Fantom G8 vs. Roland FA-08

[krupa809]

Hello,

I've had my Fantom G8 for nearly 6 years now and I've been using it mostly for gigging and as a stage piano. It's terribly heavy and I'm having to re-evaluate my options.

I like the fact that the FA-08 is fully-weighted and 88 keys but more importantly it's significantly lighter than the Fantom G8!

What is the best workstation in the market for what I need below (can be outside of Roland such as Nord/Yamaha if suggested).

-I'm a long time trained classical pianist so the best piano sounds are required
-Excellent organ sounds (think Jimmy Smith)
-Light in weight so I can easily transport
-Latest technology and easy user interface
-Easy to record/sample

Thanks so much guys!
Krupa

[stevel]

Hello,

I don't have first hand knowledge of other boards, including the Fantom (know the Fantom Rack module well though).

I would say, you should go to a keyboard forum as well just to get 2nd and 3rd opinions.

The general consensus I gather is that the go to for Organ sounds are the Nords.

Especially for players who like drawbar control.

A lot of people also really like the Pianos on the Nords as well.

As far as being a classical pianist - what are you used to playing on? We have a Steinway D.

Yamaha doesn't sample Steinways TMK - they sample Yamahas!

So you're never going to get anything better than a Yamaha. Some people are OK with that. I think Roland used to at least sample Bosendorfer, Baldwins, and Steinways.

My feeling is, the most realistic sounding piano I ever heard was in a Roland KR 770 digital piano - and it's because that was built into a spinet like cabinet some serious speakers in it so it moved air very similar to a real soundboard which made it "feel" real in the room.

I find when I'm listening through headphones, it always sounds "artificial" in some way - like I'm listening to a recording - that's been through a mic, pre-amp, console, etc.

Classical recordings themselves all sound different - so it's hard to define "the" piano sound - I mean, there might be an "acceptable" range but if you're looking for something "definitive", I'm afraid all you're going to get are opinions.

The FA series doesn't have any built-in drawbar control - you can change the settings on the edit screen (scrolling, selecting, wheel-dialling, etc.) but in order to control them externally you need something that can send SysEx messages (and you have to program all the messages...)

So if you do a lot of drawbar work, with the FA you would have to save a bunch of preset drawbar positions and then select between them (which is now easier in 2.0 and actually quite do-able).

But changing them on the fly or making multiple changes gradually and such - not practical as is.

You'd need a controller keyboard with sliders that can send SysEx, or a DB-1 type controller (I think that's discontinued).

FWIW, I think Roland has "cheated" by moving things like Leslie cab sounds to an Effect rather than putting them in the sound itself. As such, their Rotary and overdrive (especially) effects are not very professional sounding. A lot of people on other forums complain about the Leslie (but then again, most people will also tell you there's a huge difference of the sound in the room versus the sound coming out through a speaker or headphones).

Also, again, though I've heard so many organ tones on recordings that there's no such thing as a "definitive" organ tone.

So for me, having MANY organ and piano sounds from which to choose is more important, so you can get what you need for a particular context, instead of "one sound to rule them all".

Another "for example" is that so many modern recordings are so drenched in reverb and even delay that you don't really even need a piano to sound "real" or even "good" becuase the effects make it sound like all the other ones out there and we accept it as "good" becuase it sounds like the other things we percieve as good!

User interface (and intuitive layout as well as large screen) was one of the best features of the FA series from the beginning. Can't compare to others directly, but it's really wonderful. The new 2.0 update also makes the Pads that much more versatile. The interface is, in short, amazingly well thought out and practical.

Can't comment on the weight but I understand the entire series is practically breaking weight records for lightness - but so are a lot of other manufactures.

For road-worthiness, "built like a tank" is what you usually want, even if heavy, and I think we equate light with "cheaply made" now and "less sturdy" so take that for what it is. If you're transporting it A LOT, then weight could be a deciding factor.

Latest technology. Check. Cutting edge. Supernatural sounds, and everything else is PCM. Even the GM sounds sound good! Sequencer is user-friendly and intuitive. Expandable with up to 2 expansion sound sets. Can store as many sounds from the Integra downloads as you have user memory slots for.

USB is both Audio and MIDI. Works fine. Sound quality is fine - digital at better rates than you might get out of a budget standalone interface.

It's super easy to record it into a DAW with the USB Audio interface. Play and you're done. Sounds the same as coming out the audio jacks on the FA.

Now: Sampling:

It is NOT a "sampler". You can not sample in a sound and map it to the keyboard. You can't say "Fame", and play it up and down the keyboard, changing the pitch and length of the sample as you go up and down.

It is a "sample triggerer" or "loop launcher". You can record an audio clip (or import one) and assign it to a pad. Then you press that pad and it plays that sample.

If you wanted to play a single sample across the keyboard (which can play the pads on channel 16) you'd have to sample C on pad 1, C# on pad 2, D on pad 3, and so on. It's possible to batch import, but man, time-consuming and not worth it.

Plus you can only have 4 samples playing back at once.

So it's best for triggering say, a sound effect, or a drum loop you're going to play over.

It could be a "backing track" of Bass, Drums, Guitar, and you playing keys live, and you could turn on and off the Guitar, Bass, and/or Drums on the fly as you like, and you could change to other pre-recorded Drum, Guitar, and Bass patterns, but you can never have more than 4 going at any time.

I believe they can be as long as you have time for on the SD card.

You can record internal sounds to the pads (so it could be used as a scratch pad for recording ideas).

I would say, while you can edit start and end points for loops in the FA, as always, doing this on a computer screen in a DAW is probably more practical. But you can easily export/import so that's not a biggie.

So your biggest drawbacks are:

1. Not a full fledged sample if that interests you.
2. No drawbar control onboard if that interests you.

Otherwise, other "drawbacks" would be options that are more of personal preference - do the pianos sound as good as a Nord - maybe, maybe not. Do the basses sounds as good as a Yamaha? No. Are the Strings awesome, yes. Does it have a bajillion synths? Yes, but so does everyone else.

Great all around board with tons of features at a very reasonable price.

Are there things others do better? Yes. Are there features it doesn't have? Yes (ooh, check on aftertouch on the 88 if you need it). Will there be sounds you like better in other synths? Yes.

But as a whole package instrument, it's certainly top notch. Though the Fantoms are nothing to sneeze at.

I think they're trying to bring in Fantom like features in quality to a lower price point and attract the home producer wannabes while appealing to the EDM crowd as well. Which they've accomplished.

Whether that makes it as good as a Fantom, well, can't comment on that.

[Khatru]

FWIW, I think Roland has "cheated" by moving things like Leslie cab sounds to an Effect rather than putting them in the sound itself. As such, their Rotary and overdrive (especially) effects are not very professional sounding. A lot of people on other forums complain about the Leslie (but then again, most people will also tell you there's a huge difference of the sound in the room versus the sound coming out through a speaker or headphones).

That's not cheating, that's just what the rotary speaker sound in almost any workstation or clonewheel organ is: an effect.
The fact that the rotary effect is listed among the other effects available in the keyboard has nothing to do with how it sounds, it just means that you can use it with any other sound in the keyboard as well.
Or that you can choose any another effect for the organ instead of the rotary speaker sim, you can for example use a guitar amp effect to achieve a Jon Lord-like distorted organ sound.

Having said that, the rotary effect of the FA is not the very best. It can become ok'ish with quite a bit of tweaking, but it's never gonna match the rotary sim in a dedicated clonewheel organ.
Also, the lack of drawbars and chorus/vibrato effects may be considered major drawbacks.
But the FA's organ sound is still better than most sampled organs, and sampled organs is all you are going to get in most other workstations (except the Korg Kronos and the Kurzweil PC3K's, and they aren't exactly easy to transport).

The FA is the only workstation out there which combines light weight and an affordable price tag with modeled organ sounds, as well as a bunch of other modeled SuperNatural sounds (I think the SuperNatural electric pianos are particulary great), vocoder, sampling (or some kind of), and the ability to combine up to 16 tones/sounds with each their own dedicated multieffect, in any kind of splits and/or layers, and switching seamlessly between the tones without any gaps or pops in the sound.

In short, I think the Roland FA has very serious horsepower for live performances, only rivaled by much more expensive (and much more heavy) workstations such as Korg Kronos, Yamaha Montage and Kurzweil PC3K.

[Skijumptoes]

That's not cheating, that's just what the rotary speaker sound in almost any workstation or clonewheel organ is: an effect.
The fact that the rotary effect is listed among the other effects available in the keyboard has nothing to do with how it sounds, it just means that you can use it with any other sound in the keyboard as well.
Or that you can choose any another effect for the organ instead of the rotary speaker sim, you can for example use a guitar amp effect to achieve a Jon Lord-like distorted organ sound.

I think steve's point is that they could've put an emulated rotary speaker effect within the supernatural sound engine itself for organs, so that it produced better results, rather than just using the existing MFX.

In fact, i don't know how the rotary fx compares to the VK rotary in the Fantom's, i presume it moved across to the FA under the standard Rotary fx(?!).

[Khatru]

I think steve's point is that they could've put an emulated rotary speaker effect within the supernatural sound engine itself for organs, so that it produced better results, rather than just using the existing MFX.

In fact, i don't know how the rotary fx compares to the VK rotary in the Fantom's, i presume it moved across to the FA under the standard Rotary fx(?!).

Yeah, but putting the effect within the SuperNatural sound would not in it self make it sound better and it would be much less flexible,
But yes, the question is, where did that rotary MFX come from? Is it actually made for the new SN sounds or is it something that Roland has liftet from their older romplers? I don't know.

There are three rotary effects, the first one is not very good, I suspect that it may come frome something as old as the XV-5080 (just like most of the rompler sounds in the FA).
The other two rotary effects are much better though.

[Skijumptoes]

Well the whole concept of the supernatural engine is that it's emulating sounds, i.e. via calculations, and not via samples. I.e. the piano is a pure emulation, supposedly.

So, rather than effect which is processing the audio output via a shared DSP for the rotary, if it was within the supernatural engine (Which one presumes is it's own DSP chip of more power?) then the Rotary would be of better quality, and of more truly emulated sense than a CPU friendly MFX.

I could be talking utter nonsense here, but that's how i read into Steve's comment and into Roland's Supernatural engine, anyway. In truth, i don't think if anyone truly knows what's going on in there. lol :)

However, Take the E.Pianos (Rhodes etc.) for example, some of them have a tremolo which is within the sound itself, and not via post processing.

And yeah, i'd be interesting on whether the Fantom VK Rotary transferred across, from memory it was quite good, but the actual organ sounds not so.

[stevel]

I think steve's point is that they could've put an emulated rotary speaker effect within the supernatural sound engine itself for organs, so that it produced better results, rather than just using the existing MFX.

Yes, that's what I meant.

On my old Sound Canvas for example, the rotary sound is "built in" the patch as aftertouch (which we know doesn't happen here).

It does also have a rotary effect in its digital effects which I used on a patch that didn't have any aftertouch variation and it actually sounded quite good.

I agree that you don't have any control over one built into the patch, but man, that one on the Sound Canvas was "perfect".

[stevel]

I could be talking utter nonsense here, but that's how i read into Steve's comment and into Roland's Supernatural engine, anyway. In truth, i don't think if anyone truly knows what's going on in there. lol :)

However, Take the E.Pianos (Rhodes etc.) for example, some of them have a tremolo which is within the sound itself, and not via post processing.

yes this is correct.

For example, SN strings - if you go into the Tone Edit, you can see that there are "variations" (Instrument tab) that give you Pizz, Marcato, and Trem.

And those are set up with the S1/S2 (and maybe mod) buttons.

The MFX is an EQ, but it's set to 0.

The SN Organ instead doesn't have these "variations".

I would argue it *could* and maybe even *should* - Slow, Fast, and maybe Brake. Play the sound - no effect, press mod, get rotary, press S1 move to fast, press S2 brake for example.

It DOES do this, but as an MFX rotary effect.

But if they were built into that SN sound, it could be modelled much more accurately.

Of course it would only be available on SN Organ sounds, but that would be OK - it wouldn't be unlike the Strings, or the Guitar Strums, etc. You can't get in there and change them like you could an MFX, but at least they're there.

Bonus would be that you could use the SN Organ sound "plain" and STILL add an MFX if you wanted to.

[Khatru]

It DOES do this, but as an MFX rotary effect.

But if they were built into that SN sound, it could be modelled much more accurately.

Ok, so, if I understand you correctly, you think SN-engine has the necessary modeling capacity to do a better rotary effect than the MFX engine? You may well be right about that.
But it's difficult to tell whether the SN-engine is actually designed to do such advanced effect processing. A rotary speaker is quite different from much more simple effects and articulations such as tremolo, staccato, etc.

To mention another example; my Kurzweil PC3X has an integrated clonewheel, very much like the SN-organ in the FA.
And just like the FA, the sound of the organ itself (tonewheels, percussion, key click, leakage, chorus/vibrato, etc.) are all produced by the KB3 clonewheel-engine, while the rotary effect lives in the Kurzweil's main effects processor, again just like on the FA.

The best sounding rotary effect on the Kurzweil is pretty good, but it takes up about 14 out of the 16 available insert effect slots.
I'd say that one Roland MFX can do about the same as 3, maybe 4 Kurzweil effect slots, at most.
So I suspect that it would take the capacity of 4 or 5 Roland MFX's to achieve a satisfying rotary effect.
But that is off course pure speculation, the architecture of Roland's effects may be very different from Kurzweil's.

[Skijumptoes]

Who knows for sure, as i said, i was under the belief that the SN-A sounds like pianos etc were actually being simulated and it wasn't sample based. But this could all be smoke and mirrors on Roland part. I don't think anyone knows what kind of size these Supernatural sounds occupy, or anything like that.

So the string resonance, hammer, dampners etc of the piano is all emulated within the Supernatural DSP, so there's a fair amount of power there when you consider there's up to 16 parts which can be played at once. (Or am i right in thinking there's a limit before that on Supernatural?)

Slightly off the curve a bit, to show the might of some of these DSP chips, is to witness the Roland Cloud emulations of Juno 106 etc. which is the same ACB emulation as used in the Roland Boutique hardware, and even a few instances of those plugins will push a modern Intel i5 CPU to start to crackle/break up.

MFX to me, on the whole sound like the same MFX chip/routines that Roland have used for the past what.. 10+ years maybe? None of the MFX have any warmth or oomf in the bottom end, and i think that's where the Rotary's fall down - they just lack that power that a rotary should bring.

In fact, i tend to use the TFX engine quite a bit nowadays as i've found that to be a bit more lively than the MFX selections.

Interesting reading how the Kurzweils work, in regards to slots within the DSP.

I really do like Roland's concept with the FA, i.e. that every single patch can go to studio set mode/sequencer and not degrade in quality - but it would be interesting to know how much power is left there if they really wanted to have, say additional MFX's on Parts 1,2,3 or even 4. Being a previous owner of Fantom and Juno G i do much prefer this single MFX per part approach, i must admit.

[Khatru]

Who knows for sure, as i said, i was under the belief that the SN-A sounds like pianos etc were actually being simulated and it wasn't sample based. But this could all be smoke and mirrors on Roland part. I don't think anyone knows what kind of size these Supernatural sounds occupy, or anything like that.

I'm pretty certain that at least the SN Acoustic sounds are some kind of combination of sampling and modeling. But the SN engine is very much a black box, which only Roland knows the excact content of.

So the string resonance, hammer, dampners etc of the piano is all emulated within the Supernatural DSP, so there's a fair amount of power there when you consider there's up to 16 parts which can be played at once. (Or am i right in thinking there's a limit before that on Supernatural?)

I don't think so, it's perfectly possible to stack 16 SN sounds.

But yes, the one MXF per part is really one of the strongest features of the FA. The Kurzweil "only" has those 16 insert effects available at any given time (plus a couple of master effects), and most of its sounds use several effect slots each.
I do agree that the MXF's not always sound that good, but I have achieved surprisingly good results with some of them, like distortion on EP's for example.

[Skijumptoes]

I'm pretty certain that at least the SN Acoustic sounds are some kind of combination of sampling and modeling. But the SN engine is very much a black box, which only Roland knows the excact content of.

Yes sure, i think all modelling has a waveform or sample of some kind at it's basis, even all these analog modelling synths, they have a waveform to model around, just as the supernatural engine will have to have one for each of it's characteristics it offers. when i say it's not sample based, i think the way it selects what plays isn't a straight velocity layer of samples - i.e. so you hear a single sample played back, it's assembled with 'bits'.

am i right in thinking there's a limit before that on Supernatural?)

I don't think so, it's perfectly possible to stack 16 SN sounds.

I've not tried it, but i once read that one note can be the equivalent of about 8 voices of polyphony, which means a 4 note chord would equal 32 of the 128 Polyphony available - Although, as the supernatural engine is different to standard PCM based partials/patches this can differ greatly and isn't a fixed number.

If you're doing a full 16 part sequence i remember reading, right in the early days of the FA-06/08 that you're best to limit yourself to 4-5 supernatural (Non SN-S) parts due to this. As it turns out, that's always been plenty for me.

I do agree that the MXF's not always sound that good, but I have achieved surprisingly good results with some of them, like distortion on EP's for example.

I end up with great results, but i'm usually processing the sounds that come out of the FA, so i kinda like it more clean and subtle - but live i would like a bit more 'oomph' in those MFX slots, also the ability to save some presets within each MFX would be really nice, as i spend ages adjusting them, only to have to do it all again for another patch. :)

[scramble]

Getting this thread back on topic...

The FA-08 would be a good choice for you if you're used to Roland. I prefer my Fantom X8 in many ways to my FA-08, but like the OP, I don't want to lug a heavy keyboard around, so the light weight of the FA-08 means it's what gets used for rehearsals and gigs these days.

The sounds are pretty similar to what you're used to, and the setup and user interface are fairly similar too. The organ sounds aren't anything special, but then they aren't on the X8 either. They're good enough for my purposes. (Don't know what the G8 organs are like.) And I wouldn't say the Krome organs are any better. There's a few good ones on the Krome, but also a lot of unusable cheesy ones.

However, you aren't going to get all the features you have on the G8 with a more lightweight keyboard, whether you're talking the FA, the Korg Krome 88, or the lightweight Yamahas. Most lightweight keyboards don't have proper sampling (can't remember if the modern lightweight Yamahas do or not), most don't even do much or anything at all in the way of sample playback, and most lack aftertouch. They aren't as good at being a master controller either.

Also, the FA can only load two (software versions of the) SRX cards, whereas in the X8 you can have 4, which is a pain if you'd come to rely on all 4. Mind you, given what happened with the ARX boards for the G8, that last limitation might not concern you.

[krupa809]

Wow you guys are fantastic. Thanks for your time/effort in providing such insightful and valuable feedback!

Now that I have a much better appreciation of the differences, I now have to say that I've made further traction on my next workstation selection but I'm afraid to say that my interests have shifted to Korg.

I have not played the Korg Kronos but I've listened to the piano sounds and they're quite amazing. You hear the damper pedal as well as the action lifting off the keys. Their German/Austrian pianos are amazing and, in my opinion because everybody is super particularly about their piano sounds, it's much better than the piano sounds on my Roland G8. But the true test will be me finding a music store here in San Francisco and playing both the Korg Kronos and the Roland FA-08.

That being said, what are your opinions on the Roland FA-08 vs. the Korg Kronos? I know this steers away from the thread topic but since I have the attention of so many intelligent folks, you might be able to shed some light on this discussion.

Thanks!

[Skijumptoes]

Kronos vs FA-08, for me, are classes apart - i don't think i could compare personally.

Krome vs FA-08, sure, fair comparison, but Kronos is such a different beast there's no competition. It has unique sound engines, bringing in different modules, and a really nice solid build quality. As i say, it's a class above the FA-08, but not as portable.

The FA's are really simple to program and sequence on when compared to the Kronos. Ah, they're so different it's hard to compare.

Look at the Motifs/MOXF8 from Yamaha also, if you like the Korg piano you may really like the MOXF's. Also, of course the Krome, but like the Kronos people either love them or hate them. FA's and MOXF's are very much the middle ground 'safe' and solid options.