ROLAND FANTOM ZERO
Roland finally replace the FA series with the Fantom-0 (ZERO).
I was not a fan of the FA series at all, but I gotta say this new Fantom-0 series is very nice indeed, and it looks as if they got it right from start to finish. Seems to have everything you would want, and no bullshit to get in the way.
Not saying I'm buying one, I've only just seen Roland's official video on it, but this is looking very promising so might end-up buying the 61 key version which can be had for less than the price of an MPC X (no shit). Having something like this would keep the gear list to minimum for me, and for others it would allow them to sell-off a bunch of no longer needed hardware, it's that powerful. Has a fully-blown sampler, synthesizer, a proper piano-roll sequencer, a step sequencer and even a live performance Ableton-style sequencer. It's fully stand-alone deep-editable, has full-sized keys on all models, and 16 pads to hammer as well. I suspect Roland have released this in preperation to compete with AKAI's up-coming keyboard version of the MPC.
Official Roland Fantom Zero Promo Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yKa2FUaIkk
I just noticed a whole bunch of User, Parameter, and Reference Manuals are already available for download as well, so you can bet I'll be running my hawk-eyes over those tonight!
Roland Finally Replace the FA Series:
Moderator: TGN
Re: Roland Finally Replace the FA Series:
Was just about to skin myself senseless and order one of these. Was really looking forward to it but was dragged back down to earth just now. Can you believe there's no way to resample the pads on this thing (or as far as I can tell)?
And that's not all. I just came across two videos about polyphony management on it. They advertise it as having 256 voices of polyphony which of course sounds just the ticket for a workstation, right?
Well not here it's not, because apparently it's so badly managed that using a single tone with four partials and unison set to 8 will reduce the amount of notes you have to play with to just 4 notes!
Bloody hopeless as a workstation then, especially as the pad sampling implementation is so lame. I've been eyeing this thing up ever since release because in general it's the best designed and thought-out workstation I've seen so far in terms of usability, design and interface. The MODX for example is absolute NIGHTMARE fuel compared to this thing!
The Korg Nautilus is seriously cool and capable, but that laggy resistive touch-screen it has would drive me mad, so it's out of the question.
Ah well, there goes another idea. I had thought about making it pay for itself by making some expansion packs for it, hopefully to generate a bit of cash to buy the 3D printer I need, but I'm not skinning myself to buy a workstation that can't realistically be used as one.
Absolutely ridiculous. I'm musically frustrated and all I want is to be able to compose, play, record and master without involving a damn computer!
And that's not all. I just came across two videos about polyphony management on it. They advertise it as having 256 voices of polyphony which of course sounds just the ticket for a workstation, right?
Well not here it's not, because apparently it's so badly managed that using a single tone with four partials and unison set to 8 will reduce the amount of notes you have to play with to just 4 notes!
Bloody hopeless as a workstation then, especially as the pad sampling implementation is so lame. I've been eyeing this thing up ever since release because in general it's the best designed and thought-out workstation I've seen so far in terms of usability, design and interface. The MODX for example is absolute NIGHTMARE fuel compared to this thing!
The Korg Nautilus is seriously cool and capable, but that laggy resistive touch-screen it has would drive me mad, so it's out of the question.
Ah well, there goes another idea. I had thought about making it pay for itself by making some expansion packs for it, hopefully to generate a bit of cash to buy the 3D printer I need, but I'm not skinning myself to buy a workstation that can't realistically be used as one.
Absolutely ridiculous. I'm musically frustrated and all I want is to be able to compose, play, record and master without involving a damn computer!