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Click on a topic to jump down to it:
After owning a Roland synth for nearly ten years (the XP50), I decided to update my technology somewhat and buy Roland's new Fantom X6. I did so about a year ago and I've only recently started to make the time to try and learn how it works! It's a beautiful synth, not only in terms of looks, but also engineering and sounds; and it has an enormous amount of features, not least a fabulous full colour screen:
I'm certainly no expert on the Fantom: it's almost a lifetime's study if you want to master all of the synth's features, but in line with my inclination to try and help those who may be following, (see my other pages), I thought I'd start a place where I can post tips, 'how-to-do-this' notes, web links, etc. that I collect during my journey. So, welcome to fellow Fantom fans, and also to those who may be considering buying one - they're luvverly!
Here are two photos of my X6, one from the drum pads end and the other from the, um, other end. There are some great percussion sounds on the Fantom which you can operate with these nice orange velocity-sensitive pads.
The blue light you can see in the left hand shot shows the 'Skip Back Sampling' feature is on. This is useful for those moments when you've been noodling on the keyboard and realise you've made some music you wished you'd recorded. Using this feature, up to the last 40 seconds of activity can be recalled in the form of a sample which can then be replayed and edited.
The build quality of the Fantom is excellent, with the top casing made of a fairly heavy-duty brushed aluminium, and all the controls having a nice positive response. Roland have certainly excelled themselves with the Fantom.
Whether this instrument will suit your needs or not is going to be down to the sounds, and whether they suit the kind of music you want to do. There are 1,408 onboard patches excluding the 256 User-amendable patches which are duplicates, plus 49 drum kits, and you can add additional sounds with up to four of the SRX range of expansion cards which fit beneath a small panel in the bottom of the unit. You can demo all these by visiting the SRX page on the Roland US site; click on one of the cards and then on the button 'SRX Expansion Board demo'.
Architecture - Tones, Patches, Performances One of the first things to appreciate about the Fantom is its overall architecture in terms of sounds. If you've used one of Roland's XP range before then the way things are arranged will be familiar to you. If not, then you need to thoroughly understand it, as it tends to be the source of a lot of confusion amongst new users. Think in terms of a hierarchy of complexity, with Tones at the bottom and Performances at the top. A Tone is the basic waveform the Fantom uses to build sounds, and is basically a sample of any sound, maybe a musical instrument, maybe just a noise. To create a Patch, up to eight of these tones can be layered and these can be made to cross-fade or velocity-switch so the sound changes as you play harder. It's possible to have one Tone in a patch or all eight, but it's worth remembering that the more you use, the less your polyphony. In other words, if you have a number of Tone-rich Patches comprising a Performance they might not all be able to sound at the same time if the music demands it. (This isn't something you're likely to encounter but it's worth being aware of it.) A Patch is the basic level of sound that can be played and saved. As you're probably aware, the Fantom comes with many pre-defined Patches and you can also design and save your own by combining and manipulating tones. When you place the Fantom in Patch mode, by pressing the Patch button, you can only play one Patch at a time. You cannot split or layer other Patches in this mode. If you were accompanying other musicians and you were playing, for example, the piano part in the group then this is the mode you would most likely choose. For ensemble playing, i.e. making the Fantom play more than one instrument part at a time, and/or to use the built in sequencer you must switch to Performance mode. In this mode you can play up to 16 different Patches simultaneously including drums. For this multi-track operation the Fantom has set aside a Performance called Sequencer Template at location User 001. Selecting this as your starting point automatically switches off all layers and splits and assigns each of the Parts inside the Performance to their own discrete receive channels. Press F2 and all 16 Parts and their currently assigned channels can be seen. This is the Performance you should select when your Fantom is hooked up to a PC sequencer like Sonar, etc. where you need a 'plain vanilla' Performance for which you will be selecting Patches and effects levels from that sequencer.
Memory and Data Storage - let's try and clarify
When I first got my Fantom I was confused about how it stored data; how you move data in and out of the synth, and what was permanently stored as opposed to what the user has to store elsewhere before switching off. I think I now understand it. I'll summarise what I've found to be the key issues:
How To 1: Load and play songs when playing live
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
How To 2: Prepare songs in Sonar and transfer them to your Fantom
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
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