fantom-s price change- more info

[abstract]

i just talked to the roland rep in my area and he said he is going to a huge meeting at roland in la next week where they are going to find out whats up with this. he said he would try to get me some kind of credit on the one i just bought.also he said he had no idea that they were already selling them for $1499 everywhere, and he thought they were going to tell him of the price change at the meeting. i am supposed to call him next thursday to find out whats up. i will keep you folks informed, so stay tuned..... ps. he claims they are not dumping the keyboard yet

[Artemiy]

Thanks for info, abstract - we all will eagerly wait for your next info on this.

[abstract]

hi
my roland rep is really a decent guy- he just called me back and said they are going to creit my card for a few hundred $$ off what i just paid them.he said he thinks they are dropping the price possibly because of the motif es.i will find out more next thursday.this rep of mine also said he ownes a fantom-s,so i have really good insider information i could get from him.if anyone wants me to ask him anything, let me know.also wanted to say that i got the dynamic drum expantion board and the sounds are very realistic and good.artemio- thanks for this forum and i also checked out your website-its great.

[MK]

A huge meeting? What could they possibly discuss? Obviously, someone at the top must have approved this large price reduction. The original Fantom did not last long. At the rate things are moving by Roland and the other vendors, the next generation is going to be announced before you know it. This is the kind of change that will influence more musicians to use inexpensive softsynths.

[abstract]

or just drive them crazy!!

[FatBoyJim]

It is beginning to look like the F-S might have stopped selling after the Motif ES was released, if it was even selling that well before then. All speculation at this point and we my never actually know the truth of what is behind all of this but I don’t think that most people are all that surprised if the ES might have something to do with this.

You the man, Artemio!

[mucsusn]

But you know what? At the end of the day I am very glad I have my S-88! Goddamn I have fun with that thing!

[FatBoyJim]

I gave some thought to getting rid of my F-S before the Motif ES came out just because I was worried about what it might do to the F-S value and not because I wanted the ES. Obviously I decided not to do it and I am glad that I decided this. The thing is great and I don’t have time to buy something that has a steep learning curve.
As much as I am anxiously waiting to see the next generation of workstations (not upgrades) I think that it is going to take something incredible to get me to purchase it. If I did not already own the F-S I will admit something though; I would be waiting until Winter Namm before purchasing anything.


You the man, Artemio!

[MK]

I agree it is a terrifc instrument. But if is dead at the end of this year, I will not be happy. I got my S88 sometime around June 1st, and I added SRX boards to it. Seven months is not a long time for something that costs $3,500.

If anything is announced at the Winter NAMM, you can bet that I will not buy it until at least next summer, whether it is an upgrade or the next generation. I would seriously have to consider going with a softsynth solution, even though I really like having a fully weighted keyboard. Then again who knows? Perhaps my S88 will be nothing more than a fully weighted controller in the future!

[FatBoyJim]

I will admit that I won’t be happy with this one year of life out of the F-S either; if that is indeed the case. Since my last post about an hour ago and this post now I already started thinking about where this might leave us Fantom-S owners. I then realized that currently this is just a hypothetical situation and that there is no need to go overboard just yet.
The general feeling about Roland seems to be very negative. If what we think may be happening here comes true I think that many people that currently own the Fantom-S may now join this negative group as well and that I might just be one of them. I think everybody here knows that I am real happy with my Fantom-S but my main concern will be what now happens to future support of this product which has been less than impressive so far. Oops, starting to get negative so I will go.

You the man, Artemio!

[Phil B]

"...my main concern will be what now happens to future support of this product which has been less than impressive so far..."

You got it FBJ - with the exception of Roland's being available if you call them (although, we always just seem to get "you can't do that" type answers), they have been completely non-existent. They have no web presence (as virtually all other hard- and soft-synth manufacturers now do) and no hint of an express commitment to continue to do OS upgrades (and no truly detailed description of the added features of the last one!!). They keep their customers in the dark and their US subsidiary seems to be completely out of the loop with the Japanese parent company (e.g., Sonar instrument definitions and various tutorials are only present on the Roland Japan site).

I don't think you should feel bad about being negative on this forum. Of course, we love the FS. Of course, there are other products out there that, in their own way, are different and desirable for their own reasons. But, this really is ridiculous. Roland needs to get more in touch with their customers or they will alienate them (if they haven't already).

To be honest, if there was some sort of Roland presence around here where a line like "we are talking about putting that into a future OS update" was used every so often, I would not care about new hardware or other manufacturers. That would be enough for me (well, and also actual OS updates!!). I don't need the FS to be the latest and greatest forever. I just need for it to be a more and more stable version of what it already is and for Roland to keep its features as current as possible. I agree with MK that soft synths will comprise my future purchases, not another hardware workstation. The FS is supposed to last me "forever" for my purposes. Well, Roland is not giving us any reason to believe they see this as a lasting product either. It's not so much what they HAVE said, as much as it is what they HAVEN'T said.

There's my rant.

[FatBoyJim]

Very well put, as always Phil.

You the man, Artemio!

[FatBoyJim]

Oh, and another thing. Where’s my money back? Just kidding, I don’t expect Roland to try and keep us as customers like Yamaha did with their customers of the EX 5 when they refunded nearly $200.00 to every original EX5 owner. Consider yourself very lucky Abstract.
Beginning to wonder if this forum will turn more into an organized boycott?

You the man, Artemio!

[Phil B]

I'm pretty sure Roland is going to be at the AES convention here in NYC - I'll be there on Sunday and will ask some questions.

[MK]

Just imagine if you were an Akai MPC enthusiast, as I am. Akai support is worse than Roland support.

It is indeed ridiculous that Roland released this workstation and has done nothing to support it. How in world can a company put so much distance between itself and the customer? There must be some cultural difference explanation for their actions.

I suppose the price reduction could attract a lot of new customers. The interest in analog from a few years ago has been replaced by an interest in workstations. With the Fantom-S now the lowest priced workstation perhaps there should be more customers. During the last month or so a lot more people have come to this Fantom-S.info website. The deals they were getting could have been an influence on some of their purchases.

By the way, I recently sold my V-Synth. I did not like the latest release of patches. I became convinced that synth does not have a lot more room for growth. The latest group of patches failed to demonstrate anything new.