Does anyone have the "Ultimate Keys" SRX card in their board yet? I'm looking for some better B-3/C-3 patches as well as some more old analog synth sounds, and was wondering whether that board is worth the $300 to get some more good presets to either use as is or with some tweaking. Unfortunately, none of the stores I've been to has one installed to demo.
Alternatively, if anyone's cranked out what they think are good "Hammond" or "fat Moog" patches on the S/S88 at this point and would be willing to share some tips on what they did, I'd appreciate that as well (just looking for ways to shorten the experimentation time).
Thanks, Fantom dudes (okay...sorry...just saw Finding Nemo yesterday, and still cracking up about Crush).
Hey RedWinger, I spent about an hour typing a description of 4 of the SRX boards, including the Ultimate Keys, but I couldn't see the post after I sent it. Frustrating! if you like you can e-mail me at digigreene@aol.com and I'll get back to you. c.greene
cgreene, I would appreciate it if you would try your post again. I too would like to hear what you thoughts were. You might want to try typing it on Word and this way you still have a copy of it if your post does not work. Thanks!
I dropped cgreene a line yesterday per his request but haven't heard back from him yet. Because he's having some difficulty posting, I'll be happy to post any info he passes on in a follow-up to this thread, as it seems I'm not the only one interested in this expansion board.
Artemio, from another post, it sounded like you've had experience with SRX-07. Is that true? What do you think about its soundset, particularly with respect to Hammond, Jupiter-8, Moog, etc. sounds?
Well, I don't own an SRX-07 board, but I heard many and many patches from it's includes - Vintage Synth (SR-JV80-04) and 60s and 70s (SR-JV80-08) boards.
B3s in SR-JV80-08 are just killer! Over 100 B3 waves included for your own B3 additive synthesis. It also has really perky rhodes and wurli sounds, as well as great tron choirs and strings.
SR-JV80-04 has loads of essential waves from JP-8, ARP 2600, MiniMoog, Juno, SH and other synths. It includes many cool synth string and bass sounds, plus a couple of screaming hammonds too.
Ultimate keys also has sounds from SR-JV80-10 Bass&Drums - very true and realistic drums and basses, but these, anyway, can't be compared to SRX Drums, of course.
All in all, the SRX-07 board is a pretty good kick out of your existing Fantom-S ROM.
Thanks! That's really helpful. Your experience confirms a lot of what I'd read in the promos, but I didn't realize the number of different B3 waves that it would include. That's a *big* plus to me (not to mention the classic Arp, Moog, Roland synth sounds).
Haven't completely made up my mind yet, but I think I'm likely to pick up the SRX-07 and SRX-02 to start. Then, I'll ultimately have to decide whether I'd prefer max sample memory or good sample memory with more expansion boards (tough, because the SRX Drums and SRX World boards look very interesting).
Hello Everyone. I got mu Fantom S the day before Easter and the first thing I did was put in 4 SRX expansion boards fthat were in my XV 5080: Concert Piano, Dynamic Drums. Supreme Dance, and Ultimate Keys.
I think the Ultimate Keys board is the one "must have" card for the Fantom S. It contains 475 patches made up of sounds from the SR jv-80 series Session, Keyboards of the 60"s & 70"s, Vintage Synth, and Bass & Drums cards. The "StereoPiano" patch is one of the best all-around pianos in the Roland library, and I've been using that sound in my XP 80 for a couple of years. you also get some excellent Rhodes, and Clavinet patches. There are a lot of very good "Hammond" type organs with leslie simulation using the modulation lever. Plenty of synth leads, pads, basses and effects are included. I think the electric basses are outstanding, and there are good guitars,strings,pads, horns and a lot of other "bread and butter" patches which make up for what the presets are lacking. Also there are 11 decent drum kits.
The "Dynamic Drums" board is for anyone who wants great natural sounding drums. The kits have velocity switching and have a wonderful "live" sound.
The "Supreme Dance" card gives you a ton of stuff for Dance and Hip-Hop production, and it really has a lot of "phat' Drum sounds (finally!).
I Think the "Concert Piano" card has the best piano by Roland, and I put it back into the XV 5080 because the module has more polyphony. For my everyday purposes, the piano from the Ultimate Keys board will suffice in the Fantom S. Even with all the Expansion boards installed, I find myself using many of the preset sounds. What would make me happy is if Roland made an inexpensive SRX card with all the presets from the XV series. And there is still the polyphony issue.... Well, that's all for now - I hope I've given you guys some useful information. Peace.
My thanks, too. Your comments are very helpful. Also, for anyone interested, I just found an SRX board demo on the Roland website (can't figure out why I missed it before) that helps by letting you sample quite a few of the patches from each of the boards (just drag the board to the S88 and you'll get a menu of playble demos).
Roland just makes us alacart THE GOOD STUFF LOL!
I have the SRX-2 in the S-88 and plan to add three others.
The preset sounds on the Roland are enough reason to EXPAND ASAP.
After enjoying WOW sounds all day with the Motif and Triton I remembered the S in Fantom is for KICK ASS SAMPLER not KICK ASS PRESETS!!!!!!!!!!!
I recommend the SRX-2 only if you have the hammer action 88.
Otherwise tweak the Concert Grand and life is good.
Did I say I LOVE THE SAMPLER?
Okay, just following up on my thread. I bought the SRX-07 board yesterday (along with maxing out my sample RAM). It definitely ROCKS! The B-3 sounds are great (lots of variety, good settings...even a great Leslie "whoosh" on a couple. It gives lots of good waves and ideas for creating more, too.
The vintage Synth sounds are also great and brought back tons of memories. One of the synths (I forget now which...was it a Moog sound?) even brought back the old intro to "Fooling Yourself"...so there I was, acting like Dennis DeYoung again.
Everyone, thanks for the good advice. Let me add my two cents to anyone else thinking about this board: if you're into jazz and rock and want beefy vintage sounds, you gotta get this board. You could probably capture many of these by tweaking existing patches, but the 800 new waves alone, much less the 475 presets, makes it worth the money.
Honestly, bb, I haven't had a chance to check out the drums yet (I was too busy last night playing with the rest of the patches). After work, I'll check them out tonight and get back to you. I've heard they're good (particularly the loops). I'll let you know.
I should also probably say that the Bass sounds are great, but the guitar sounds are generally weak. There are a couple good presets there, but this is definitely a "keys"-oriented board (just like the name says).
As to Styx, is it really Styx without DeYoung? Betcha it was a cool show, though. Styx was always big on the schmaltzy ballads, but they could definitely rock when they wanted to (e.g., Wanted Man) and I loved the way they wove keys into the hard guitars back then. Cool licks. It's great to see the classic bands touring again, though, no matter what their lineup.
