New Fantom For NAMM?

[The Audacity Works]

Access is a much smaller company than Roland with a product line that's tiny in comparison. When all resources (even the smaller resources of a German synth manufacturer) are focused on one or two products—Yeah, you better make sure your end users are happy.

Not that Roland doesn't try to make their users happy.

For example, let's say I'm absolutely adamant about getting user-programmable quantize templates added to a mythical Fantom X 3.0 update. I start a thread or two on multiple internet forums and garner support from a good ten or twelve people who all say "Yeah! That'd be cool as hell!"

Six months later, 3.0 is released and nope, no user quantize templates. Why not? Does Roland not care about their users? Are they a bunch of idiots? Are they completely out of touch with what people really want? Are they sitting around doing nothing?

Who knows, but here are a few real world explanations:

1. None of the ten or twelve people in the thread actually contacted anyone at Roland and suggested the feature.
2. The Fantom's engine is simply incapable of adding this feature, for any number of reasons.
3. The feature (or any possible implementation of said feature the Fantom can use) is patented by another company, and therefore, is either off limits or will cost an exorbitant amount of money to license.
4. A marketing team actually did research, discussed new features with sales reps, studio engineers, film composers, and well-respected retail associates, and the user quantize templates was number 21 in a list of features, and only 20 could be added.
5. Utilizing the feature might break or otherwise hinder another group of features.
6. The CPU can't quite handle it for whatever reason. Or the file management is organized in such a way that another user bank (custom templates) will mess things up.
7. Storage allotted for the OS isn't big enough to fit the extra code, because 2.0 added so much stuff, it's already full.
8. The feature somehow undermines an earlier version of the SysEx editor, which can't be updated, because of some preexisting issue with Windows XP or OSX.
9. Whomever communicated the feature request to Roland did so in a rude manner or with a sense of entitlement. Or simply miscommunicated.
10. The feature is already being worked on for a new product, all existing code is optimized for a new engine, and scaling it down to work on older hardware is difficult at best.
11. Six months ago, 3.0 was already finished, and it took a while to beta test. Or at least, the feature list had already been finalized.
12. Roland was sued earlier by someone wanting financial compensation for suggesting features and has a corporate policy of ignoring unsolicited feature requests (I know of two companies with such a policy).
13. Countless other stuff about which you nor I have any clue.

Okay, fine, whatever. But yelling "EVERYONE wants user quantize templates! It's been demanded by the masses!" would be utter nonsense. Ten or twelve people patting each other on the back in a forum does not the masses make.

[Artemiy]

Bravo, The Audacity Works, bravo again. True, all very true.

[Jimknopf]

So we agree to disagree.

From my view what they did (besides what they did not) for the FantomX over the last two years has *not* been a convincing further development of a very nice product, even running all possible excuses up and down.

I for my part stop posting in this thread here. Thanks for exhanging views...

[The Audacity Works]

Cheers, Jim.

Here's hoping Roland does indeed release something impressive this coming NAMM.

[Diametro]

When I talked to somebody from Roland ... basically his explanation was that the audio tracks expansion used all the remaining headroom in the CPU/OS ...

[Oleq]

Cool, I mean, cruel: so little space in the O. S.

[Oleq]

I'm afraid to imagine, how little space there is in Juno-G's OS.

[The Audacity Works]

I seem to remember that toward the end of the VS-880's tenure, there were two versions of every OS update: One with CD backup capability, and one with DAT backup capability. The OS code itself was so big, both features couldn't fit in the machine at the same time.

Obviously, the answer is to just pop in a huge CPU and OS ROM with plenty of headroom, right? Well, sure, but manufacturers sweat one extra button or the difference between a 30¢ op amp and a 35¢ one.

Don't remember where I read this, but if an extra button costs a manufacturer $1, they'll automatically tack $10 onto the end user's cost. Therefore, if Product X has to hit a particular price point, everyone starts looking at things to cut out. If the Fantom X had a processor that was, say, 40% tapped when it was first released, someone's gonna say "Hey, can the end user save $100 if we use a processor that makes the Fantom max out at 70% of capacity? The engineers say "Yeah", they put in the less expensive processor, everyone saves $100, version 2.0 is released and cranks everything to 98% of capacity. Voila! No room for fancy 3.0 or my user defined quantize templates.

Of course, now everyone wishes they had spent the extra $100 to get fancy 3.0. But would they have bought the Fantom X over the Triton Studio to begin with? You might be surprised. A $100 difference is huge.

Likewise, if the Fantom X shipped with 512MB of RAM and a 1GB card, it'd probably cost an extra $150. What about those who don't care about audio tracks or sampling? Should they have to pay extra too?

Note that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I do know, however, that everything isn't black and white.

[mission]

good thread.

Im glad [whoever that was] didnt sense the sarcasm in audacity's original post... it turned into a good read. ;]

-- posted from my iphone, which, btw, still doesnt allow me to send or receive picture text messages. --

(im sure theres a logical reason for that as apple definitely knows the amount of public displeasure caused by the void)

[2TIM316]

This is one of the typical indicators that a replacement hardware workstation is in the works, this time from Roland. We've seen this from Roland themselves, from Yamaha, and from Korg towards the end of a year, prior to a new announcement at Winter NAMM. Some kind of special pricing or package deal.

All the "cosmic tumblers" are in place. The Fantom-X is arguably well due for an update (2004 it first came out I recall? - that's 4 years for this product).

If this news is true, and international in scope (i.e. U.S. customers as well), then I have to believe that the SRX format will be abandoned for the new product. That's why the offer for 4 (count 'em, four!) boards.

Roland must answer the Motif XS and Korg M3. It's their turn. Most likely the only thing we'll see from Yamaha and Korg is possibly a Motif XS rack (that would be a great thing), and some kind of update for the M3. Maybe an M3 "lite" or something. Now it's Roland's turn to shine.

So what will they offer? Anyone's guess. No company is better at keeping the wraps on new products than Roland. No teasers, leaks, countdown meters for them. Nope, we will have to wait until almost exactly 10:00 AM PST on Thursday January 17, 2008 to see what's on offer.

In the meantime, owning a Fantom XR, I'm tempted to look around for a killer deal on a Fantom-X 61, then take advantage of the 4 free SRX boards. I would take SRX-01 (still one of the best sampled acoustic pianos around, imo), SRX-12 for sure, SRX-04 for the strings, and maybe something else for fun. Really, considering you pay around $250 or more per board, you're getting a $1,000 or more discount if you want 4 boards. Combined with a blowout price on a Fantom-X (Sweetwater is using the term "blowout" to describe their Fantom-XR pricing, but the price they show doesn't look like any "blowout" to me), I think even with a new workstation announced (and who knows how long it will take to actually show up in stores - Roland has been taking longer and longer to get products in to the distribution channel after announcing at NAMM), this offer could be a killer deal being presented.

U.S. customers, let's keep our eyes and ears open to see if we're offered the same deal!

Update: Just checked www.rolandus.com and the offer for U.S. customers appears to be currently $200 cash back on purchase of Fantom X-6 or X-7, a far cry from 4 free SRX boards. Maybe we'll wind up getting both as the month progresses!

Update update: did a Google search. The offer appears to be 2 of the "demo" SRX boards and then 2 of the "regular" SRX boards of your choice. So not as sweet a deal as originally indicated. Here's some info from Digital Village - a UK firm:

"Fantom XR, Fantom X6, Fantom X7 and Fantom X8 Keyboard News: Roland UK are offering Digital Village customers who purchase a Roland Fantom XR, Roland Fantom X6, Roland Fantom X7 or Roland Fantom X8 before January 31st 2008 from DV (online, in-store or via telephone mail-order), two limited edition SRX expansion boards (SRX-97: Jon Lord's Rock Organ and SRX-98: Analogue Essentials) plus a choice of 2 regular SRX expansion boards (twelve to choose from) free of charge."

Okay, pulse rate starting to stabilize. Will probably wait for NAMM. But hopefully the prices will drop on the SRX boards in advance of a new product. I'd love to pick up an SRX-12 for a couple of hundred or less.

[Quinnx.]

Lets look at what they already offer and then speculate..

V synth
Fantom
Now put it all together what do you get....
Thats about all you could get, but if you already can have both why would they kill their market..

Now if they stoped producing v and x then your looking at a move.
but what would you get that could not be got from a OS upgrade.
Not much, which is why im getting another X, I dont believe it will happen or will be so significant as to make either the V or the X obsolete.

As far as the excuse that there is no more cpu or headroom, i take that as B***X from roland becuase the X is not doing anything more with audio track than it was without them.
and even if their saying the ROM has no more room for additions..
Ahem... Excuse me roland. have you ever heared of RAM..
i think some of us have 512 to 1GB..
Excuses excuses...

[rezfactor]

"User quantize templates?" I've never even used the Fantom's sequencer! All I want is for "songs" to "remember" which audio files "belong" to them in the audio tracks recorder. Do that, Roland, and I would be in heaven. If we could all only have ONE, and ONLY one, "upgrade" to the existing Fantom-X OS platform, wouldn't this be it?

[P.S. I have 1GB SDRAM in my Fantom-X8.]

[stevie]

If any one want to add to this thread;

http://forums.rolandclan.info/index.php ... d=5&page=1

then greatness awaits you ;¬)

Steve

[Quinnx.]

I will add it here...

I now have a Fantom x6 with
256 poly
32 pads
8 outs
4 in
2 dbeams
16 track audio
2 CF slots
2 midi in
2 midi out
2 mdi thru
2 usb
6 MFX
2 Reverbs
2 Chorus

[The Audacity Works]

"All I want is for "songs" to "remember" which audio files "belong" to them in the audio tracks recorder."

Huh? Press SAVE/LOAD, select "Save Songs + Samples", and press ENTER twice.

You can't request a feature if it's already in there.