My Roland Fantom-0 Rant

[Rusty1981]

So disappointed with this purchase.
Bought the 06 about 1 year ago thinking for the hefty price tag this thing would be an amazing work station. Sadly l feel it’s been a let down. Been waiting for an OS update like many others with at least the basic features but then 1.03 came which was only a bug fix. For a standalone workstation it’s missing any advanced sampling capabilities never mind basic ones. The arpeggiator is just useless imo.
It’s a nice sounding board with lots of other capabilities but for the price tag l would have definitely went a different route (Akai MPC and a Rack Sound Generator) This is the first Fantom lve purchase and was hoping based on previous models lve seen and demoed it would have been just as good but unfortunately it’s not.

If there’s anyone on these forums that works for Roland and is hearing this communities complaints tell us different.

[gfan80]

Here are the things I like about it when I compare it to the Jupiter 80 (that I owned as my main board for the past 10 years before retiring it) -
1. Various Expansion Models
2. Sampling
3. Pattern Sequencing / Song Building
4. Sample Pad
5. extremely lightweight compared to the Jupiter 80. Apparently two of the Fantom 07s would almost equal the weight of that keyboard.
6. Seems to be very easy to use compared to the Korg Kronos X I had that drove me crazy and I got rid of it not long ago.

What I don't like
1. There seems to be no way to fast forward or rewind song parts when it's being played when the song is built.
2. Sample storage size is meager and not upgradable. Why can't we put our own memory upgrades in it to expand?
3. While I am indifferent about linear sequencing, having it as a secondary means to sequence would be cool as a choice because it might address song tempo changes if wanted/needed.

[anotherscott2022]

Bought the 06 about 1 year ago thinking for the hefty price tag this thing would be an amazing work station....For a standalone workstation it’s missing...

That's because it's not a workstation. Notice this page:

https://www.roland.com/us/categories/sy ... rkstation/

They call the Fantoms (and Juno DS) "synthesizers" (unlike the FA, which they call a "workstation").

This is the first Fantom lve purchase and was hoping based on previous models lve seen and demoed it would have been just as good but unfortunately it’s not.

The old Fantom models were indeed workstations. They were better than the new one as workstations, though not as good in numerous other ways.

To get full workstation functionality out of the current Fantoms, they instead built in integration with Logic and Ableton Live. I guess they figured that that's what current buyers are likely to be more interested in, with those being much more capable than what was in the old Fantoms (or what was readily and economically available in computer-based DAWs of that time).

[Rusty1981]

Technically speaking it is not deemed a workstation but due to being able to record into it, sequence, edit and mix l call it a workstation. I just wish it had a better arpeggiator and sampling capabilities, l can get over the linear sequencer.