Toughts on the Fantom S
8 Nov 2004, 18:00Greetings everyone. I'm a brand new member of this board and I'm very happy to see a nice Fantom community (no pun). Nice board btw, just a bit on the slow side, but hey, it's free 
I got a Fantom S for a good price now the the X and XA are out. I owned a few keyboards in the past from a Roland JV series to the Yamaha CS2x, Korg N1R module and used a few soft synths also. With those keyboards I was able to make semi-professional songs. The quality of the instruments was not good enough to create any kind of Top quality pop, hiphop song. Which is why I concentrated on Techno/trance/dance music. That kind of music my CS2x could handle no problem and sound pretty professional.
With that said, I've owned my Fantom S for about a week now. I've spent a good number of hours on it already and learned most of it's important features already, thanks the the nice Manual from Roland, this board (reading the tips and shortcuts from users) and the Roland seminars.
Needless to say I'm still in shock at the Fantom's features and quality. The number of timesaving features is outstanding. I'm already comfortable making fairly complex sequences and looping samples and using them in the sequence etc...
One thing I like to do when I first get a new Keyboard is make a cover of a song. That's the real test. To see if you can come close to imitating popular songs without using samples as much as possible. With my other keyboards, I had to chalk it up to having to poor acoustic instruments and limited sound mastering options.
I made a cover for the hiphop song by Juvenile "slow motion"
I love the guitar riff and the beat is very smooth. Well I got it pretty damn close on my Fantom without any sampling. I made some adjustments with the effects to get the Organ and guitar just right. I'd like to post them if anyone's interested.
I also made a cover for the song Lindsay Lohan "Rumors"
That song rocks if you ask me, very catchy beat and new sounds, lots of effects...little details make that song great. I got that one pretty close too. I'll get my sister to sing on it and watch out Lindsay, you'll have competition coming. The effects you can put on the inputs is insane !!!
I love the sampling ability of this keyboard from sampling internally and keeping everything digital by sending data to my computer and burning it. To the quality of the outputs and inputsm Bravo Roland ! The 64 note polyphony is enough for most tracks in my case, I can always sample and loop, it's so easy with the Fantom.
I listened to the songs in the Download section and was impressed by a song in particular : Fly2 very nice sound choice. But why did you put the drum volume so low ? I Cranked it up to max and I find the song sounds so much better now
And pianodick I love your song BFP. I'm not a big fan of that style of music. But that violin riff is HAUNTING lol. I love it and want to use it in one my projects. I like the piano backup that goes with it too. I cranked up the BPM to 100, I like it much better at that speed, it's got more groove at that speed.
I got a Fantom S for a good price now the the X and XA are out. I owned a few keyboards in the past from a Roland JV series to the Yamaha CS2x, Korg N1R module and used a few soft synths also. With those keyboards I was able to make semi-professional songs. The quality of the instruments was not good enough to create any kind of Top quality pop, hiphop song. Which is why I concentrated on Techno/trance/dance music. That kind of music my CS2x could handle no problem and sound pretty professional.
With that said, I've owned my Fantom S for about a week now. I've spent a good number of hours on it already and learned most of it's important features already, thanks the the nice Manual from Roland, this board (reading the tips and shortcuts from users) and the Roland seminars.
Needless to say I'm still in shock at the Fantom's features and quality. The number of timesaving features is outstanding. I'm already comfortable making fairly complex sequences and looping samples and using them in the sequence etc...
One thing I like to do when I first get a new Keyboard is make a cover of a song. That's the real test. To see if you can come close to imitating popular songs without using samples as much as possible. With my other keyboards, I had to chalk it up to having to poor acoustic instruments and limited sound mastering options.
I made a cover for the hiphop song by Juvenile "slow motion"
I love the guitar riff and the beat is very smooth. Well I got it pretty damn close on my Fantom without any sampling. I made some adjustments with the effects to get the Organ and guitar just right. I'd like to post them if anyone's interested.
I also made a cover for the song Lindsay Lohan "Rumors"
That song rocks if you ask me, very catchy beat and new sounds, lots of effects...little details make that song great. I got that one pretty close too. I'll get my sister to sing on it and watch out Lindsay, you'll have competition coming. The effects you can put on the inputs is insane !!!
I love the sampling ability of this keyboard from sampling internally and keeping everything digital by sending data to my computer and burning it. To the quality of the outputs and inputsm Bravo Roland ! The 64 note polyphony is enough for most tracks in my case, I can always sample and loop, it's so easy with the Fantom.
I listened to the songs in the Download section and was impressed by a song in particular : Fly2 very nice sound choice. But why did you put the drum volume so low ? I Cranked it up to max and I find the song sounds so much better now
And pianodick I love your song BFP. I'm not a big fan of that style of music. But that violin riff is HAUNTING lol. I love it and want to use it in one my projects. I like the piano backup that goes with it too. I cranked up the BPM to 100, I like it much better at that speed, it's got more groove at that speed.