Request for 2.x Update
23 Sep 2020, 16:08Roland‘s new Fantom is a masterpiece of hardware and the sound of Zencore is outstanding.
It seems that Roland has a long-term strategy to tie their customers and an ear to them.
The 2.0 update was a big one but really it only gave us what we already have had and there are still a lot of things missing. And some features are implemented old fashioned or half baken. The Fantom is the flagship and should be at least on par with the feature set of his predecessors and it should be state-of-the-art.
There is fresh and modern approach of a sequencer. There are still missing editing options but for now with the automation and the microeditor it is usable for the first time. Some will miss the linear timeline and GM/GS compatibility but I think it is good leave this past behind.
I don‘t understand why they implemented the rhythm groups and the rhythm pattern player. Why they gave us user rhythm groups to organise a few preset rhythm pattern. It makes more sense if the user can define its own rhythm pattern like the FA-series can do. But the TR-Rec mode and the easy to use sequencer should be enough.
The arpeggiator is nearly the same of the FA-series but as with the missing user rhythm pattern, the user arpeggios are also missing. That is very annoying. An arpeggio follows the keys you press, a sequencer pattern not.
And why didn‘t get the flagship the iArps of the Jupiter Series?
Where are the audio tracks or at least the possibility to playback in sync a simple backing track. For sure the daw integration is superb but the flagship workstation should do this with ease without the need of external gear. As a workaround it is possible to record pad keys triggering samples but it is so clumsy and fiddly.
And it is only possible to trigger 4 stereo samples from the pads at the same time. This is not state-of-the-art!!!!
Roland advertised the Fantom as modeless and 512 User scenes have to share 64 global samples for the pads. This doesn’t make sense. The FA-series already have 64 user samples for each performance.
The sampler just got a big upgrade but there are still a lot of important things missing. At least: zero-point-finder, fade in, fade out and just to stand out there should something special.
A lot of features are implemented with love to the detail but... why I always manually have to set capitalisation on and off. And why I always have to set the quantisation if I record something.......
The beautiful motion controller is nearly useless but could be a killer feature if the user could define the controller scenewise and if they were recorded within the sequencer.
But said there is more to come :)
What do you think?
It seems that Roland has a long-term strategy to tie their customers and an ear to them.
The 2.0 update was a big one but really it only gave us what we already have had and there are still a lot of things missing. And some features are implemented old fashioned or half baken. The Fantom is the flagship and should be at least on par with the feature set of his predecessors and it should be state-of-the-art.
There is fresh and modern approach of a sequencer. There are still missing editing options but for now with the automation and the microeditor it is usable for the first time. Some will miss the linear timeline and GM/GS compatibility but I think it is good leave this past behind.
I don‘t understand why they implemented the rhythm groups and the rhythm pattern player. Why they gave us user rhythm groups to organise a few preset rhythm pattern. It makes more sense if the user can define its own rhythm pattern like the FA-series can do. But the TR-Rec mode and the easy to use sequencer should be enough.
The arpeggiator is nearly the same of the FA-series but as with the missing user rhythm pattern, the user arpeggios are also missing. That is very annoying. An arpeggio follows the keys you press, a sequencer pattern not.
And why didn‘t get the flagship the iArps of the Jupiter Series?
Where are the audio tracks or at least the possibility to playback in sync a simple backing track. For sure the daw integration is superb but the flagship workstation should do this with ease without the need of external gear. As a workaround it is possible to record pad keys triggering samples but it is so clumsy and fiddly.
And it is only possible to trigger 4 stereo samples from the pads at the same time. This is not state-of-the-art!!!!
Roland advertised the Fantom as modeless and 512 User scenes have to share 64 global samples for the pads. This doesn’t make sense. The FA-series already have 64 user samples for each performance.
The sampler just got a big upgrade but there are still a lot of important things missing. At least: zero-point-finder, fade in, fade out and just to stand out there should something special.
A lot of features are implemented with love to the detail but... why I always manually have to set capitalisation on and off. And why I always have to set the quantisation if I record something.......
The beautiful motion controller is nearly useless but could be a killer feature if the user could define the controller scenewise and if they were recorded within the sequencer.
But said there is more to come :)
What do you think?
plex