Anyone on stage with Fantom?

[neomad]

Hi guys, hope you are doing well and safe in this crazy period of our lives...

I am touring (was, thanks to covid) touring with a Nord Stage 3 + Roland FA06. I do have 3 different bands (disco, funk, soul, rock) and to be frank, both boards work well together. However, even though the NS3 sounds great, it is certainly not flexible in many aspects and was envisaging to trade it for a Fantom.

Is anyone gigging with? it is sounding well overall? any complains or recommendations? thanks in advance.
Regards,
Matt

[Pete-rock]

Hi Matt,

I did a few jobs with my Fantom until covid was here. My setup is Fantom 7 with mainstage (was FA07).

In the past I had many sounds coming from mainstage but this changed cause fantom has a lot of good sounds under the hood and programming is very easy. A few things are still missing but I think the next updates will bring them (organ sliders, keyboard switch groups accessible from footswitch).

Regards
Pete

[neomad]

Thanks Pete, very useful.

Keep investigating then. It is true that FA07 is a breeze to program and assign zones, groups, switches. If Fantom can do the same, I will certainly envisage the move in a serious manner.

THanks again
Matt

[Pete-rock]

It is a big step forward Matt. Programming is fast since you get direct access to many functions (cutoff, attack, ... ) and the faders show the saved positions with led stripe. The big touch screen is even a big relief for me, the "shift" button functions are very really good same is the keybed.

Only downside was the weight: FA07 with 8 kg to 18kg from fantom (+case).

Regards
Peter

[neomad]

Thanks again Pete.

Ouch, 10 more kgs on my back, at my age...

I am playing mainly rock/soul/blues these days and I am in charge of brass / wind riffs too. I downloaded Fantom manual yesterday, and looks like the zones/layers are easy to program as FA. So it was a good news.

I will visit a music store to try the Fantom out. Will keep you posted about my impressions, but it is strange to find Fantoms on the stage these days (mainly Nord, Yamaha or Kronos).

Will keep you updated !

[neomad]

Hi guys,

Just to share that I finally had the chance to test the Fantom 6 yesterday, and even though the keyboard looks amazing, feels amazing, screen is awesome, connectivity is fully fledged and all is extremely sexy and musical, I had 3 massive frustrations:

-1 sound remains did not really remained (changing patches make sounds to stop, and I tried piano sound, synth sounds, etc. etc.). It could be an outdated OS? My Fusion 2006 still does that perfectly, so my FA07. (we activated the sound remain function before trying of course)

-2 I could not try the analog filter (store guy was not really keen on it) but.. overall sound, it did sound like my FA07 or not far. For a 3000 EUR synth vs. a budget one, is unconceivable. I tried with studio monitors, Yamaha. Very disappointing and was looking for the Wow effect...

3- Organ patches sucks. Rotary FX was same poor stuff that you could find into the FA. Acoustic sounds to be reviewed (guitars, brass sounded like old XV stuff).

I believe that this board is amazing and has a lot of potential, but I am not ready to upgrade to obtain pretty much the same sound coming from it. Sad and disappointed, I went specially to try and buy it... but no way. I should go for a 2nd hand Kronos 2 and save 1000 eur for another board

[FGM]

I think perhaps the fact of going to a store with the utmost interest and then having to put up with '...I could not try the analog filter (store guy was not really keen on it)..." simply shows they are getting closer and closer to disappear like smoke.
It is mid 2021, and I mean by that than now you can certainly buy nearly anything by moving a finger twice, get it delivered and then you try and test it at home, at your own pace, along some good 15, 30, or 45 days.Then the item is either kept or returned at no cost or at a very low fee.

Having one customer less simply because the one interested was not allowed to dig a bit further is both, unacceptable and unbearable.

I was very interested on Montage in 2016. At that time I was thinking on going Tyros 5, then Montage was released. On a trip around Europe in August 2017 I discovered by accident a shop in Germany having it, so I went and was told they had it but at the other store, out on the edge of town. Got there and met a very nice crew that helped me on everything, providing a pair of headphones, even getting a pedal when they saw I need it...Truly helping, motivated, devoted people.
Regardless of the help, I was left alone, they seemingly just knowing Montage needed to be plugged to the mains and more than enough, so in the end I was not getting the thing properly as it was the very first synth I had ever tried, and very sadly left some twenty minutes later thinking it was a "bad keyboard, not adding anything to my 1996 Yamaha CVP-96; its price not including amplifiers, neither loudspeakers, nor even a desk !!!!", isn't it funny...? Yes, I was right: myself being nothing but the simpler of all pedestrians, that Saturn V there would not help me much getting to the beach on Sunday.

[EdGe]

Hi guys, hope you are doing well and safe in this crazy period of our lives...

I am touring (was, thanks to covid) touring with a Nord Stage 3 + Roland FA06. I do have 3 different bands (disco, funk, soul, rock) and to be frank, both boards work well together. However, even though the NS3 sounds great, it is certainly not flexible in many aspects and was envisaging to trade it for a Fantom.

Is anyone gigging with? it is sounding well overall? any complains or recommendations? thanks in advance.
Regards,
Matt

I've started rehearsals with the Fantom 6, no real show, yet.

I was using Mainstage and a controller, and the Macbook was also running backing tracks from Reaper...all into an XR18 via USB. I decided to go to a hardware synth due to some audio glitches (not CPU load related...was using a FW drive for audio tracks into Reaper) and decided that the convenience of not hauling 40lbs of keyboard wasn't worth the possible issues.

That all said, the Fantom sounds fantastic. For what I'm doing, I was using the V3 of Arturia's Jupiter-8 and although the Fantom version (ABM) is inferior to the Roland VST/AU Jupiter-8 (ACB), the ABM model is still superior to Arturia's V3 (I hear V4 is a lot better).

Even though in Mainstage I had all sorts of synth options, to keep CPU loading low, I found the most 'economical' synth for any part, which may not have been as good as VSTs can be.

The Fantom just sounds bigger, fatter, smoother, etc.

Annoyances: the tease of having a vocoder that can't be saved per scene, the audio inputs can't be directed on or off per scene. The midi clock (Fantom as a slave) is dodgy...syncs sometimes, sometimes not.

Some functions like the mixer either need two hands to display, or multiple button pushes...hard to do while playing.

Probably the most annoying thing is saving scenes. This is really minor, but for me during rehearsals, has been trouble.

Here's the deal...if you manually select a scene, and go to save the scene, the default scene is the scene manually selected in which to save.

If you select a scene with a midi program change, the last scene manually selected is the default scene in which to save...which leads to the eventuality of overwriting a scene of another song. I've done this!

The way our set flows, I have Reaper automatically jump to the next song...in rehearsal, I may have made changes which I need to save. So, I scramble to save the scene at the end of the song (this is only during rehearsals - wouldn't need to do this during a show) before the jump, and next midi program change. Probably during our last rehearsal, I found myself in that scramble, and didn't notice the wrong scene was waiting to be written into...and during yesterday's rehearsal I was wondering where that patch went as the program change found the right scene, it was just the overwritten patch.

Luckily, you can restore a scene from a backup. All fixed.

I love the Fantom...as someone mentioned previously, the organs aren't that good...

[Pete-rock]

I start the backing tracks in the same patch in mainstage. Fantom controls which patch is selected in mainstage and starts/stops the backing tracks. Scene saving is not a big deal.

[gearsharknu]

I don't perform live, I just use the Fantom as my main studio workstation and in that regard I have few complaints. Anyway, the other day I went into Guitar Center and played with a store model and realized very quickly that my Fantom at home was leaps and bounds better in terms of sounds and functionality. There are dozens of sounds sets available from the Roland Cloud, and the upgraded functionality from the patches Roland provides makes this a different synth.
I'm looking forward to a few more updates, but I simply haven't touched my other workstations these past few days. I've been successfully recreating classic funk/soul favorites, old Dr. Dre and Snoop songs, and even trap! This thing does it all! I even started creating my own unique patches using the VA model capabilities of the Fantom. So my feeling is genuinely no genre or sound is out of reach. Just my 2 cents

[EdGe]

I start the backing tracks in the same patch in mainstage. Fantom controls which patch is selected in mainstage and starts/stops the backing tracks. Scene saving is not a big deal.

Well, there's an idea: midi PC to Reaper to select an Action.

I mainly use an iPad with Lemur (via OSC) to address specific "Actions" in Reaper, which is a macro that jumps to a marker, and other functions.

I suppose Scene Chains and if Reaper has a translator of some sort to convert program changes into Actions accomplishes the same thing.

Thanks for the idea!

[Pete-rock]

Maybe you can manage your audio files in mainstage and leave reaper out. It has a fantastic playback plugin.

[EdGe]

Maybe you can manage your audio files in mainstage and leave reaper out. It has a fantastic playback plugin.

I don't believe there's a way to start the playback at a particular part of a song in Mainstage...which makes rehearsal a little difficult.

Also, to have multiple outputs, i.e. click, arrangement cues, synth bits, loops, interludes...takes multiple playback devices. The last time I tried this, the sync between them wasn't too good.

Also, visual of the song in progress...I use the timeline view on Reaper as a visual cue to know what's upcoming, at a glance. The playback device only shows a short section - again, the last time I explored this.

But, maybe it's time to take another look?

One thing I realized after my last comment it that in one of my bands, about half the songs do not have live keyboards, or any keys...just guitars...making a scene simply to select a song is a waste of a scene on the Fantom. However, I have not found a method of having Reaper interpret midi PC commands that map to custom actions. It could be done with a translator (Midi->OSC) but that's just another layer of app to manage...not ideal for me.

But, I will look into what Mainstage can offer these days. Thank you for the ideas!

It would be nice if Roland would just implement linear sequencing like on the Fantom G...

[Pete-rock]

I don't believe there's a way to start the playback at a particular part of a song in Mainstage...which makes rehearsal a little difficult.

Also, to have multiple outputs, i.e. click, arrangement cues, synth bits, loops, interludes...takes multiple playback devices. The last time I tried this, the sync between them wasn't too good.

Also, visual of the song in progress...I use the timeline view on Reaper as a visual cue to know what's upcoming, at a glance. The playback device only shows a short section - again, the last time I explored this.

o Jump to markers is possible
o Multiple outputs for click or other intruments is possible (Fantom as audio interface)
o Visual progress is possible, even with timeline
o Time/measure to next marker is possible

maybe you give it a try...

[EdGe]

o Jump to markers is possible
o Multiple outputs for click or other intruments is possible (Fantom as audio interface)
o Visual progress is possible, even with timeline
o Time/measure to next marker is possible

maybe you give it a try...

I did! This is a topic for another forum now...but I'm better able to recognize how to mix the Fantom and Mainstage into my workflow.

The catch is...I need to process all my files through Logic in order to get timing data. The files I use, and lay into Reaper, are from Cubase. Mainstage does not recognize any timing data in those files so to simply load up hundreds of Playback devices means no tempo changes...oh...then there are tempo changes in some of the songs my bands play...need to see how Playback reacts to that...or I must rebuild the source sequences in Logic..this will be a lot of rework...

Thanks for the idea, again. This may work, but there are many considerations I couldn't possibly relay though this forum that complicate the idea.