Is this iteration of the Fantom (EX) dead…?
5 Dec 2025, 15:46Is this iteration of the Fantom (EX) dead…?
I absolutely love the aesthetics of the Fantom (now EX) – to me whoever designed the hardware could almost not have done a better job - aesthetically.
The layout, the lighting, the control knobs, sliders, buttons, etc. – are pretty much all perfect.
Yamaha tried to mimic the aesthetics of the Fantom in the Montage M and failed miserably – where the Fantom looks like a professional, cohesive instrument – the Montage M looks like a bad Lite-Brite or Christmas tree.
To me, on a scale of 1 -10 – aesthetically – the Fantom (EX) would be a 9.5 – and the Montage M would be a 6.5.
And I am one of those who values the way the instrument looks – you just seem to “connect” with an instrument more that you find nice to look at – not to mention want to play more, etc.
Acoustic sounds aside, no one can really have anything bad to say about the synth sounds.
The “problem” with the Fantom is that it is now over 6 years old and other than Roland adding a few new sounds and slapping an EX emblem on it and raising its price through the roof ($4,630 (US) for the Fantom 8) – it still has keybed issues, polyphony issues, you can only use certain instruments in one certain zone, you can’t play two different instruments that both need to be played in the same zone, etc., etc., etc.
It either feels like Roland is going to keep beating this dead horse with these small instrument updates – or they are going to release a new iteration of the Fantom in the next few years if they are smart.
I absolutely love the aesthetics of the Fantom (now EX) – to me whoever designed the hardware could almost not have done a better job - aesthetically.
The layout, the lighting, the control knobs, sliders, buttons, etc. – are pretty much all perfect.
Yamaha tried to mimic the aesthetics of the Fantom in the Montage M and failed miserably – where the Fantom looks like a professional, cohesive instrument – the Montage M looks like a bad Lite-Brite or Christmas tree.
To me, on a scale of 1 -10 – aesthetically – the Fantom (EX) would be a 9.5 – and the Montage M would be a 6.5.
And I am one of those who values the way the instrument looks – you just seem to “connect” with an instrument more that you find nice to look at – not to mention want to play more, etc.
Acoustic sounds aside, no one can really have anything bad to say about the synth sounds.
The “problem” with the Fantom is that it is now over 6 years old and other than Roland adding a few new sounds and slapping an EX emblem on it and raising its price through the roof ($4,630 (US) for the Fantom 8) – it still has keybed issues, polyphony issues, you can only use certain instruments in one certain zone, you can’t play two different instruments that both need to be played in the same zone, etc., etc., etc.
It either feels like Roland is going to keep beating this dead horse with these small instrument updates – or they are going to release a new iteration of the Fantom in the next few years if they are smart.