Potential Fantom G Purchase

[rajaman]

Hello everyone. I am new to this forum so please forgive me if what I ask has previously been addressed.

First off, let me state that I own the Motif XS8 which I feel is an excellent board. The jury is still out on the XF; right now I'm not convinced that an "upgrade" is desireable except for the inclusion of flash rom. At the moment I don't use too many samples or am I into sampling anyway. So I'm still waiting to decide to move "up" to the XF.

But I briefly played around with the Fantom G8 at GC. While I think the sounds in the XS are "better" (i.e. more pleasant to my ears), I do like what I hear from some of the sounds in the Fantom G. What I believe I'm looking for is another way to do songwritng using a workstation. (Don't want to use a computer and DAW right now). Another "philosophy" if you will. What I need to know (for those of you who know from experience), comparing the XS8 and Fantom G, is it simpler or more intuitive to use either keyboard? I know the XS has a steep learning curve. But sometimes I'd rather spend my time creating than being a technician

Better yet - if you did not own either workstation and HAD to purchase one, which would you prefer. BTW, I'm not really a gigging musician. I use my keyboard in studio.

Thanks.
rajaman

[cyclops]

If I were you, I'd go and listen to both machines. Each of them has strong and weak points.
For example, the Motif has a way better selection of waves and presets, plus you can choose from a vast selection of sample libraries, to match your liking, plus the newly introduced flash RAM feature, to store up to 2GBytes of your sounds, without having to load them at boot-up. Furthermore, the manufacturer is listening, so most probably users get heard when it comes to OS updates and so on. The Fantom-G on the other side offers great user interface, more modern soundset (especially for electronica etc its far better than the Motif) plus better I/O interfacing (analog line, guitar/bass, mic with or without phantom power, plus digital SPDIF). But it lacks badly on the support area.

[acelumper]

the g's strengths are in its live capabilities. the studio side, not so much.

[comradec]

cyclops gives an accurate summary of the two workstations' relative strengths and weaknesses.

I've owned the original Motif (the 'classic') and now the Fantom-G. Knowing what I know now, I would definitely choose the Motif XS over the Fantom-G and that's because of the inadequacy of the Fantom-G's data management system.

That may sound like a geekish concern but you won't think that as soon as you to try to transfer song material between different projects and media. Things that you take for granted with the Motif - such as the ability to copy a single song from one USB memory stick to another, perhaps to combine different songs in one place - are very difficult on the Fantom-G. I mean difficult to the extent that a task taking minutes on the Motif could take many hours of detailed note-taking and reprogramming on the Fantom-G. Possibly to the extent that it may seem too daunting a task even to contemplate.

Fix that problem and the Fantom-G would definitely be the winner. But it still hasn't been sorted two years after the product was released.

--
Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke
http://www.facebook.com/comradec

[comradec]

In terms of playing back material at a live gig, I agree with acelumper's comment: the Fantom-G is very strong. The 'Favorites' recall system is excellent.

In terms of putting together a live set of songs stored in different projects, however, it is not strong at all. That task will cause you serious stress, whereas on the Motif it is very easy indeed.

--
Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke
http://www.facebook.com/comradec

[PauloF]

@comradec,
What about XS's sophisticated 4xArpeggiators and Chord Recognition system, what's your opinion about that ?

Fantom G does not have anything similar...

[comradec]

@PauloF

You are right. The Yamaha's arpeggiator and chord recognition system is way ahead.

Sometimes, however, I seem to block out my recollection of features whose memory may cause me further distress over my purchasing decision two years ago.

--
Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke
http://www.facebook.com/comradec

[Quinnx.]

all i can say to potential buyers is..
Your coming in at a time when the G has already been put through its paces and has received several updates to take it to where it is now.

all the feedback is there and all its pros and cons are there for all to see and plenty of youtube vids..

so it should be a too difficult task to choose.

[apex]

In other words:

Buy it. It's a great board.

It's been said too many times that the XF is not worth the upgrade from the XS... So is there really even a question?

I mean unless you want to talk about the Korg M3... but then we're on the wrong forum to do that!!!

The Fantom G will complement your XS just fine!!! (but then again, so will the M3)

I can even make it even more simple...

There's NO NEED AT ALL to have the XF & the XS. NONE AT ALL!!!! So if you sell your XS so you can get the XF, you'll have one workstation, but you'll be back in the same position you are in right now. The XF is not going to give you much difference as far as song writing is concerned (compared to your XS), but the Fantom G will. No the sequencer is not perfect, but if you are looking for a different experience from the Motif line, then the Fantom G (or M3) is perfect.

He stated that he's not a gigging musician, so comradec's issue with the transfering of songs from one project to another (to make gigging easier), is no issue.

and Cyclops, your issue with sounds (and the lack of them) would not be an issue for him. There is tons and tons of sonic power and capability between the Fantom G and the Motif XS series. So waveforms and sounds should be very easy to work with.


So.... If I were you rajaman, I'd go for it. Especially if money is not a huge factor. You should just get a Fantom G6 (just so you don't HAVE to break the bank) and just control the piano type stuff that you need to play from the XS8. You can still do all the sequencing, etc... on the Fantom, just use the XS8 for the piano (stuff that you need weighted keys for) triggering sounds from the Fantom of course.

You won't regret it.

[comradec]

apex: "He stated that he's not a gigging musician, so comradec's issue with the transfering of songs from one project to another (to make gigging easier), is no issue."


What kind of pro-Fantom fundamentalism is this, apex? How about some objectivity for once?

The point about transferring songs from one project to another is relevant to anyone who uses the Fantom-G for composing full productions. Gigging is merely one situation where it's relevant. I have only recently resumed playing live after many years of inactivity in that area, but the Fantom-G's data management was a problem for me long before I did that - when I was programming songs in my home studio, when I was working on recording projects.

Another situation where it's relevant would be when you've composed lots of songs within a project on the Fantom-G and wish to experiment with alternative mixes and arrangements. Not because you're a DJ or remix addict but simply because that sort of experimentation is a central part of putting together new songs and experimenting to find the most effective arrangement.

In that case, though, the 50-song limit won't get you very far. You don't need to have composed that many finished songs for it to be an issue, as every little sketched idea or work in progress is likely to be saved as a song too. So you might have written 10 full songs and have 30-something ideas noted as songs. Should you have to delete some of that content in order to make space for the remixes you want to work on? Not a good idea - you might want to come back and finish those works in progress later. No, of course not, you're going to want to transfer song data between projects. And that's where you will run into trouble with the Fantom-G.

--
Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke
http://www.facebook.com/comradec

[Artemiy]

comradec, for studio productions, I use "one song per project" concept and it's by far the best way to work with the Fantom-G. You keep all your phrases, samples and patches related to one particular song. This way you never get to know the shortcomings of getting stuff from one project into another, and you will feel very comfortable with the Fantom-G.

[comradec]

@Artemiy

I agree that it is the most practical workaround for this problem, and your advice is appreciated, but it is still a problem.

And songs don't always develop in such isolation. A synth workstation-based composer comes up with ideas and saves them. Sometime he/she wishes to combine ideas from separate unfinished song ideas. Keeping each potential song idea, or indeed finished song, on a separate project makes it very difficult to work quickly.

I can only hope now that Roland are working on this issue. I doubted there would be an OS update at the same time as major product releases, so I didn't expect anything new on 1 September, but I do wish that Roland would seek to address the data management issue as soon as possible.

Believe me when I tell you that I would be much more pro-Fantom-G than I appear now were these issues to be fixed. It would make me very happy.

--
Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke
http://www.facebook.com/comradec

[Artemiy]

Steve, I was just giving information on what I think is the best workflow.

Would of course be nice if song sharing between projects was implemented, including automatic import and remapping of references phrases and samples.

If you ask me though, even the most awesome of the DAWs I work with, do not allow this kind of thing. First is, you have your project which is your single song. If you want to import a sound from project A into project B, you do this manually within your plugin synthesizer by saving it to a file. If you want to import a few tracks from project A into B, you do it manually by copying/pasting. Both are time consuming, and you do everything manually per each sound and track. I too wish that it would be possible to automatically pull a track along with it's assigned instrument and it's settings... but even with the amazing power of Apple's software minds, they haven't done this.

Do you actually know any hardware workstation or DAW that allows you this kind of thing? Patch and sample import should be pretty easy, this is what Roland could do without much fuss. But when you go to songs, their multitude of data and it's hierarchy isn't so easy to deal with, even if you're the author of all of the code.

[johnc]

personally i find the sequencer in the g is very good. with the silly exception of editing phrases and samples. nothing wrong with the editing facilities, however when coming out of the edit you will automatically be reset to the beginning of the song. also the deleting of the above can cause you to jump from one end of a song to another. which can be very confusing. setting the jump button to the section your working on helps. but is not an ideal answer.

the sequencer is also rock solid and has great timing accuracy. as good as atari and mpc. the ability to time stretch each individual sample and the stretch mode been able to alter how a sample plays back without altering its bpm, are excellent creative tools.

the file system is fine for my use. one song one project. however as comradec has pointed out. transposing a song into another key is also not straightforward. i never use multi samples. but there are questions over there operation or lack of it.

the motif has some great sounds on it. however if you are into synth sounds the g is very good. and arts fantom g pack has more excellent sounds in it.

i have added cakewalk rapture zeta and dimension pro to my laptop for very little money. with these you have a massive sound library covering both acoustic and synth sounds. zete is the stand out one with an amazing tone. total analog and more. brilliant.

[comradec]

Hi Artemiy.

I don't tend to compare the Fantom-G with computer-based DAWs because it's not a fair comparison. I would only compare it with other hardware synth workstations and the capabilities that they possess.

Whilst I take your point about there being a lot of time-consuming manual work involved in the equivalent operation in a DAW, there is, I believe, a major difference that makes it much easier than on the Fantom-G.

With Ableton Live, for example, you can collect and save all of your data in the same place for a specific song. If you name the different components used within that song, those names are retained. It's not like with the Fantom-G, where your careful naming of files proves to be completely useless once you look at them in Windows Explorer (or its non-Microsoft equivalents) because everything simply has a number and there are no file names to view.

And it is very different on the Motif too. On that, the components of a song are automatically stored within that song's folder. Those components can be exported to be used in other songs if you want and the process is pretty easy. Those songs and their component data can be arranged and combined to go on any one of your storage devices. This is true of all the Yamaha workstation sequencers that I have owned (Motif, RS7000, RM1x, QS300, QY10).

That is not to say that Yamaha products are perfect.

--
Steve Cooke
http://soundcloud.com/stevecooke
http://www.facebook.com/comradec