Fantom X and Prog Rock

[LesliesTube]

TL;DR version- Will a Fantom X7 expanded be a good "partner" with a Kurzweil PC3K7 in Prog Rock situations?
An epicly long version of the point I made up here -
After a few months of finding myself in the Music biz, I got into a local Prog Band that escalates pretty good in terms of music and air-time in the radio. In those months I realised I need to part from my Jupiter 50, It never made me thrill, sadly. In those months I came to a conclusion that my Rig will be a Kurzweil PC3K7 which I plan to buy soon. A Nord Stage EX which I currently own (Thought about buying a Stage 2\2EX, got rid of that thought), and finally, another workstation.
I was torn between Yamaha and Roland. Korg appealed me a little. The Oasys\Kronos were the only Korg Keyboards I ever liked, though they are monsters I don't want\can't tame and handle and of course carry right now.
After hearing people owning some workstations (Fantoms and Motifs) I came to a conclusion that a Fantom X7 with some specific SRX boards will be a perfect keyboard for gigging with the PC3K7. The Nord will be in some gigs too, but I want a Fantom and a Kurzie to be my mainstay.
Now, as tracing a Fantom, especially an X7 in Israel is a damn-hard quest, I would like to hear more opinions and experiences working with a Fantom X7 in Prog-Rock situations just to be 200% sure so I could simply jump on the guy owning it with money in my hands. Our band is influeced by Camel and Pink Floyd mainly. Just to get the association.

Thanks, and long live the Fantom.

[Andy Keys]

Hi LesliesTube,
You let yourself down there, you should have said "An epicly long version, in 3 movements with full orchestra and choir" :)

My live rig for the Rainbow/Deep Purple tribute gigs is Nord Stage EX and Fantom X7, and I think together they are very powerful. Each is good at what the other is not, so there is very little overlap.
Also, with the pads on the X7 (and/or using RPS) you can have access to sending CCs to the Nord to change setups extremely quickly (I used to do it that way, until my workflow switched for other reasons, putting the Nord before the X7 in the MIDI chain).

Oh, my X7 has the Orchestra (06) and vintage keys (07) expansion boards in it for better choirs, mellotron, strings etc and good synth leads/pads.

I occasionally think about selling the X7, but whenever I play with it I remember why I keep it :)

The X will take a bit of setting up, but will pay dividends once you have it right.

Regards
Andy

[LesliesTube]

Hey Andy Keys! I have left some space for a specialist to diagnose profesionally the type of the story ;)
Controling the Nord through the Fantom sounds cool! I plan to use the Kurzweil instead for some samples of sequences from some songs. I thought the Fantom would be cool for that purpose, 'till I learned about the frightening load times. The Flash memory will cover me up. As For SRX Expansions, I'm sure my four will be SRX-06 for orchestral parts to add some brightness to the Kurzweil's amazing-yet-dark orch's. Also the World SRX (09 I believe?) for some middle-eastern inspired parts and because the Kurzweil lacks ethnic instruments. SRX-07 and 12 for Vintage Keys, to complete my "Bread with butter and bacon" sounds in a keyboard. The Kurzweil has meaty sounds in the Vintage sections, but still some are too"dark" and "muddy" for some occasions.
Beacuse of people like you I can't find a second hand Fantom X7! They simply keep it guarded with their Nords too

[Andy Keys]

Yes, the sample loading times put me off using samples live. Just in case...

The SRX-09 (World) board is great. I don't use a lot of those sounds on their own, but buried within dense Performances they can add some nice air and flavour.

I never bothered with SRX-12 as I decided to buy a Nord Stage for the Hammonds as well as Rhodes.

Yeah, it's all my fault. They might be nearly 10 years old, but I'm not selling either :)

[LesliesTube]

I tried today the EXP-05 for the FA, to check the EP's. It seems the Rhodes were programmed badly for the FA, the SRX-12 demos sounded a lot better. The Clavs, though, simply amazing. The best Clavs I heard in a rompler. the CA Clav makes Nord's Clavinet sound bad. Seriously.
I reckon the Fantom has a user memory, which is Flash. If I put some samples there, they take their time loading while the machine boots?

[Credo]

I tried today the EXP-05 for the FA, to check the EP's. It seems the Rhodes were programmed badly for the FA, the SRX-12 demos sounded a lot better. The Clavs, though, simply amazing. The best Clavs I heard in a rompler. the CA Clav makes Nord's Clavinet sound bad. Seriously.
I reckon the Fantom has a user memory, which is Flash. If I put some samples there, they take their time loading while the machine boots?

User samples can take some time to load from both, built in flash, or external card flash.

[Andy Keys]

Which is EXP-05? I was never keen on most of the Rhodes sounds in the X7, so there was no significant gain for me with SRX-12. The Rhodes sounds in the Nord have encouraged me to play more of that, but I never have, and still don't play much clav.

You can set the Fantom to load all User samples on boot up, or not. Yes, they take a long time to load.

[LesliesTube]

EXP-05 is the FA-0X version of the SRX-12, like the other expansions made for those synths. They're supposed to sound the same, but the FA versions sounded shallower and suffered from a large amount of reverb.

[Andy Keys]

Ah, thanks. I confess I've not been watching Roland that closely for the last few years...