New Fantom 7 owner - Synth: A+, Sampler Workstation: D

[Diaphone]

My 20-yr-old K2500S died, and I bought a Fantom 7 after about a week of coming up to speed on what was available to replace it. I considered my options to be:

1. Fantom 7: Available immediately, current tech
2. Kronos 73-key: Available immediately, long in the tooth
3. Nautilus: Available soon, new tech
4. Kurzweil K2700: 88-key shipping soon, but unknown when 76 or 61 key variants will ship

Each option had pros and cons. And I decided that the Fantom was worth it for the amazing job it does recreating the sound of so many classic synths, especially those from the early and mid 1980s. I find the pianos usable, but a not stellar. Frankly though, I did not expect any of these boards' stock pianos to touch what Ivory II can do, so I didn't really factor this into my decision much.

Now, after a week and a half of working with the Fantom, my overall impression is still that it's a fantastic beast of a synth. If it were just a synth, in the $2500 range, it's be a no-brainer to recommend to anyone. The problem is that Roland bills it as a be-all-end-all workstation, and they price it accordingly. But I have to disagree. I expected a 2020's flagship model to meet or exceed the sampler capabilties of my 1990's Kurzweil and Akai samplers, and it does not. As of V2.10 (the OS that is on my Fantom as I write this), it falls well short of my expectations on the sampling front.

Here are a few things that I encountered that made me frown, roughly in most to least disappointing order:

1. Neither AIFF nor WAVE import reads in sample loop points. This isn't a small omission, this is an "are you kidding me?!" level of fail for a $4k flagship workstation. A lot of my AIFF sample files have INST data chunks too, with ASRD envelopes and other things the keyboard could be making use of.
2. The multiple "classes" of sample data, each with their own workflows, is a hugely confusing mess. I'm talking about how "Keyboard" samples are different from "Pad" samples, and user samples aren't the same entity as expansion samples. Keyboard samples can have loop points, pad samples cannot. Pad samples can be re-exported as WAV, keyboard samples cannot. Expansion samples load in through the special .exz and "hold the Tempo button" boot-up workflow, user samples (wav/aif) require starting at the "Sampling" button, and previously-saved user samples (.svz) come in through yet another workflow using Menu->Utility->Import->Import Sample. This is absolute madness. It's like different parts of the system were designed by different engineering groups who never talked to each other throughout the entire development cycle.
3. Samples have to load from a memory stick, even when the keyboard has a USB cable connection to my computer. This is another one I'd consider a face-palm-grade limitation. Roland really just brought back Sneaker Net?! This is 2021 people, I've been able to connect my phone to my computer via USB and drag and drop files to/from it for 20 YEARS now.

Bottom line is: I'm going to keep the Fantom because it's a dream synthesizer. I just expected more. Maybe over the next couple of updates, Roland will address these issues, but I honestly feel like I'm going to either end up buying a K2700 to use for more sample-based stuff (because it has the bonus of giving me access to 20 years of .krz format work I've done), or just using a software sampler.

[EdGe]

Welcome to the "WTH??!!" New Owners Club!

Yeah...I'm of the same opinion, exactly: amazing synth, subpar sampling.

The memory aspect you mention...exactly! Why the division?

There are other 'complaints' I have:
1. Aftertouch is more like Afterpound!
2. Pads are not velocity sensitive.
3. No crossfade looping. 1988 laughs at you Roland!
4. The previous tone structures of the JV/XP/XV line are gone (replaced by ZenCore, which is good itself)...even though the PCMs were ported.
5. Sequencer limited to 4/4 and 3/4...no linear capabilities.
6. RPS abandoned. You must either touch the screen, or use the pads.
7. No user arpeggios
8. No user chord patterns
9. No user rhythm patters
10. Saving a tone defaults to its current location...but look out: saving a scene may default to the previous scene used!
11. The vocoder settings are not saved per scene...which leads to 12...
12. The audio input defaults to "off"...this should be scene based along with the Vocoder!
13. Too many EP and Piano expansions, really!
14. The audio routing from tone MFX is not Tone->MFX->System FX, but Tone goes directly to System FX around MFX...
15. Step LFO may not keep time to MIDI clock - intermittent sync.

Anyway...welcome!

I knew there were shortcomings in the Fantom's sequencer, and sampling...and reading about the updates until I bought mine in March, I see that Roland is making progress toward adding features users want, and expect. The sampling and sequencing limitations are my biggest wish to be improved.

Also, for live performance, I would like the audio input configured per scene along with the Vocoder.

Those are the top of the wish list of corrections/additions. The rest can come later. I doubt aftertouch will ever be addressed as it is most likely a design issue.

[EdGe]

Bottom line is: I'm going to keep the Fantom because it's a dream synthesizer. I just expected more. Maybe over the next couple of updates, Roland will address these issues, but I honestly feel like I'm going to either end up buying a K2700 to use for more sample-based stuff (because it has the bonus of giving me access to 20 years of .krz format work I've done), or just using a software sampler.

Oh...here's a bit of a workaround for looped samples and previous libraries: if you can create a soundfont version of your instrument, loops created in SF2 format, converted by Roland's SFV Converter, will result in good loops.

You will still need to map samples, however.

[Diaphone]

Oh...here's a bit of a workaround for looped samples and previous libraries: if you can create a soundfont version of your instrument, loops created in SF2 format, converted by Roland's SFV Converter, will result in good loops.

I think I could manage this, but then it's getting to be a lot of steps and the time it would take might be about the same as if I just manually entered all the loop points. And I have about 2000 samples I want to convert :-)

My plan is set aside some time on Saturday to convert a few AIFF or WAVE to .svz using the Fantom, and see if I can come up with a python script that can batch convert my files to the native format. There is also some mention here of WAVE files with a 'RLND' chunk, so I might also try injecting that into some WAVEs, just copying the loop point values.

[thorr]

Just wanted to comment about your comment about the Ivory II. I hadn't heard of it before. I am a big fan of Pianoteq 7, and I wanted to see how it compared. To make a long story short, I eventually came across the Garritan Abbey Road CFX Concert Grand and it seems to blow everything else out of the water including Pianoteq and the Ivory II based on what I listened to online. I think I will take the plunge and get this.

[Diaphone]

Interesting! I have not heard Garritan's piano yet, but given how impressive and well-reviewed their personal orchestra is, I am not surprised. Having a host of software-based options at various price points that are all a cut above hardware offerings pretty much drives home the point that if super-realistic piano and orchestra are what you're after, you can remove it as a hard requirement for your workstation/synth/controller.

[thorr]

Agreed. Here is a great demonstration of the Garritan piano (starting at 5 minutes in): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C005i2-ZxZA

[thorr]

Just a quick follow up to my totally off-topic tangent. I found another comparable VST (Synchron CFX), but in my opinion the Garritan is better (but it is splitting hairs) and much cheaper. Last night I purchased the Garritan and it revealed to me that my speaker layout in my home theater is not ideal for a listening position while playing my Roland Fantom and also my USB volume on the Fantom was only at 50 which is way too low (it was always quiet, but I didn't know why and sometimes it was super quiet with the Garritan so I found the issue). It didn't sound that great at first, but after putting my headphones on, it was amazing. I played for hours just listening to the beautiful sound of the new piano. It pairs perfectly with the Fantom 8 pha-50 keybed, which often needs extra heavy playing on the native Fantom or changing the keyboard setting to light to be comfortable. It was perfect on Medium with the Garritan. The CPU resources were extremely minimal (like 4%) and there was no noticeable lag at all. Just pure bliss. Anyone looking for a great piano to go with the Fantom should consider the Garritan.

[Fantomtom]

Neither AIFF nor WAVE import reads in sample loop points. This isn't a small omission, this is an "are you kidding me?!" level of fail for a $4k flagship workstation.

I was beginning to think that I was the only one who was extremely annoyed by this. It's just unbelievable crappy for such a big and experienced player like Roland.

However, with some of my multisamples I managed to transfer them successfully into the Fantom including the embedded loop settings.

I use Polyphonics (a free SoundFont editor) to create soundfonts from my already loop-tagged multisamples. I then convert the resulting soundfonts using SVZ Sample Converter, and then copy them to the Fantom.

The strange thing is: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm still trying to find out what the reason is. One thing I have noticed is that if the end of the loop is identical with the end of the sample, it usually works.

What I also noticed is that you shouldn't use the multisample import function, you have to import your samples individually, then mark them and create a multisample from them.

As I said, I need to investigate this further, but I'm not giving up.

Any new experiences regarding this issue from other Fantom users?

[TokyoScarab]

Welcome to the "WTH??!!" New Owners Club!

[...]
5. Sequencer limited to 4/4 and 3/4...no linear capabilities.
[...]

That actually isn't true anymore with the version 3.0 update. The sequencer can now be programmed to accept basically any time signature you want or can imagine.

[FGM]

14. The audio routing from tone MFX is not Tone->MFX->System FX, but Tone goes directly to System FX around MFX...

I have checked this and the many effects go MFX>IFX1>IFX2 (serial)>TFX

For testing I used the 91:Phonograph for MFX, the 24:Flanger for IFX1, the 39:3 TapPan Delay for IFX2 and finally 47:Pitch Shifter for TFX.

MFX IFX1 IFX2 TFX.jpg (1.33 MiB) Viewed 3395 times

[TokyoScarab]

My 20-yr-old K2500S died, and I bought a Fantom 7 after about a week of coming up to speed on what was available to replace it. I considered my options to be:

1. Fantom 7: Available immediately, current tech
2. Kronos 73-key: Available immediately, long in the tooth
3. Nautilus: Available soon, new tech
4. Kurzweil K2700: 88-key shipping soon, but unknown when 76 or 61 key variants will ship

[...]

The Nautilus has the same sound engines as the Kronos minus a few tweaks in the sample playback engine (from what I understand). So the Nautilus might be a new synth, but it's still based in the Kronos engine which is going on 10 years old come this summer. I am really curious to know where Korg goes from the Kronos engine though. That might be a synth to keep your eyes on for sure.

[Andy Keys]

The Nautilus has the same sound engines as the Kronos minus a few tweaks in the sample playback engine (from what I understand). So the Nautilus might be a new synth, but it's still based in the Kronos engine which is going on 10 years old come this summer.

I got a Nautilus to replace my Fantom X7 for live use, and I'm currently in the process of recreating all the setups and specific sounds that I need. I'm loving it, so far. Mostly, it's been really intuitive, but there have been some head-scratching moments on the way. The key-bed feels slightly different to the instruments I'm used to, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I never used the Kronos, so I don't know what I'm missing there.

[Devnor]

I never used the Kronos, so I don't know what I'm missing there.

You aren't missing much except for the idiotic Karma patterns on many of the factory presets.

[Andy Keys]

I never used the Kronos, so I don't know what I'm missing there.

You aren't missing much except for the idiotic Karma patterns on many of the factory presets.

Haha! I don't think I'll bother seeking that out.