Fantom / XV-5080 overlap?

[NeoZeed]

Hey there, recently ordered a Fantom 6 and had a question before I offload my old kit:

I've been using an XV-5080 for a while and really love the sound of it. It's super dynamic and punchy whether it's outputting via the analog outputs or digital. I'm curious if there is a good reason to keep the XV-5080 around once the Fantom comes. How many of the samples in the 5080 are included in the Fantom? Can the Fantom match it in sound quality? What about drum sets?

A lot of people say that Roland's "sound" hasn't changed much since the 90s. I know that's meant to be a derogatory statement, but I'm actually looking for that. If I can get the sound of my 5080 in a modern workstation with a pattern sequencer, more polyphony, a nice keybed, and sampling, I'd be happy to sell the XV-5080.

[tjcornish]

Most or all of the XV-5080 sounds are indeed in the Fantom. One reason to keep the 5080 would be for extra polyphony.

The Fantom has 256 notes of poly and the VPiano doesn’t use that pool, so if you use piano sounds it’s even more, but the 256 voices can disappear quickly, as each key press takes a minimum of 2 due to it using stereo for everything even if the source wave is mono. More complicated sounds dip into this more, as each partial used takes two tones and you can have up to 4 partials in a sound. In other tone types, extra polyphony gets used up in other ways, so it can go quickly

This is the way all keyboards are to some degree. For whatever reason Roland has left some potential optimizations used - the stereo for everything being the big one, but so far it is what it is. If you have space in your studio or live rig for the 5080, that’s another 128 poly for sounds that the Fantom doesn’t have to make internally.

[andywt21]

Fantoms polyphony is not 256 notes - its maximum of 256 oscillators in total. But some quantity is reserved for seamless scene switching feature, some is consumed by filters etc. So what is left is not such mind blowing number anymore and could be consumed quite fast.

[Acidizer]

Yeah the real polyphony is around 20 notes.

[NeoZeed]

The polyphony issue makes sense. I'm Weird thing is, with the XV-5080 I'd toss around 6 to 8 tracks at once with 2 or 3 instruments playing chords and drums going on and don't ever remember voice stealing being noticeable. Are you guys saying the Polyphony on the Fantom is actually worse than the XV-5080 in real-world use? That's a little disappointing to be honest.

I mainly write Industrial / Metal / Progressive Rock styles of music so maybe since it's so heavy on bass and lead lines I'm not stressing polyphony too much? I'm hoping this doesn't become a headache on the Fantom.

[tjcornish]

I think Acidizer is being a little pessimistic. For equivalent tones, I believe the Fantom is no worse than the XV-5080, and the fact that the VPiano doesn’t use any of the main pool helps a bit if you use any piano sound. The trouble comes when you want to use the models or if you want to stack up a bunch of partials. Then it can go fast.

I do live playing where I layer a bunch of stuff. Thankfully I use a lot of piano so that’s free, but for live work, I can often cut back some of the partials that make relatively small contributions to the sound and that significantly reduces the strain.

[NeoZeed]

I think Acidizer is being a little pessimistic. For equivalent tones, I believe the Fantom is no worse than the XV-5080, and the fact that the VPiano doesn’t use any of the main pool helps a bit if you use any piano sound. The trouble comes when you want to use the models or if you want to stack up a bunch of partials. Then it can go fast.

I do live playing where I layer a bunch of stuff. Thankfully I use a lot of piano so that’s free, but for live work, I can often cut back some of the partials that make relatively small contributions to the sound and that significantly reduces the strain.

VPiano not eating up polyphony is nice to know. I’m interested about the Expansion Models though, you mention them and I’m assuming you are implying they are polyphony hogs? I hope not because those were a huge selling point, and a big reason why I pulled the trigger on the Fantom!

I was mainly looking to write on the fantom and avoid my DAW as much as I could. I’m a little worried that I may not be able to do this… hmm.

[Foksadure]

Most or all of the XV-5080 sounds are indeed in the Fantom. One reason to keep the 5080 would be for extra polyphony.

The hardware ZEN-Core XV-5080 does not have all the structures from the original (the software XV-5080 does).
This is more like an approximation, that can be good enough for most presets. Or not.
The real XV-5080 is 128 voices over 32 parts, indeed. Not to mention the ability to load and playback sample libraries.

It's hard to monitor the real-time voice usage on a ZEN-Core synth, while the JV/XP/XV all have this wonderful MIDI Information pages in the Perform menu (F6).

There was an attempt about evaluating this for the ZC and the ABM models on the Jupiter-X/m (rated at 256 voices max over 4 parts+drums), which is not pretty:
https://gearspace.com/board/electronic- ... st15090854
Not sure the Fantom are any better in this regard.

I'd keep both, just because the XV-5080 is the pinnacle of this Roland era, where hardware and software where closely tied.
And the front panel UIs were thoroughly covering the entire machine (not just the bits Roland wants you to see).

[tjcornish]

I think Acidizer is being a little pessimistic. For equivalent tones, I believe the Fantom is no worse than the XV-5080, and the fact that the VPiano doesn’t use any of the main pool helps a bit if you use any piano sound. The trouble comes when you want to use the models or if you want to stack up a bunch of partials. Then it can go fast.

I do live playing where I layer a bunch of stuff. Thankfully I use a lot of piano so that’s free, but for live work, I can often cut back some of the partials that make relatively small contributions to the sound and that significantly reduces the strain.

VPiano not eating up polyphony is nice to know. I’m interested about the Expansion Models though, you mention them and I’m assuming you are implying they are polyphony hogs? I hope not because those were a huge selling point, and a big reason why I pulled the trigger on the Fantom!

I was mainly looking to write on the fantom and avoid my DAW as much as I could. I’m a little worried that I may not be able to do this… hmm.

I’ve been a Korg OASYS/Kronos guy for the last 16 years. The Kronos does about 140 polyphony of HD-1 sounds (similar to the Z-Core structure), and about 80 of their VA sounds. Stacking up unison voices on the Kronos starts eating into this pool, too. YMMV and whatever, and keep in mind I’ve owned my Fantom for 6 days so far, but for the way I play, they feel about the same for note stealing. I have a fair bit of time on the Kurzweil Forte, and IMO that has way worse note stealing issues than either the Kronos or Fantom.

As I mentioned, I think a lot of sounds in the Fantom are programmed for a “wow” factor where a lot of voices are used for that last 5% sparkle. For studio use, you may need that and may have to resample, record outside the unit, or whatever to get enough of what you need. For live use (or you can make that judgment for studio use too), a little menu diving and you can experiment with how much each partial is really contributing and disable accordingly.

The Fantom gets a bum rap for effects compared to the Kronos/Kurzweil because the effects structure is fixed and you only get one MFX per part. I’ll tell you though, that the Kronos’ 12 IFX chain blocks can go fast if one part is using 3-4 blocks, which is the case for many factory sounds on the Kronos. On the Fantom, a number of the MFX blocks are actually chains, with a couple functions put together.

I’ve said for a lot of years that the holy grail of a workstation is one where resources aren’t limited and you don’t have to think about effects chains or whatever when going from single sound/patch mode to scene/combo mode-just add sounds and go. The Fantom isn’t unlimited in terms of polyphony, but for my world where Piano gets used a lot, the Roland effects structure and free VPiano polyphony actually gets darn close.

My big gripe with the Fantom now is I can’t figure out how to make LFOs reliably sync with when I push keys down (see my other thread). Other than that, I’ve enjoyed the Fantom compared to the Kronos. Since you’ve already pulled the trigger, get it in your hands, get to know it, and make music. We all have to deal with buyer’s remorse occasionally, but then we get over it and make music.

Roland has updated/fixed a lot of things. Some ideas have been suggested to Roland about ways to optimize polyphony - e.g. not charging two voices for a ZCore partial that uses a mono waveform. Roland has vastly improved the Fantom since version 1.0. Maybe they will do something about this, too.

[tjcornish]

One other thing I was going to mention - sound thickening can be done in lots of ways. Some patches that use duplicate oscillators for thickening can be approximated by using effects to do it instead of voice detuning or modulation. I’ve been happy in several cases by adding or changing the MFX and then turning off less important partials.

I’m not arguing polyphony can’t be a limitation sometimes; I just don’t think the Fantom is worse than any other hardware workstation. I understand why Roland swung for the fences with the way they designed patches so they sound nuanced and thick when you’re dialing through the sounds at the expense of high polyphony usage - that’s what everybody does. If you want all the nuance - the board can do it, just perhaps not everything at the same time without bouncing tracks. If you want lots of simultaneous patches - the board can do that too; you just have to make some of your patches better community members and reduce their footprint.

[FGM]

As a very basic keyboard amateur I keep my eyes wide open at that polyphony issue being arisen from time to time.

I have some scenes that use 16 zones, built little by little while consistently enjoying the progress of my music after adding nearly everything available in Fantom, and stopping the composition only once all four partials have been used and made stereo on every single zone.

64 waves, filters, effects, arpeggios, pedals...going on without any fault. I am far from using all of my ten fingers simultaneously all the time (and no need for it given the capabilities of the system itself provided you bother to arrange the orchestration accordingly), but seven fingers are there often and I myself have not detected any single misfire so far.
And it is not me failing to detect any, since the progress of the composition asks by itself adding more, which is accomplished, and then more, after perfectly hearing the recently added item...and then more again and so on and on.

Surely, having a car whose manufacturer state 100000 HP power instead of just 5000 HP or 500HP will be enjoyed and felt differently, but for the price...

[Acidizer]

On average I get voice stealing when running 4 - 5 tracks simultaneously on the sequencer. A guy on gear slutz did tests and real world polyphony on average it was a little over 20 notes at the same time. I use chords in at least one sequence, and long release tails will cause polyphony to be used up easier.

Even on a gattobus official roland video you can hear voice stealing when he is running the track via the sequencer.

There is even a stacked preset on Fantom that is 4 note polyphony.

[FGM]

(¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[NeoZeed]

On average I get voice stealing when running 4 - 5 tracks simultaneously on the sequencer. A guy on gear slutz did tests and real world polyphony on average it was a little over 20 notes at the same time. I use chords in at least one sequence, and long release tails will cause polyphony to be used up easier.

Even on a gattobus official roland video you can hear voice stealing when he is running the track via the sequencer.

There is even a stacked preset on Fantom that is 4 note polyphony.

This seems really really extreme to me. You have instances where 4 or 5 tracks cause voice stealing? Are they all pads or something? I have an Elektron Digitone Keys and don’t seem to have too much of an issue with it’s 8-note polyphony if I’m smart about tails and reverb. I usually combine that with a Yamaha DX7II which is bi-timbral 16 note poly and am happy with what I can get out of that.

I’ll keep the 5080 around just in case but I think all this polyphony talk might not be nearly as bad as you make it out to be. Unless a model expansion is eating up like 20 notes of poly per mono note or something I don’t see this cropping up for my use case :-/

[FGM]

(¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )