides the piano? *Old pals* from the standard X ROM or anything else?

Frankly (not only at the moment), I would put some more trust in Romans 3 than in the work of the Roland sound designing team.

They have quite a heavy job to do putting the best from the old ROM plus from 12 SRX boards plus some (probably not many) new sounds into the only 256Mb available for all sampled waveforms - compared to 128Mb plus 4 64Mb SRX-boards of free choice in the FantomX.
Even if you add the two ARX-boards (of which I suspect ARX02 so far not to contain high qualty EPaino samples but just a pyhsical modeling device, not reflecting the real deal Rhodes, Wurly, and Clavs in any proper way), we would get comparable sound amounts, but much less personal choice.

I'm sure the G is a *very* nice device, and a big hit concerning live usability, but I have many questions and doubts concerning sounds up to now. NAMM was not remotely worth talking about G sound demos. Soundwise that was an incredibly lame show after all I heard from others and saw on videos. The fact that there is still not a single MP3 demo is of course understandable, if they are still in midst of their sound choice process...

P.S.
Nice studio picture on your site. With the Rhodes MKI corner you will perhaps understand at least some of my concerns concerning the future of SRX-12 sounds (or better) in the G

[Synthia]

Why are they destoying that poor G,that makes me sick.

I would gladly take it off their hands:))No need to kill it just send to me:)

[Jimknopf]

If they sent it to you, at least one person could say a word about its sounds.

Meanwhile I really find it *bizarre* that two weeks after demoing the device at Namm they still don't have any single mp3 sound demo, and no future patch list snippets of the new deivice on their site, not even the also slloooowwwlyyy "coming soon" Namm booth video(s). If they ship end of April, how long does it take to produce the devices? And how much time is then still left for "finding" the sounds for the device?

[V-CeeOh]

I know this is a "sound" thread so I would like to ask Roland for a PAD, I mean, a Roland mouse PAD

piaknowguy
Do you know if we get one of those pads with our new G8s?

[Oleq]

I hope, not many features will seem to be "afterthoughts".

[Arjan]

I would like to ask Roland for a PAD, I mean, a Roland mouse PAD

You could always make your own:

Custom mouse pad

[smurf]

I expected Roland to drag their feet in getting any sound and/or video demos posted and I guess I was right. ;P

Listen, if the software wasn't finished at NAMM how could we really expect them to deliver premium demos shortly after NAMM? Needless to say, Roland engineers have been busy as beavers finalizing the software code and even though we are now 3 weeks beyond NAMM we still don't have something substantial in the way of sounds from the Fantom G. Go figure... >> We don't have any demos because it ain't finished yet! Which tells me that they may have run into some obstacles in their attempt to finalize the OS. Or another more serious consideration might be that they are really trying to get it right the first time instead of putting something on the market that is indeed half baked. I'm not sure if many of you here on the Fantomized Forum know the debacle that Roland went through regarding their G-70 arranger workstation but let me tell you it wasn't pleasant, for either Roland, or for those who happened to purchase the fresh off the assembly line G-70 back in late 2004. People complained long and loud on how weird the thing sounded (an overabundance of reverb for one) and it wasn't until much later that things got ironed out but only after several revisions of the OS. Roland is possibly being extra cautious and are taking their time testing and retesting and retesting again to get it right from the get go. Unlike the G-70, which, in my opinion, was one half baked keyboard when it came out. And personally I'm really not in a hurry to see or hear the Fantom G if Roland isn't in a hurry to show it to us or let us hear it. It's plain and simple. If the Fantom G was indeed ready then Roland most likely would've had some demos already up by now, right? They want to portray the Fantom G in the best possible light I would think, so I can see where it could take some extra time especially since the OS hadn't been finalized as of NAMM. BUT! I hope they let us at least hear it on a more personable indepth level before it hits store shelves in May, or as some are reporting, in August..

One encouraging scenario is the possibility that Roland decided on a bold move to change some of the specs on the Fantom G. For instance, instead of two ARX slots maybe they decided to revise it to take FOUR ARX slots?? And/or possibly they have considered changing the RAM spec where instead of it now only supporting 544MB they decided to revise it to officially support 2 Gigabytes?? And DDR2 at that??

>> I know I'm only dreaming but WHAT A DREAM!!! >> Especially if it comes true...

>> I won't hold my breath though.

Having said all that, I do expect some sound demos to be soon forthcoming. We'll see. Maybe I'm wrong but I think Roland is aware that the natives are restless and I would expect them to at least try and pacify us to some degree in the very near future. >> That is, of course, only on the stipulation that they have indeed already finalized the loose ends on the OS, etc.

*The specifications are subject to change without notice.

[Hugo]

smurf;
good comment. It has been a sad trend that companies have released semi-finished or even half-finished products. Alesis Fusion - need I say more? It would be awesome if Roland for instance decided to include SRX expansion, though I doubt very much such a change would happen at this late a stage in the development.
However, one can sill hope

[Jimknopf]

smurf,

I would welcome it very much if they took the time for second thoughts and perhaps a revision of their sound decisions. I would easily accept the additional time until delivery, if sound would become as good and flexible as usability on the new device.

My impression is, that they don't reconsider, since I saw a post in this formum where a US Roland rep claimed the G would ship end of March and be in US stores beginning of April. This leaves no time for serious reconsidering at all.

So at the moment it looks as if they made some pretty pre-mature sound-decisions soon as their usability features were developed well enough to launch the G. I think they were dead wrong to give up SRX compatibilty for something completely else, without providing higher sample/layer/polyphony whatsoever ROMpler sound quality. Now they offer just the same, but less of of it, plus two ARX boards which cannot solve that problem in any possible way. And future ARX boards won't solve the problem either, because you always can only use two of them and they are still no replacement for fine SRX sounds. Upgrade and downgrade at the same time in one device! From which planet are their sound designers??? Weird!!!