Fantom G No Sound Thread

[2TIM316]

I agree - let them take all the time they need to get it right. But in the meantime, how about some communication from Roland? And what better place than here? Yamaha and Korg reps keep in touch with their customers especially about the status of new products. Roland takes an almost arrogant attitude by not doing the same. Almost as if they're doing us a favor.

Certainly they could release an initial basket of demo sounds and a couple of new videos - even homemade quality.

What's going to happen (see lelo's post on another thread) is that people will get fed up or simply forget about the "G" altogether. They'll walk in to a music store and purchase what's out now. And even if that's an older Roland product, it still takes sales away from the "G". Not a smart move in this age of instant information. Roland still seems to be somewhat in the early 1990s or something.

[GregC]

Roland is HQ'd in Japan.

I bet they are very careful and won't let the demo's out or say anything more about them until HQ does the stamp of approval

[bobbybland]

If they plan on releasing the board in April they will probably start advertising hard in March,thats just a given as I've worked in sales.They will have to have the demo sounds done by then if they expect people to want to buy the board. I've never saw a board released without a warm up buzz?Whoever said the thing about Yamaha is correct they do interact,but when releasing their XS or even updates it's always a calm before the storm as well.It's almost that time... Get your money ready! lol I might have to wait though and let some of the hype die off.My bank account will thank me later.

I'm more interested in a rack with 4 arx cards.. woo hoo '' let me know when that's coming next year perhaps?

[Radek]

What's going to happen (see lelo's post on another thread) is that people will get fed up or simply forget about the "G" altogether. They'll walk in to a music store and purchase what's out now. And even if that's an older Roland product, it still takes sales away from the "G". Not a smart move in this age of instant information. Roland still seems to be somewhat in the early 1990s or something.

I'd guess workstation buyers are somewhat educated consumers...

I'm more interested in a rack with 4 arx cards.. woo hoo '' let me know when that's coming next year perhaps?

We have to see an actual ARX board yet. Considering ARX have their own DSP chips they may be bigger than only ROM SRX ones. Hence only 2 ARX slots in Fantom-G.

[bobbybland]

True indeed..

[SRUT, BUT...]

We have to see an actual ARX board yet. Considering ARX have their own DSP chips they may be bigger than only ROM SRX ones. Hence only 2 ARX slots in Fantom-G.

That's so very true!

I am still VERY puzzled by some forum members who were complaining about the great loss of the opportunity to put 4 or 6 SRX in the Fantom. I wonder HOW MANY SRX have been put into the X on statistic average... 3? 2? Even less? Any sales info on this? Someone?

C'mon folks, it's nice to HAVE to opportunity, but it is rarely used to the max, if at all. It's just like expansion slots of a computer: the most of them are still empty, aren't they?

[Septimo]

I just got my fourth SRX today....06...Not everyone is the same.....speaking for the masses huh? Thats why people go to the next big thing so fast....cus they don't max out their possibilities and opportunities on their current boards....My X6 just got newer today! :^) What you put into it is what you get out....spend the xtra cash if you can.

2 arx +
2 srx.........would have been better, at least you'd have a choice of what srx fits your needs....but,,,, what's done is done..

Now,,,,I'm off to go listen to new patches! bye!

[bobbybland]

I wonder if they will get more 3rd party sound developers this time around.I love the way my Motif XS and all other Motifs for that matter can find great sounds at keyfax. Artemio has probably got something special coming for the G,it would be cool if even more developers would do this as well. One can never have enough waveforms..

BTW.. How many user sounds will the G have?

[2TIM316]

I'm just comparing to Yamaha and Korg. When they announce or show a new workstation at NAMM, they immediately follow up with some type of communication stream with their customers. Roland does just the opposite. That's all we hear from them for months. Seems pretty negligent in this age of instant and pervasive communication.

[Jimknopf]

Roland Japan has shown this inability of adequate communicative behaviour over many years now, and they still don't learn from the negative multi-feedback of many users. I know many musicians who *do* like some Roland gear, but at the same time the same people are extremely bewildered about Roland's lack of handling professional modern communicative structures.

At least lately Roland has raised the - in former times often catastrophic - level of their written manuals. The Fantom X tutorials which they managed to publish at the end of it's product cycle (better late than never) were really fine. Perhaps we should not altogether bury the hope that even behind the distant seven mountains where the Roland Japan top managers seem to sit, maybe a mounted poney express messenger will come by casually every some months, with some messages and expectations from the outer world.

So far if any of us wants breaking G news he/she can still visit the Roland lullaby page at http://www.roland.com/synth/Fantom/download.html. It is a never ending source of pleasure for anyone seeking fresh information flow - coming sooooon since five weeks now. Just by the way, they call it "Fantom Expierience"! I hope they don't really want us to take that literally

Anyway, I don't mind. As long as the Fantom G is fine not only in specs (where it is my no. 1 workstation), but also in sounds (where it might well suffer from some questionable design decisons concerning wave amount, selection and quality), I will consider buying it very much, despite the amateurish Roland communicative behaviour.

People want to talk to get things clear and are completely right to demand (not just beg for) information from a professional manufacturer, to be able to plan. But in the end all *I* want to do is *play*.

[The Audacity Works]

BTW.. How many user sounds will the G have?

Basically, close to unlimited. Specifically, 256 per project, and projects are only limited to as many as you can fit on external USB keys (and possibly, USB hard drives).

[GregC]

"Roland Japan has shown this inability of adequate communicative behaviour over many years now, and they still don't learn from the negative multi-feedback of many users. I know many musicians who *do* like some Roland gear, but at the same time the same people are extremely bewildered about Roland's lack of handling professional modern communicative structures. "

It is a funny thing. I think there are a few things going on. Japanese culture and business is very careful, quiet, conservative. They don't turn
on a dime just because us Americans, Euros are clamoring for something

then you have Roland marketing. Like marketing on steroids. Has that
hyperactive LA vibe going on.

Clearly, roland has many gr8 products. I think they own the PR on workstations with the" G" this year. There is nothing more hyped
than the G. Expect Roland to ride that horse for as long as they can.

[Jimknopf]

I also thought for a while that it might be a kind of Japanese 'communication culture' / 'business culture' thing. Meanhwile I doubt that very much. It would have to apply to Korg and Yamaha and many others as well. But Japanese companies show a wide range of communicative behaviour, just like any others worldwide.

So meanwhile I think that it's rather the more or less conservative view in the top management of each brand itself, carrying on certain behaviours of certain persons and groups in that company (also coloured by the background culture). They rather behave like little states or tribes did centuries ago than acting as nationwide modern states or culture or something of that sort.

There are many Japanese (and international) companies which communicate with customers in a much more accessible and open way than Roland Japan does. Of course none of them will do smalltalk about company secrets or debate each of their problems. But some have understood that in certain areas of economy the producer-customer relationship means *much* more in fast internet times than just the exchange of products/money or just the the little hype surrounding a short new product presentation.

Just to name an example (and not intending any off-topic discussion about that, just showing what I mean): Microsoft tried a certain way of non-communication about their software interfaces. And it took their top managment - living like in an autonomous parallel universe - literally years and very high penalty fees to understand that this way would be and stay totally unacceptable to the whole of the European Union. Today they made their forth or fifth shy effort to announce a change to more openness (which many here in Europe estimate to be a very small beginning of the necessary really fundamental change). Did they do it for reasons of insight? No, they did it because with their kind of communictaion they *forced* everyboday to look for alternatives and themselves into isolation, and now get cold feet looking at these alternatives (online software, Web 2 etc.)

What I try to say is: in todays world you don't just buy and sell. You act in a more and more important communcative network with very fast feedback (internet), and if you deny your challenge resulting from this fact it will not hurt others, but only yourself. This counts for companies all the more.
My advice to Roland is: better wake up fast and make up your own forum web pages visited by Roland reps who are able to communicate. This is something other than these user pages, but certanly required just as much. And it will be worth each cent invested into it.

[Diametro]

I'd rather Roland spend their resources building/designing a better product than to put a couple of extra PR shills on their payroll to do what? Say what? Obviously, there is no news at the moment ...

[Artemiy]

Diametro:

Here is the thing. Even if Microsoft spends all it's millions and billions on the development, their operating system won't get any better. The thing is there is a certain limit of the amount of engineers and developers you can have, after that they loose the direct connection between each other and you loose the perfect workflow.

At Roland, as I heard once, just like at Apple for example, there is a certain limited amount of human resources. But the people there are really hardcore professionals.

We need to honor Roland for what they give us.

And for those who think they know what Roland should be doing - go start your own company, spend 50 years in building a legacy of innovations, and then I will see how you'll enjoy listening to the great amount of online rubbish about yourself.