Fantom-S trick: a cheaper way to get more storage capacity

[sambasevam]

well, it was worth a try, i guess. My card should be on the way. If it doesnt work, i'll be quite disappointed. Its a 256 MB type M.



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[tranztek]

Im not sure, it doesnt say, its just a Fuji 128mb digital memory card.

[tranztek]

Just checked - my xd card is a type M. Hope this helps.

[tbonifie]

Same here, I wish I would have read the forum before I went out last night and bought a 512MB Kodak card to try out with the adapter. Same failure, system won't even load up when you turn it on, even with a blank card.

I guess it's time to take it back and find another...

[sambasevam]

Finally! Both the adapter and the card arrived at the same time today and i just now tried it. The solution to the storage problem has been SOLVED!!! The Fantom S can now be called a proper sampler with 288 MB capability. It was just 128 MB RAM before, but now its 288 MB. :=D


So, the 512 MB card doesnt work..Hm...Did you guyz first power on the thing THEN insert the card and then format it? Cos thats what i did with the 256 MB and it worked. So, dont insert the card at first, then after powerup, insert the card and format it.

Or better yet, try formatting the card in your computer, with the proper ROLAND folders set up. Lets not give up yet guyz.

BTW, this solution cost me around 30 bucks, which is still a great deal for 256 MB of storage!


Also, now that its a brand new fresh card, what are you guyz going to do with it? Write your existing 128 MB card into it, or load fresh material with it? I'm thinking load totally fresh material with it, but i have some really fantastic drum kits in my 128 MB and 32 MB cards. Hmmm...



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[tbonifie]

I first tried just taking out the old card while the keyboard was on and sticking in the fresh 512MB with adapter. The keyboard stopped responding. I then tried cycling power and got the loading screen, at which point it just hung.

I then took it to the computer and put all the roland folders on it (complete with samples and sequencer files) then... I can't remember whether I stuck it in live or not. I think I did and it hung the machine as before. Defnitely still had the boot problem, though. So I've since reformatted the card and have to find the time to take it back to Office Depot and see if I can find an M-type 256MB card locally. Office Depot only had the one card I bought for XD (under 1G anyway).

That's fine, though, if I can get an M-type card at 256MB that works, it will solve the only problem I've had (not enough space to keep all my samples and sequences on the card at the same time). I really don't like having to erase the card everytime I record a lengthy samply... though most of the stock samples I was using were latin percussion instruments, and I've since got the world SRX card, which pretty much trumps those anyway... (except I have to edit my old sequences to use the new card, or create a new patch, either of which is a pain!)

[sambasevam]

bonifie, I have the same problem as you do - have some songs and multisamples on one card, and few on the other cards.

The simple way to solve this problem would be to just fill your new card with new samples, new patches, and new songs. Make your setlist so that you got all your songs grouped into one card or another. Then, change the card and play the next group of songs.



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[sambasevam]

Hmm..Ttrying to convert some roland patches to the card...and the translators not writing the patch...hmm...



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[sambasevam]

screw that. Created the multisample manually. 120 Mb of pure strings. Just 10 patches. Oh the goodness! Day and night when compared to roland stock strings!



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[tbonifie]

Here's the results:

Kodak 512MB H-type - Doesn't Work
Olympus 512MB M-type - Doesn't Work (same issue as H-type)
Olympus 256MB M-type - Works great!

So much for 512MB... but I didn't really expect that to work anyway, now I gotta go return the 512MB M-type and get my $30 back!!! Good thing I bought all these locally!

[tbonifie]

i.e. samples from where (sorry, I know it's off topic!)

[sambasevam]

"Ultimate Strings Collection" by Roland.



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[Muzik]

Wow... so much useful information on this forum.

I spent like couple of hours researching about memory for Fantom X8.

Well... here are my options...for Roland Fantom X8.

There are two main options: Get a memory card or get DIMM

1. I could get Link Depot XD-SMC and Standard 256MB Secure Digital (SD) Flash Card. This would cost me with out shipment, $15.

2. I could get 256MB Memory Stick Pro Duo for $7 (so would I need Link Depot XD-SMC for this?).

3. Or I could get,1GB Compact Flash (CF) Flash Card for like $14. (so same question here, would I need Link Depot XD-SMC for this?)


So I have question about these three options.

1.I still don't understand why would I need DIMM memory if I can get Memory Card for cheaper price?
2. Would I be able to record audio and MIDI to the memory card? According to X8 manual I can write "Patches, rythm sets, performances, samples, and song data" (248).
3. What about the speed of memory card for example if I get 1GB Flash Card? Is DIMM faster? Or should I get like the option 1 or 2?


I basically need to record audio and want it to be on flash card so than I would not have to go through all of the usb stuff... or I would still need the DIMM?

Please help... I know that this might have allready been answered...

[sambasevam]

YOu would still need the DIMM RAM regardless of the memory card. The Fantom CANNOT write directly to flash storage. It keeps everything in RAM, and you have to write that to card.

AFAIK, the only device from Roland that didn't need any RAM (except for a small buffer), and could read and write straight from cards was that roland SP groovebox produced in the early 2Ks.



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If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving is definitively not for you.

[boyfriendacademy]

My advice is to stock up on xD memory cards before these things get harder to find and just as expensive as the SmartMedia cards.

I got the xD SmartMedia adapter from Fry's Electronics for $5. But I was confused after reading through the threads on this forum about which exact type of xD card would work on the Fantom-S so I picked up a few different types from OEM PC World (http://www.oempcworld.com) who have pretty good prices on all kinds of memory, even the older hard-to-find stuff. They're based out of Santa Clara and offer a local pickup option.

Here are the results of my testing:

1. Olympus xD 128MB ($14.85 as of 3/8/10) works fine. No crashes, the Fantom-S formats it fine and reads/writes it fine.

2. Olympus xD 256MB type H ($8.85 as of 3/8/10) almost works fine. The only drawback seems to be that the Fantom-S cannot format it and crashes/reboots when you try to format it through the "File Utility" menu. But the workaround is simple: format it via USB (instructions below) and it appears to show up correctly as a 256MB storage card in both the "File Utility" menu and the "System -> System Info -> Memory Info" menu. I transferred via USB the Planet A pack by Sinevibes and it loaded up just fine and showed about 80% free space available. Since these xD 256MB type H cards are almost half the price of the 128MB cards, I'm probably going to go with the 256MB type H cards and do all the formatting via the USB method. If you only need 1 or 2 cards, then just go with the 128MB version if you don't want to deal with formatting via USB and want to play it safe (who knows what bugs might be lurking in the Fantom-S OS that wasn't originally designed for SmartMedia cards larger than 128MB).

3. Fujifilm xD 256MB type M ($10.85 as of 3/8/10) almost worked but then started to flake out on me. I got it formatted and copied over some sounds but when I reseated it, the Fantom-S said it was unformatted. I gave up trying to make it work since the type H cards are slightly faster and cheaper than the type M cards anyways.

4. Olympus xD 1GB type M+ ($16.85 as of 3/8/10) did not work at all. As soon as you jack it into the Fantom-S, the Fantom-S starts crawling and locking up. But I don't really see the need to have a large memory card for the Fantom-S when the onboard sample memory is limited to 288MB and you can pick up the 128MB and 256MB xD cards for cheaper.

...

FORMATTING VIA USB METHOD

1. If you already have a SmartMedia card and can properly format it on the Fantom-S, do that first and then copy over the "blank" folder structure to a folder on your computer desktop. Or just recreate the blank folder structure described in the Fantom-S FAQ section 6.2 on this forum. I don't think the "fans.svd" file in the ROLAND/SND folder is necessary but since I had a SmartMedia card I copied it over anyways.

2. Jack the xD card into the xD SmartMedia adapter and then jack it into the Fantom-S.

3. In the Fantom-S, go to the "USB" menu option and activate USB storage mode for the MEMORY CARD.

4. At this point the xD card should mount as a USB drive on your computer. Give it a few seconds. If it doesn't, then exit out of the USB storage mode and try doing the format on the Fantom-S through the "File Utility" menu. It might crash and reboot but that might do the trick for you. After it reboots, check what it says about the card in the "File Utility" menu. If it says "EMPTY" and "256MB available" then you're in business, go back into USB storage mode. If it says "UNFORMATTED" and "0MB available" then you might be screwed with a bad card. You can try formatting it FAT16 if you have an xD or SmartMedia card reader on your computer but I didn't have much luck with that.

5. Assuming you made it past step 4 and you've got your xD card mounted via USB from Fantom-S to your computer, now you want to format it FAT16 with an MS-DOS MBR and a single partition with the label "FANS CARD". Should be simple to do in Windows, I won't go through that here, you can google instructions for it. On a Mac, go into Applications -> Utilities and fire up the program Disk Utility. You should see the "Roland FANTOM-S Media" drive. Change the format to MS-DOS (FAT), click Partition, change Volume Scheme to 1 partition, name it "FANS CARD", click Options, select "Master Boot Record", then click Erase and confirm yes.

6. Now copy over the "blank" folder structure from your desktop onto the xD card mounted via USB.

7. If you just want a blank formatted card ready to start saving stuff from the Fantom-S, you're pretty much done now. Just eject the USB drive from your computer, exit out of USB storage mode on the Fantom-S, and reseat the xD SmartMedia adapter card in the Fantom-S. You should now see the standard blank folder structure on the card in the "File Utility" menu with 256MB available.

8. If you want to load up the card with sounds from something like one of the Sinevibes packages, go into USB storage mode and just copy over the appropriate files (either just the "fans.svd" file or the whole ROLAND folder if there are samples included). It might take about 20 minutes or so because these old media card formats aren't as fast as today's newer ones and I think the Fantom-S USB controller is USB 1.1 instead of the faster USB 2.0. Exit out of USB storage mode, reseat the xD SmartMedia adapter card in the Fantom-S, and then Load -> Load All Samples. You should then be able to switch to the CARD patches and start rocking out.

-Tony