Fantom G sound thread

[madAhorn]

Man I hope the ARX 2 is good.

I do not want to buy the Nord Stage because it is not going to be available in a rack, and I do not want another keyboard.

In case some of you have not noticed, the Nord Stage has much better Rhodes and Wurly than the Nord Electro 2. They have changed everything.

The samples of each can be heard at thier web site.

I do not want to pay $3000.00 plus just for the Rhodes and Wurly. I would much rather get the Fantom G and find that I have a great Rhodes in the ARX 2 along with all of the thousand other sounds I need.

Please, Please be as good as the Nord Stage!!!!!

I dont have a great need for the organs, or I would have mentioned them. The B-4real available here for the Fantom X is great for me. I hope the Fantom G will have a similar organ capability.

[Hugo]

Sorry if this is suggested before, but the Sonic Cell might be an option for anyone depending on using SRX cards (it can hold two). Plus it can also possibly be placed on top of the Fantom G

[Artemiy]

Yes, SonicCell looks like a great option, I agree.

[madAhorn]

Now we are thinking....

But, the Fantom X Rack holds even more SRX's...

[Jimknopf]

Yes, and now we are counting

- Fantom G: 2500€
- Sonic Cell: 580€
- SRX-12 (for someone not having it already): 275€
That's 3355€ or ~4960$ (I don't know the original $ price, just converted from Euro)
You practically pay double for many/most Sonic cell sounds which you already have identical or similar.

Still. the idea is definitely a workaround if you are ready to invest that much money. Most probably won't.

With the FR plus six SRX card added to the G (again paying double for some stuff while adding other) you would nearly be able to buy an Oasys for that price...

[Hugo]

Yeah, Jim, that's definately the case. But my point is merely to show that if you do own a Fantom with one or more SRX's you really need, then the Sonic Cell would be a possible solution. I'm thinking you could also possibly get hold of a unit secondhand.

For a new user, SRX cards will probably not be that interesting, for most anyway (I've never owned a Fantom, but am looking to get the G), and those that will want to keep using them probably already have the card(s). So your investment needn't be that big.
Just a suggestion

[Jimknopf]

You are right about the srx cards. And your hint is great, especially since Sonic cell is small enough to tolerate it as additional gear.

But to be fair you have to consider that keeping an srx card instead of selling it like just the old Fantom still means losing about half of the money you spent for it.

It is fine that this solution exists, but who would really pay that much, so far from getting the value of what he/she spent?

But that brings me to another idea:
Something like sonic cell without its internal sounds would cost less and still be able to hold two SRX-cards. I'm just not sure Roland will even consider this: a pure little SRX midi module... They discontinue the SRX line to get to a new collection of sounds they want to keep and will not look back.

[Jimknopf]

I just remember a report I read about the new Clavia Nord Wave.

There was an interesting aspect in that report:
the Nord wave uses 185Mb of Flash ROM!
This means:
it will be possible for any user to map and write own samples into FlashROM! The idea was implemented into a classical synth architecture, using waves including own attack characteristics parallel to traditional oscillators, and implemented with a lossfree compression algorithm.

Do you see any reason not to do the same with a ROMpler?

As I look at it, this might solve most problems of different tastes on user side. Users could resample their favourite sounds plus interesting new ones and write the results into FlashROM.
From there the sounds could work as waveforms for user patches, like from SRX boards.
The 185Mb in the Clavia provide as much space as about 3 SRX boards! Imagine the possibilities...

I'm no technician, and maybe there are technical cons. And I don't how much that would push the price up for a device like the Fantom G. But I really would like to knwo if that could work well.

What do you think?

[The Audacity Works]

Burnable flash ROM isn't new. The later E-MU samplers could burn custom ROM chips, and then even load those chips into their single space rack modules. The Alesis DM-Pro could stream samples from a removable PC ROM card in realtime. IIRC, Nine Inch Nails was, at one time, playing all drum samples and keyboard sounds from a total of four rackspaces.

[Jimknopf]

So you think like me: why not put it into a Fantom?
Do you know anything approximate about the actual cost factor?

I know that it's not new, the Access Virus sounds are in FashROM as well, and I'm just now waiting for the new OS version to rewrite the ROM sound banks in my TI.

Modern samples require more space, but that probably should not be a problem.

[The Audacity Works]

So you think like me: why not put it into a Fantom?
Do you know anything approximate about the actual cost factor?

Parts cost is probably not excessive, but the implementation would have to make sense. I don't see a major advantage to burning samples to Flash ROM other than not having to wait for the RAM to load. As the Fantoms are true samplers, there doesn't seem to be a need for it. It might sound fancy, but unless there's a major advantage to burned flash ROM, it's largely superfluous. IIRC, burning samples into flash ROM on the old E-MU and Alesis stuff took FOREVER. Sure, they were available almost instantly after booting, but HOURS to save any changes?

I know that it's not new, the Access Virus sounds are in FashROM as well, and I'm just now waiting for the new OS version to rewrite the ROM sound banks in my TI.

Wait, are we talking about patches or samples? Almost all keyboards use flash ROM for their patches. Very few use them for custom user samples. Almost none are true samplers. The Alesis DM-Pro certainly wasn't and the Nord Wave isn't either.

[Jimknopf]

The time factor is exactly why Flash ROM would save my day.

Yes, burning lasts an eternity.
So it's no replacement for the casual kind of sample stuff which is used here and there. The USB stick (hopefully *much* faster than the 'slow motion' flashcard sample load now) will be fine for that.

But Flash ROM would allow to burn exactly the sounds someone uses intensively (including the kind of big sample library sometimes needed), and therfore would like to have available immediately.

I could burn resampled SRX sounds (would be even better if they sold them on CDs) or Scarbee sounds (with Scarbee permission) or anything from a wealth of samples from the last decade, available in Akai or wav format, and make it a part of a workstation with cool interface and nice effect routing like the Fantom G. That really would be a killer feature in a modern workstation! Image your favourite Ueberschall or EastWest or BigFish or Garritan library being *immediately* available as patch on your workstation. Free choice for fast access!

The longer I think about it, the more I like the idea.
I know Yase will be developed further as well; so all the needed tools for getting (multi-)samples into shape for the Fantom would be available.

Concerning the Access Virus TI: yes, it saves only patch information and no samples:
- 512 patches into RAM
- more than twenty banks (if I rememeber well 26) with 128 patches each will be available for ROM rewrite in OS 2.7. Up to now ROM patches are read-only.

[The Audacity Works]

Imagine your favourite Ueberschall or EastWest or BigFish or Garritan library being *immediately* available as patch on your workstation. Free choice for fast access!

Yeah, that would be very cool. Of course, knowing the Fantom-G's target audience, it might be too complicated. Your average hip hop dude can't grasp basic signal flow, much less MIDI, much less the difference between sound ROM, sample RAM, and sample ROM.

[Jimknopf]

Agreed, but even if only ~20% of the users would make active use of it, the hype factor would be considerable.

And who says once it works there couldn't be sounds and tools ready for simpler implementation (I mean allowing the standard user not to have to do the mapping, but just use a tool to implement certain pre-defined sounds).
This is just fantasy now, but once many power users would praise the incredible new feature everywhere (you know the 'gear talk' in magazine interviews), news would spread fast and things would probably develop in this direction...

I can't do anything about implementing the feature anyway, but perhaps one or two at Roland have a closer look at it...

I guess if they don't, others will, sooner or later.

[Hugo]

Jimknopf wrote:
"But that brings me to another idea:
Something like sonic cell without its internal sounds would cost less and still be able to hold two SRX-cards. I'm just not sure Roland will even consider this: a pure little SRX midi module... They discontinue the SRX line to get to a new collection of sounds they want to keep and will not look back."

Yeah, that would be a cool solution. There was a company some years back that actually made such a box for Yamaha's plg-line of plug-in cards (can't remember their name). If Roland are cool, and a second party equally cool, maybe it could happen