New / Better FX Options For Fantom

7 Jul 2021, 12:31

I would love to see something better with the FX in both how you can route them as well as more / better FX. One FX per channel is ok and all but in most applications, you're not using all 16 tracks for your production. I'd like an option to be able to have up to 16 total effects or whatever the max the DSP can do but you can assign them however you want. I think even being able to put 2 FX on any patch would be a fantastic option. We already got more FX processing added to areas we previously didn't in an update like the drum pads and an additional FX slot in the mastering section so it's completely possible to rework the FX to make them a lot more usable especially in a more modern music creating environment. Could we also get some better names for the FX as well? I like that some of them are just named after old pieces of gear, but half the ones at the end I don't even know what they do until I start messing with them.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

8 Jul 2021, 05:46

That's a good idea. I'd like to see some pre-sets for the various effects as we have had on Korg synths.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

9 Jul 2021, 19:01

TokyoScarab wrote:
One FX per channel is ok and all but in most applications, you're not using all 16 tracks for your production. I'd like an option to be able to have up to 16 total effects or whatever the max the DSP can do but you can assign them however you want.

The ability to freely assign effects however you wanted is how Rolands used to work. People complained that, when they combined single patches into multi-sound combinations, the sounds didn't always sound the same as they did when played individually, and the reason basically came down to effects. Dedicating a single effect resource to each part (and simultaneously restricting each sound to a single effect) was the solution to this problem. Now every sound sounds the same whether played alone or in combination with other sounds. As soon as you permit sounds to make use of "unused" effects resources elsewhere, you'll lose that feature (because you may combine that sound with others sounds that could have multiple effects, and now there are no longer enough total effects resources to maintain all the effects for all the sounds simultaneously). That's the trade-off.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

12 Jul 2021, 20:36

Well that's why you have to alter patches for your performances. Some sounds need or don't need so many effects when combined together. I image the system would let you know you've hit some sort of limit and you'd have to decide what effects don't fit with your song. I used to have a Fantom X and it was the same system as the current Fantom. You could only apply 1 effect to any patch. I believe the Gs worked that way as well.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

13 Jul 2021, 09:21

anotherscott wrote:
The ability to freely assign effects however you wanted is how Rolands used to work. People complained that, when they combined single patches into multi-sound combinations, the sounds didn't always sound the same as they did when played individually, and the reason basically came down to effects.

That makes a lot of sense, but it sure is a waste of resources when various patches use the same basic efx. Kronos does a much better job at managing this, allowing users to "copy" the efx configuration intact with the patch, or not, and then rerouting efx within the "scene" after the fact. It's quite flexible and intuitive. Roland's method is archaic, limiting, and frustrating.

The lack of efx presets on a per effect level is a whole other complaint that should have been addressed before Fantom's initial launch in 2019.

Expand the efx routing capabilities or expand the efx types/combos. Both would be better.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

13 Jul 2021, 12:07

anotherscott wrote:
The ability to freely assign effects however you wanted is how Rolands used to work.

Out of curiosity, could you name a Roland digital synth that had free assignable EFX?

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

13 Jul 2021, 12:50

I would also be interested in a single Roland synth that used to have assignable multi FX. Because, as far as I know, they've never done it!

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

13 Jul 2021, 16:11

The only one that I can think about is the JD-800/990 Group B fx block, where you can reorder Chorus / Delay / Reverb at will.
https://www.polynominal.com/site/studio/gear/synth/roland_jd800/index.html
It's been implemented in ZEN-Core for the Jupiter-X/Xm JD-800 expansion.

Most 90s digital Sample+Synthesis gear used separate ASIC chips for effects, and some sort of digital bus send on/off+level pert part, much like you would do with a physical mixing desk INSERT point or AUXiliary send and return to an external FX chain, per channel. ZEN-Core inherits of this.

Last edited by Foksadure on 14 Jul 2021, 03:25, edited 1 time in total.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

13 Jul 2021, 19:20

Now with OS 2.50 released, perhaps Roland can get the EFX section addressed on the next release.

The 2.50 looks to be a bit of a bust. A 25 year old modeled tone wheel organ that we've already seen in the Jupiter 80. Throw in a few compatibility enhancements and I'm not sure these features shouldn't have been included a few releases back, but I don't want to be too cynical. We all have our own unique wishes for this workstation.

The EFX section really should be much more flexible and capable. Provide fully flexible routing across all available EFX, and add some additions, starting with an emulation of the RV-6 pedal.

I do recall the Jupiter 80 was originally released with some very limiting EFX routing, and V2.0 addressed that as best as they could, so there's precedence of EFX routing getting addressed.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

14 Jul 2021, 00:41

There’s a lot that could be improved with regards the effects.

The biggest thing I would want to change is how reverbs are handled. That you can only have one for the entire scene is I guess understandable if theres limited horsepower although I’m not a big fan of the limitation, but it needs more reverb types like spring and convolution, and routing/balancing is just really painful. You have to do a whole routing song and dance to get even 50% wet signal and even more for 100% wet.

I really just want to have the ability to (by default) have the IFX2 block be in series there so send becomes the true mix balance like on a normal mixer.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

10 Aug 2021, 20:46

Foksadure wrote:

anotherscott wrote:
The ability to freely assign effects however you wanted is how Rolands used to work.

Out of curiosity, could you name a Roland digital synth that had free assignable EFX?

I may have been mixing up Roland with some other boards, I'm not sure what I said there was entirely accurate... but you could at least gang up multiple effects on a single sound, which is at least one aspect of what I was describing, and was probably what I was thinking about. Even on the Juno DS today, which is more similar to Roland's older architecture, if you put a patch into the multi-patch "performance" mode, you can then take all three of the available effects and put them on the one sound (as opposed to my understanding of the FA and Fantom, where an individual instrument sound remains strictly limited to its one assigned effect, there's no mode where you can assign effects that would otherwise be available for other parts and instead assign them to the one sound).

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

20 Aug 2021, 03:39

4 IFX per Scene as send FX per track (not only on/off) + Compressor / Limiter per track and presets for every fx

That seems to me something Roland could implement…

plex

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

20 Aug 2021, 16:10

anotherscott wrote:
Even on the Juno DS today, which is more similar to Roland's older architecture, if you put a patch into the multi-patch "performance" mode, you can then take all three of the available effects and put them on the one sound

You got me curious about this one.
According to the manual, it's much more flexible than what I thought for a digital Roland synth, indeed.
https://www.manualslib.com/download/1121095/Roland-Juno-Ds61.html
It seems you can combine MFX-1-2-3 in Performance mode, and organize the MFX routing in various structures, JD or Kurzweil style.

The Juno-D is not part of the ZEN-Core heritage according to the promo picture @Roland.
https://static.roland.com/promos/zen-core/zen-core_2020/images/zen-core_history.png
Maybe that explains why this MFX peculiar architecture (maybe asic based) has not been implemented in the software emulation of the current ZC line.

Anyways, I stand corrected. Thanks for this.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

21 Aug 2021, 08:35

Foksadure wrote:
The Juno-D is not part of the ZEN-Core heritage according to the promo picture @Roland.
https://static.roland.com/promos/zen-core/zen-core_2020/images/zen-core_history.png
Maybe that explains why this MFX peculiar architecture (maybe asic based) has not been implemented in the software emulation of the current ZC line.

I wouldn't take that image too literally. I think they are merely representations of landmark Roland synths of the past, that were the broad foundations for the various kinds of synthesis capabilities within Zencore. The same freely assignable triple MFX system of the Juno DS that we're talking about was also in the Fantom X and the XV-5080 which are on that chart. (The Juno DS is derived from the the earlier Fantom line.) The Jupiter 80 had a different but also very flexible effects arrangement. And even besides the effects, there were numerous other aspects of some of the those "heritage" boards that are absent in the Zencore world as well.

Re: New / Better FX Options For Fantom

22 Aug 2021, 13:54

anotherscott wrote:
The same freely assignable triple MFX system of the Juno DS that we're talking about was also in the Fantom X and the XV-5080

I don't think the XV-5080 had flexible MFX like the Juno DS.
https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/XV-5080_OM.pdf
The Fantom-X does not seem very different in this aspect as well.
https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/FANTOM-X6_X7_X8_OM.pdf

It would seem to me that the (digital) Juno-D line is some sort of separate branch that happens to have a peculiar MFX section.
Just like the JV-2080 was the only one in the Roland 6A family (JV/XP) to boast a whopping 3 EFX in Performance mode instead of one.