J.F.N.

More details here: https://www.gearnews.com/roland-fantom-ex-synths-new-flagships-with-jx-3p-expansion/

Seems to be exactly like that: "Released in November 2023, the $199 EX upgrade for Roland’s Fantom added a handy collection of sound expansions and workflow enhancements to the company’s flagship workstation synth, but was only available as an add-on for existing owners. That’s now changed, as it’s just been announced that new purchasers can now buy the full Fantom EX experience as a complete package."

There seem to be an 88 in the works: https://device.report/arturia/astrolab-88

That actually looks pretty decent, let's hope the quality of the moving parts are keeping up!

It seems like the big companies we already know and use are not really seeing any potential revenue on the iOS platform, and when they try, ime it is always mediocre at best. Being a Studio One user, I tried the tracking apps from Presonus, which both do the job okay of tracking, and then you save and import that into Studio One on your computer. However, they do not even offer MIDI sync or any other way of making the tracker software run together with anything else, which is a huge mystery to me. I've sent them an email about it, if they just add MIDI/MTC, their tracking apps could be very useful, not as a full workflow software, but as an audio multitracker in any other environment.

" The Fantom EX comes 61- 76- and 88-note versions, known as Fantom EX 6, 7 and 8 respectively. These are priced at $3,200, $3,700, $4,200. The smaller models have a semi-weighted keyboard, while the larger one has a hammer action. " https://www.musicradar.com/news/roland-fantom-ex-hardware

We are all (or most of us, depending on where we live) free to do what we want, I believe in a context where song writing is not just a passionate hobby, but the clock is ticking and the customer is expecting delivery, it will for sure be a really welcome workflow tool. Or when you need a bunch of songs quick for meeting up with a talent in a writing session and you're expected to have some great ideas with you already, used right this could definitely be a time saver.

If it does it's a fairly new addition, it definitely didn't do this before IIRC.

The most competent DAW in iOS I found in these regards, and in terms of sync options, is the N-Track, unfortunately I had problems with audio routing on it using interfaces with more than one stereo output pair, ie. making it NOT send out audio on all the output pairs/streams, and other things related to this. In general N-Track is a very competent iOS DAW imho, compared to most of the others available (not tried Logic as mentioned..), you can even set it up to slave under midi clock or MTC, very rare even on computer based platforms! Reason I was looking for this was when using a hardware sequencer, having audio just following while the sequencer is the master and where I control everything.

I've spent a lot of time testing iOS as a platform for running a DAW and unfortunately my final conclusion is that the platform is too unstable for this. Maybe Logic works better (released just after I gave up), but I have tried basically every iOS DAW out there, and they all are buggy or have weird behaviours with hardware integration, plugins crashing, MIDI lagging, etc. I ended up getting a Microsoft Surface Pro and Studio One instead, rock solid and working like a charm!

I've spent a fair amount of time with the Suno AI, totally amazed about what can be done with ML now, my thoughts; - It sucks on lyrics, so does ChatGPT, for obvious reasons, there will be no way to teach these pieces of code the emotional and intellectual experience of good pop lyrics, poetry, etc. as it only mimics based on references. - For now the sound quality is terrible, this will likely improve in short. - It amazes me with the geniality of creating melodies, very well balanced between verse, bridge, chorus etc. and more or less always really strong chorus parts. - The way it build up a song, is definitely competent, yes, most often kinda by the book, but this is what is expected in standard pop/rock etc. - It's impressive with how it build arrangements, and buildups of dynamics etc. and Yes, the sound quality sucks, but as a sketch pad, incredible! - Truly impressive with its cultural awareness, I have played around with Portugues Fado as reference genres, in different variations, and DANG, what comes out is definitely authentic. Conclusion: If I could be bothered writing pop/rock songs, I would definitely use it as a creative inspirational sketch pad, ditch the lyrics, maybe keep the concept ideas of the lyrics but have a human write new lyrics. Then I would simply recreate the song in its entirity in the DAW, as a starting point, and take it from there, and bring in a great real human vocalist for singing. Imagine in a year or three, when someone (FL Studio, Ableton?) uses this kind of generative AI as a guide when starting up the DAW, a new type of music creation workflow, asking questions like; What kind of music would you like to create today? Any specific instruments you want to use? How long should the song be? Is it going to be an instrumental piece or do you need lyrics? if so, do you already have some lyrics that can be used? if not, describe your idea for a story in short. Etc. And then you click "GO" and get the full song, as audio stems and MIDI tracks in the DAW, using virtual instruments, plugins, etc. instead of just generating a finished mix! Go figure.

I am sure the AI services machine learning on music is lots wider and versatile than my narrow listening habits. Set the AI to write ten songs, and me to do the same, then have a copyright team analyze all of it, I'm sure there would be more stuff in my songs busted than in the AIs...

This took about 60-90 seconds for suno to generate, my input was the genres, and the song title... https://cdn1.suno.ai/616f4326-bf48-44bc-9b09-161720f2a89e.mp3

It's preset sound vibe on all if it, just get yourself acquainted with that Triton plug, afaicr there's several hundreds of sounds in it...

If in Europe and red glue problem is fixed, I would potentially be interested... hehe!

It's updated, including a Velocity control for the filter, works great, just fiddling with it here now, this app is a bargain!

And kind of concludes what has been discussed already, if you're an Arturia buff already, it's potentially a great addition, if not, you're up for a huge investment...

I got the Black Hole plugin, it's endless and easy to get lost in, and then bored in the end... also got a bunch of other reverb plugins, way too many, that I swooped up on promotions, but this one is by far my most used one: https://www.eventideaudio.com/plug-ins/sp2016-reverb/ Amazing little gem imho! (On promo fairly frequently...)

Could an AKAI MPC One/Live, or even Key 37/61 handle this? It's not a rompler per se, but it for sure has loads of space for sample libraries to fill that function in a very tailored way, and for sure it meets the rest of the requirements.

Even if I had ridiculous amounts of cash, I would not stoop to the idea of buying old classic synths en masse, as already mentioned several times in the conversation there is a lot of service and maintenance required, and it won't get less with time. I could imagine grabbing a Matrix 12, a Jupiter 6, and a Prophet VS, as those are my all time favorite synths, and there is nothing like them on the market so far, and get them fully renovated and all components up to scratch, then use them a lot to make them stick alive. Though more realistically, my hope is that Uli will do something about this during the next years, please take my credit card!! I don't care about the nostalgia or economical value of them, I just want the machines to play with in their full body of features and sound character, yummmmmy!!!

Yes, grabbing a good old Rhodes would definitely be a more sustainable option, and even if you need to put in some cash for a wizard to get it up to shape, it'd still be leaving you with a nice pile of cash left over to donate to save the world...

Exactly that, same kind of things I do when replicating analog synth sounds on digital machines, adding pitch modulation of some sort in some way, if possible slightly modulating envelope times at certain events, etc. all to try to get the imperfection, the feeling of things not being too static, alive, and as we say indeed, character... For sure the reason round robin was invented, adding a way for samplers to represent real world sounds in a less static way...

Or cash it in and source a Roland A33 / A37 ?

It's a stand-alone version of the Analog Lab virtual instrument more or less, for anyone happy enough with that... Whatever ticks your boxes, I'd never go there, way too much money and estate for what you can achieve with it. I can definitely see it in a fairly strict setting, where things are basically running under show control, "manual" or actual, but for everything in a more dynamic setting, it does feel very limited in terms of user interactions and manual control.

It's definitely impressive, we live in an era that is unparalleled to any time before when it comes to accessibility of great sounding very useful music gear, lovely time to be a creative soul!