Fantom-XR Editor vs XV Editor
Fantom-XR Editor vs XV Editor
I've got an XV-2020 and would like to upgrade to the Fantom-XR but it's hard to overcome the fact that the XR editor appears to have no ability to write an edited patch/performance/rhythm set back to either the same or a different memory location. This is so disappointing compared to the XV editor which can both read the contents of the user memory and write to it without resorting to having to use the hardware controls at all. Surely the main point of having a software editor is to edit the current patch/performance/rhythm set and then be able to write it to a memory location remotely?
Re: Fantom-XR Editor vs XV Editor
I found this puzzling too and couldn't find a way to permanently write to it remotely via the editor, only via the hardware itself. It's only a few button pushes but it's still irritating. Maybe too many people complained about accidentally overwriting their patches with something they didn't want and just ended up removing the feature. I think the alternative might be exporting patches from the editor in MIDI then loading up the librarian and overwriting patches that way, it worked for me when I was selecting XV to Fan-X patches and I was able to write them remotely.
Re: Fantom-XR Editor vs XV Editor
It's strange that the "Write" ability was omitted from the Fantom-X/XR editor but then re-introduced in the Fantom-G editor. I doubt if the Fantom-X/XR is physically incapable of being "written to" remotely so it's odd that it was not implemented in the X/XR editor. I understand that single files can be written to Midi Files but to have to involve the librarian simply to write a patch is ridiculous. It must be really irritating for owners of an XR who have to get out of their seat to save a patch! Roland built such good editors for the XV and Fantom-X and then shot themselves in the foot by not providing "Write" ability in the latter. Crazy!
Re: Fantom-XR Editor vs XV Editor
Yeah, it's honestly really weird. I'm absolutely sure there's some way to do it - after all the librarian CAN do it remotely - but not the editor. I've never looked into it but maybe there are third party editors for the X series? Luckily my Fantom sits in my crappy homemade rack right behind my laptop so it's not a huge issue but most people probably keep them to the side of their desks or wherever.
There might be another explanation though: Roland completely forgot about XR users. After all, the XR came out some time after the X and Roland's software support for their products is about as good as most phone manufacturers are at pushing Android updates. IE you're lucky if you get a year of support and development. I don't know if the other Fantom editors had the remote write button but their train of thought was probably like "this is a keyboard series instead of a rack series, people won't need a remote write button, how far away could their keyboard be from their PC?" so they removed it until they realized that it's quite important and reintroduced it with the G.
There might be another explanation though: Roland completely forgot about XR users. After all, the XR came out some time after the X and Roland's software support for their products is about as good as most phone manufacturers are at pushing Android updates. IE you're lucky if you get a year of support and development. I don't know if the other Fantom editors had the remote write button but their train of thought was probably like "this is a keyboard series instead of a rack series, people won't need a remote write button, how far away could their keyboard be from their PC?" so they removed it until they realized that it's quite important and reintroduced it with the G.