Please, just make some music...

Thanks, Fess.

I'm always glad to hear good things about the Fantom-S. But it makes me itch about it shiping to me more and more...

Artemio, you are the owner of the fantom-s site but do not own the unit? better get up to speed

http://www.boomspot.com
home of the Black Lung Brothers

I have to sell my XP-80 to buy fantom-s So, I have to wait a bit.

Yeah, it's strange - I opened fantom-s site on march 27th - but still don't have my own fanrom-s

hey man-if u have any questions, get at me-i'd glad to assist u. great site by the way pal:)

anyone know if i can use the usb port on the fantom s as a midi interface to an external sequencer. thanks.

No the usb port canoot br used for midi. It can be used only for transfereinf files between Computer and Fantom S.

Fess, thank you very much.

Well, I do have some questions about the overall operation speed:

- How fast is Fantom-S operating?
- Did you notice any slow-downs when playing back polyphony-hungry parts from the sequencer?
- Did you hear any troubles with playback of tones that use lots of LFOs and envelopes? Are these types of sounds playing precisely, without any noticeable interrupts?
- How fast does it work with samples?
- How fast does it work with SM cards?
- Is USB fast enough to transfer large files (5-10Mb)?

I ask questions 2 and 3 because I notice these troubles all the time with my XP-80, and you seem to have XP-60 and might have had the same experience.

I'd really, really apreciate if you give some answers.

Thanks again and good luck!

yes fantom s is very fast compared to other workstatioons.
as i have been using trion and mtif in depth.

samplet is fat , opertion is fast

i have yet to test the sequencer in fill depth, as i am basically doing jingles now,

but overall the system is very fast comaored to other workstations.

usb is as usal compared to USB 1.1

Hi Guys/Gals,

I went to Sweetwater sound here in Fort Wayne, Indiana today and tested Fantom S 88 alongside with Motif 8 and Triton Studio (also with V Synth) Here's what I have to say about Fantom and the others.

Took all of these Synths right out of the boxes, brand spankin' new (drool drool) and without a doubt, Fantom S 88 is the most cool looking board amoungst all. It is very well built, nice titanium finish, big display, nice dynamic pads, controls are laid out very logically so they are easily accessible. Dynamic pads felt good. Display is amazing, eventhough not touch screen but I didn't miss that. Pitch bender is simple and does the job very well. Operations are fairly quick. Keyboard action is very natural. So, I was off to a very good start.
Triton ST88 & Motif looked good too but not as great as Fantom S.
Start navigating around and found the user interface to be very user friendly and learning curve NOT to be as steep as Motif's or Triton's.

Start playing the first patch and I was like "what the hell", okay okay ... I'm jumping to conclusions too soon and should try other patches. One after the other I went through many patches but they all sound very boring and stale... No, this is not happening, when did pro workstations with good factory presets went out of style ??? After playing it for about 25 minutes, I went to Motif and V Synth and I felt a sudden jolt of inspiration within the first minute of patch surfing. I know, I know ... it is a matter of personal taste but for God's sake there got to be a sane explanation for this insanity. I really wanted to like this Titanium Beast so I went back and played it for another 20 - 25 minutes but a majority of sounds are completely bland, colorless and lacked personality. The only way I could get some of the patches to sound half way decent was either playing it via arrpegiator or after tweaking it's effects. If Roland decided to roll out Fantom S as their Flagship then why not including some "up to par" presets. After all, it is an all-in-one workstation and their biggest market is people who want to use this board right from the get go. Maybe customize patches here & there but not become software programmers during the process because with Fantom S, we are talking about complete overhaul of factory presets. Don't get me wrong, I know that the sound engine (XV) can produce some amazing sonic landscapes and realistic instrument too (no argument there) but none that I could find in here. On ther other hand, Motif and Triton have some convincingly realistic instrument emulation specially Motif (checked it with and without the effect section). I would have been happy with Roland reusing existing XV5080 quality presets in Fantom. I couldn't find the time (or motivation) to check out the sampling/sequencer capabilities of Fantom S. I kept going back and forth between the other Workstations and Fantom S, hoping to find some mystery feature/soundbank/etc to convince me to drop my hard earned cash but I couldn't do it. Can't comparize on SOUND, it is the bottomline after all. Also, the dynamic pads (though initially felt great) didn't respond to velocity changes very swiftly. I don't know wether it was a lack of velocity maps/zones of the selected kit or my playing. I have experience using these "type of" pads on MPC and it works very well for Akai but here, when I start playing a drum loopon these pads, it produced inconsistant velocities, no matter how hard I was hitting the pad. I had couple of sweetwater techs also try it but with no different results. So, these were acting more like "Moody Random Velocity Dynamic Pads". Could be the particular unit though.
Interestingly enough, I found some really realistic sounding patches in V-Synth and it was alot of fun to explore it's Filters/ARPs/COSM/Envelops (except for the 61 key action) etc. No offense, I returned home with no synth and a pocket full of money. I currently own, Triton, Novation Supernova II, Virus C, MC 909 therefore understand that they all have their own strengths & weaknesses. Most importantly, I really wanted to get this beauty but ....... maybe, I'm asking for too much.