News from Roland: Fantom 06/07/08

[AnotherScott]

21 minutes ago, miden said:

head to user banks higher up...double tap the User button then you need to go to page 115 and they start at #1779 (well it does on the 88 after OS update to 1.01) Not sure if the new update does anything but thought I'd mention it

Ah, so you're saying it is normal that User sounds 1779 and up come from the factory pre-filled. Thanks. Yes that's what I was seeing, and I was surprised to see sounds there. There was other evidence that this was not "factory fresh" and I wondered if that might have been another example. Guess not!

[llatham]

Oops wrong video. Sorry.

 

[stgermain]

Just received the Fantom -06, using as a top board over my NordStage 3 as a nice light combination.

 

Enjoying the sounds so far, action is quite usable in my opinion.

 

One question to anyone else who has one, I'm trying to get the Fantom to send Program changes to the Nord. I have tried using one of the Zones for external sources and have configure the correct Program change messages, however this means the Fantom plays the sound from the Nord, which is what I don't want.

 

Am I missing anything?

[llatham]

5 minutes ago, stgermain said:

Just received the Fantom -06, using as a top board over my NordStage 3 as a nice light combination.

 

Enjoying the sounds so far, action is quite usable in my opinion.

 

One question to anyone else who has one, I'm trying to get the Fantom to send Program changes to the Nord. I have tried using one of the Zones for external sources and have configure the correct Program change messages, however this means the Fantom plays the sound from the Nord, which is what I don't want.

 

Am I missing anything?

If you hook up a MIDI cable directly from the Fantom-06 to the Nord, the Note messages are going to go from the Fantom-06 to the Nord and play its sounds.

 

You need to filter on one of of the devices so it only sends the PC messages, or only receives PC messages, and not also sends/receive the Note messages.

 

 

[AnotherScott]

9 minutes ago, stgermain said:

One question to anyone else who has one, I'm trying to get the Fantom to send Program changes to the Nord. I have tried using one of the Zones for external sources and have configure the correct Program change messages, however this means the Fantom plays the sound from the Nord, which is what I don't want.

An easy way to have a Scene send a Program Change to an attached device without actually subsequently playing that attached device from the Fantom's keys should be to define the zone to play only in a key range that is far outside the range of the 61 (or 76 or 88) playable keys on the Fantom.

[stgermain]

Excellent, AnotherScott!

 

Thank you, that's it, seems obvious when I think about it.

 

This also leaves me the ability to still control the volume of the Nord from the Fantom which is useful.

 

There will be times I will be wanting to play Nord hammond sound from Fantom, not had a chance to look closely at Fantoms organ sound as yet.

 

Thanks again

[miden]

One thing I think WILL be annoying is the limit to the Scenes..max of 512, and while that does sound a lot, consider when an user creates many song based scenes as well as generic scenes...they will run out very quickly. And yet there are a "gazillion" user sound slots?? Most of which will never get used...well not by me anyway

 

I know that up to 16 parts can be set in a scene, however when using external keys it can become an issue, for example unless the Fantom zone "focus" is on the zone of say, the organ, then the controls on the Fantom have no effect. EG rotary control...and of course if you switch the focus to the organ zone so that the Fantom based controllers work, the Fantom keybed as well as the external keybed play the same sound. Mind you you it was exactly the same with Korg and Yamaha in this area.

 

So of course this means an external controller playing the organ cannot have its CC Mod Wheel control the rotary. The only workaround I have found (and it still does not fix the rotary control device issue) is to set the key range to G9-G9 on zone 2 (organ) and then have both zones selected to play.

 

And yet another niggle, what do Roland have set to the Mod wheel when in VTW mode? It does this ridiculous huge pitch change down to the sound disappearing and when reversed the sound bends all the way back up again??? Come on Roland how about the standard mod wheel settings, exhibited on pretty much all the synths I have played and that is - Mod wheel set to Off Rotary=slow, Middle position Rotary=off and in Full on, rotary=fast? In factory condition only the paddle controller can be used for rotary...I'd really NOT have to go and edit every VTW on it to use the standard (well I think it's pretty standard) organ setup.

 

[miden]

Seems the Fantom works very similar to the Kurzweils in that when in a scene, you want to add, say, just a tad of delay to a zone sound,  - you HAVE to save a new sound to retain those changes. IE they are not tied to the scene, rather tied to the tone...it's why, I guess, there are so many user tone slots...add a slight change to a tone in a scene, you need to save it as new tone!

 

Under Scene and Zone Edit functions, there are no MFX or IFX editing options - seems it is all done at tone level...Master EFX of course are editable for a scene but limited to Rev and Chorus.

[CEB]

Anyone here with an 07 oy 06 that has played the FA-06?  I need a hands on assessment from a neutral minded source.  Thanks.

[miden]

46 minutes ago, CEB said:

Anyone here with an 07 oy 06 that has played the FA-06?  I need a hands on assessment from a neutral minded source.  Thanks.

 

 

haha we're all "neutral minded"

[nadroj]

3 hours ago, miden said:

One thing I think WILL be annoying is the limit to the Scenes..max of 512, and while that does sound a lot, consider when an user creates many song based scenes as well as generic scenes...they will run out very quickly. And yet there are a "gazillion" user sound slots?? Most of which will never get used...well not by me anyway

 

I know that up to 16 parts can be set in a scene, however when using external keys it can become an issue, for example unless the Fantom zone "focus" is on the zone of say, the organ, then the controls on the Fantom have no effect. EG rotary control...and of course if you switch the focus to the organ zone so that the Fantom based controllers work, the Fantom keybed as well as the external keybed play the same sound. Mind you you it was exactly the same with Korg and Yamaha in this area.

 

So of course this means an external controller playing the organ cannot have its CC Mod Wheel control the rotary. The only workaround I have found (and it still does not fix the rotary control device issue) is to set the key range to G9-G9 on zone 2 (organ) and then have both zones selected to play.

 

And yet another niggle, what do Roland have set to the Mod wheel when in VTW mode? It does this ridiculous huge pitch change down to the sound disappearing and when reversed the sound bends all the way back up again??? Come on Roland how about the standard mod wheel settings, exhibited on pretty much all the synths I have played and that is - Mod wheel set to Off Rotary=slow, Middle position Rotary=off and in Full on, rotary=fast? In factory condition only the paddle controller can be used for rotary...I'd really NOT have to go and edit every VTW on it to use the standard (well I think it's pretty standard) organ setup.

 

I mean if you’re using bread and butter sounds for a lot of songs (eg. Piano, organ, EP, clav, synth pad, lead, etc) you can save all of those individual sounds to one scene and switch between them when needed. Even if you need different split combinations with the same sounds, you can use the performance part pad setting to create different combinations (splits/layers) of all of those sounds - in one scene. I did this in my FA, and the result was that for almost half of the gig I was in one scene. The rest of the scenes were used for specific sounds and combinations. In a band with a 50 song setlist, as well as all of the other projects I worked with, I never came close to using even 50 scenes - you can cram enough usability and flexibility into one scene to carry you a long way.
 

And IIRC the mod wheel organ thing - that’s replicating cutting the power to the organ, which would create a dive bomb/pitch bend effect on a real tonewheel (organ players please correct me if wrong). Not sure how often organists actually did that in the real world, but I think Roland are trying to get brownie points by showing that they’ve thought of that. The Roland Paddle (the other pitch bend stick) is set to rotary toggle, which feels much more natural, like a half moon switch, than the mod wheel does. 

[nadroj]

On 3/31/2022 at 11:42 PM, AnotherScott said:

I just picked up a Fantom-07, we'll see whether I keep it. The thing that persuaded me was the Rhythm Pattern feature, with its pre-defined easily selectable intro/outro/verse/chorus/fill/variation stuff while (hopefully) being able to easily change the sounds I'm manually playing, with the goal of possibly being able to use it instead of the Korg PA1000 for gigs where I'm providing drum rhythms. The instant appeal is in having 76 keys in 15.4 lbs (compared to 61 keys in 23.7 lbs). Related, if I'm providing the drums, there's a good chance I'm doing LH bass. The PA1000 is one of the best 61s for LH bass, because the front panel octave button can switch just the RH sound while leaving your bass section as is, but that's still not as good as having 76 keys, where you're less likely to have to do octave jumping in the right hand in the first place.

 

Other potential advantages over the PA1000 in the rig (as a "second board") include more real-time controls, VA synth functions, more MIDI flexibility, more split/layer functionality, better organ. (I don't necessarily need all these things, especially depending on what else I'm pairing the board with, but it's nice to have the options.) Both boards have some nice modeled behaviors (SuperNATURAL Acoustic tones in the Roland, DNC in the Korg). The Korg has a big advantage in having aftertouch, and its speakers sometimes come in handy, too. So, pros and cons, as always.

 

(Side note that I also sometimes use the Kurzweil PC4-7 when I need drum tracks. It works okay, but it's just one beat for the whole song. If there is a way to use front panel buttons to switch to different patterns for verses, chorus, fills, endings, etc., I'm not aware of it. And so far, when I've done it, I've played the LH bass on another board, I haven't figured out how to do it all at once on the Kurz. I'm posting another thread about that.)

 

Initial impressions:

 

...As Miden and Sean have said, the action is indeed, well, uninspiring. I think it's workable, but to compare it to its more typical competition, I'd say it's not as good as that of the MODX7, which in turn is not as good as that of the PC4-7.

 

...It's interface was more confusing than I'd expected it to be. One important thing to know that you wouldn't know by looking at the controls, if you're trying one out somewhere, is that double-clicking a button is often essential in being able to get where you're trying to go. (Also, shift-clicking it.)

 

...while I do like some of the SuperNATURAL behavioral attributes, as a whole, I don't think acoustic instrument emulations are generally as good as those in the PC4-7 or MODX7, or the PA1000. At least so far. I have more exploring to do.

 

...I ran into some note stealing and weird sounds when playing with one of the Scenes, A-004 Brass+Sax on the first page. I'll need to get back to this and see what's going on.

 

Question: For those who have one, are there any sounds pre-loaded in the User bank, from pages 116-128? I've already determined that my box was not a factory-new unit, and I suspect that the fact that my User bank has a bunch of sounds there is, I suspect, more evidence that this had been used as some kind of demo unit. I would have expected these locations to be empty. Are these empty of full on your units?

 

 

I think that's largely because the VR series have numerous effects dedicated to the organ sound, whereas the organ in the FA seemed kind of shoe-horned into the minimal effects-per-sound capabilities of the FA. So the FA struggled to do a decent simultaneous rotary and overdrive effect, and omitted simultaneous chorus/vibrato altogether. But even though the new Fantoms have inherited what is basically the one-insert-effect-per-part architecture of the FA, they seem to have special-cased the tonewheel engine so that it overcomes those limitations. (The additional resources required may be related to the fact that the tonewheel organ is the only Fantom-0 sound that is not available with seamless sound transitions.)

 

From the video Charleston posted, it's actually 64 samples (4 banks of 16 samples that can be associated with the 16 pads). 

 

 

The good news... YES, while the drums are playing, you can easily select ANY tone you want for another part. Also good news... each screen can have up to 20 sounds to choose from (compared to 8 on the PA1000, and 9 or 10 on the PC4-7, though again on the Kurz, I haven't yet found a way to play multiple parts with the drums). Also, the star rating system lets you easily assemble a couple of screens that will have all the sounds you're likely to need. The bad news... there is no seamless transitions when changing from one of these sounds to another. On the Korg and the Kurzweil, I can generally make these changes seamlessly.

 

But if you can keep the number of sounds you need to switch among down to 15 (perhaps occasionally swapping some out for some others, or saving some different combinations of 15), you can place them in different Zones within the Scene, and then you can switch among them seamlessly... though in that case, I haven't yet seen if I can keep the bass going and just switch the RH part.

 

 

Yup. Another initial frustration... walking up to the board and trying to find a sound that used the tonewheel organ engine. The manual doesn't specifically tell you how to do it, either. But I found it. I have not yet come across any obvious way to control the ninth drawbar from a front panel control, only by going to the screen with the organ graphic. (Which again, was something that took me a while to figure out how to get to.)

 

 

Yes, it has that function. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp1FuZhTeQs

 

 

Scott, you’ve often talked about the playability of the PC4-7 in very positive terms. Would you say that that’s one area the Kurzweil trumps the Roland in? 
 

Also, does the Kurzweil fall far behind the Roland in terms of ease of use? Assuming the sequencer/ DAW integration between the two isn’t worth comparing.

[AnotherScott]

17 hours ago, CEB said:

Anyone here with an 07 oy 06 that has played the FA-06?  I need a hands on assessment from a neutral minded source.  Thanks.

I've got the Fantom-07 and while I never played the FA-06, I've played the DS61 which has the same action as the FA-06. They don't feel worlds apart. The Fantom-0 keys are about a quarter inch longer, which is good, but the landing seems bit mushier, which isn't. No difference in weighting that I can perceive, and Sweetwater calls it a synth action, and Roland's site does not say semi-weighted, so it is probably indeed an unweighted action, just like the DS61/FA-06 in that respect. It also gets stiffer toward the rear of the keys, just as those actions do.The amount of pushback feels about the same... more than on the MODX7 or PC4-7, not as much as the Nord and Kurzweil models that people sometimes knock for feeling too heavily sprung.

 

20 hours ago, miden said:

And yet another niggle, what do Roland have set to the Mod wheel when in VTW mode? It does this ridiculous huge pitch change down to the sound disappearing and when reversed the sound bends all the way back up again???

Nadroj is correct, that replicates the behavior of hitting the power switch while playing the real thing. It was occasionally used for dramatic effect, to drop the pitch and immediately bring it back up. It probably wasn't very good for the motor, though. Still, slightly more musical than that even more useless behavior that is sometimes emulated, banging the spring reverb. IIRC, you can duplicate that effect on the VR-09 with the d-beam. It's somewhat poetic, to use the most useless thing on one keyboard to emulate the most useless thing on another.

 

16 hours ago, nadroj said:

Scott, you’ve often talked about the playability of the PC4-7 in very positive terms. Would you say that that’s one area the Kurzweil trumps the Roland in? 

Absolutely. I enjoy playing the PC4-7 keys (even despite their getting too stiff at the rear). I'd describe the Roland's keys as serviceable.

 

16 hours ago, nadroj said:

Also, does the Kurzweil fall far behind the Roland in terms of ease of use? 

The Roland is not as intuitive to use as I'd expected, but in the end, yeah, I think Roland will still end up with a significant advantage in ease of use.

 

16 hours ago, nadroj said:

Assuming the sequencer/ DAW integration between the two isn’t worth comparing.

I don't use sequencer or DAW stuff so I don't have much insight there, though the Kurz has a "traditional" linear sequencer, and Roland does not (having joined Yamaha in moving away from that functionality, now only available in their FA, for as long as that's around). 

 

Though I guess the rhythm pattern features are kind of sequencer related, and I'm finding that to be a nice Roland advantage.

 

[pawelsz]

Any comparison of new Fantom-0 keybed to FA-07 keybed or Juno-DS76 keybed? 

[miden]

16 hours ago, nadroj said:

I mean if you’re using bread and butter sounds for a lot of songs (eg. Piano, organ, EP, clav, synth pad, lead, etc) you can save all of those individual sounds to one scene and switch between them when needed. Even if you need different split combinations with the same sounds, you can use the performance part pad setting to create different combinations (splits/layers) of all of those sounds - in one scene. I did this in my FA, and the result was that for almost half of the gig I was in one scene. The rest of the scenes were used for specific sounds and combinations. In a band with a 50 song setlist, as well as all of the other projects I worked with, I never came close to using even 50 scenes - you can cram enough usability and flexibility into one scene to carry you a long way.

 

haha I have a LOT more than 50 - more like about 450 in the current rotating song roster...that is split between three bands and a solo show. Each one having a different playlist. I still maintain that 512 could have been a tad better....it may yet work out to be ok.

 

I have already experimented with setting several pianos, for EG, in one scene and it is awkward tbh, and I still need to investigate selecting a zone within a scene via midi. Pads are set to rhythm ptn, and from what I can tell, that then negates the use of the rest of the pads outside the top six being used for rhythm part. The pads cannot be selectively set to different operations.

[Sean M. H.]

11 hours ago, pawelsz said:

Any comparison of new Fantom-0 keybed to FA-07 keybed or Juno-DS76 keybed? 

 

The Fantom feels lighter and cheaper than the FA-07, and is not as enjoyable to play for me.  Now, in Roland’s defense, they called the FA-07 semiweighted, while this is billed as synth action...so it's not apples to apple and I guess I shouldn't have expected it to feel as nice. 

 

I've still yet to pull out both boards at the same time to compare them.  Once I do that, perhaps I could tell you more specifically what the difference is--beyond just "lighter"...but the most telling difference I can tell you about my experience with the two boards is that I am actually THINKING about the action when I play the Fantom...as in noticing how light it is and wondering how it's effecting my playing...I don't recall ever THINKING about the action on the FA-07...From the beginning, I just started playing it and it felt fine.

 

Of course, YMMV...and I don't think others are struggling with the action to the degree that I am.  Still hoping I can get used to it, because, in most other ways, this board is about as close to perfect as I can find right now for a second/top board for my needs.

[llatham]

On 4/1/2022 at 4:34 PM, miden said:

 when in a scene, you want to add, say, just a tad of delay to a zone sound,  - you HAVE to save a new sound to retain those changes. IE they are not tied to the scene, rather tied to the tone...

Thanks for this. So it's no different than the FA unfortunately.

 

I know I could save them as tones, but it's like, I don't want to have to, do I don't, and complain about it instead 🙂

 

I find organ sounds all the time I like, but by default are set to the rotary fast, and pushing up the mod makes it slow - opposite of what I like

 

So you have to go in and edit the tone and save the new tone with the Rotary reversed. It's ridiculously annoying.

 

At this point, unless the Fantom-06 doesn't have the back keys sending velocity of 127 so much easier than the white keys (and better velocity curves overall) there's really nothing that I need that would be worth taking the hit on the FA-06 on trade in 'cause you know they're not going to be fair on that...

 

 

 

[Sean M. H.]

So, I finally had my FA-07 and Fantom 07 in the same room at the same time...as my fingers suspected, the Fantom keys are in fact smaller than the FA.  The white keys on the Fantom measure roughly 5 & 5/16" in length...while the FA keys measure about 5 & 1/2"...so about a 1/4" difference.   The black keys are similarly scaled smaller on the Fantom. 

 

With that said, I am not noticing the black key issue that llatham and others are asking about.  At least with the internal sounds (haven't hooked it up to a DAW yet--which is why I haven't replied to the other thread about the topic), I have not noticed an issue where the black keys trigger too easily or respond louder than the white keys.

 

So...it's like they took the FA-06 keys--that is very lightweight action and smaller key size compared to the FA-07--and fixed the responsiveness issues for these new Fantoms.  As you can tell from my previous comments, I would still prefer the key size and weight of the FA-07...but at least I can say this new action is not outright defective, the way it seems like the FA-06 may have been (from what you guys are saying--I've never played that one)

[Lazerlike42]

I've asked this in a large number of places so I'm going to sound like a broken record to those who frequent a few different forums, but I notice that here in particular there are a larger number of folks who actually own a Fantom-0 so I'll ask here:

I'd really appreciate it if someone could confirm or refute the claim that the SN pianos on the Fantom-0s(/Fantoms) have any kind of string or sympathetic resonance. The manuals seem to suggest they don't and I can't find positive evidence for it in any videos I've discovered anywhere, but it seems like it would be a remarkable omission and I've had a Roland rep tell me that they do have it and that it's editable - though I am wondering if he answered too quickly and had in mind the V-Pianos. 

 

Unfortunately I have no opportunity to try one of these first hand so I can only ask around! 

 

[pawelsz]

1 hour ago, Sean M. H. said:

So, I finally had my FA-07 and Fantom 07 in the same room at the same time...as my fingers suspected, the Fantom keys are in fact smaller than the FA.  The white keys on the Fantom measure roughly 5 & 5/16" in length...while the FA keys measure about 5 & 1/2"...so about a 1/4" difference.   The black keys are similarly scaled smaller on the Fantom. 

 

With that said, I am not noticing the black key issue that llatham and others are asking about.  At least with the internal sounds (haven't hooked it up to a DAW yet--which is why I haven't replied to the other thread about the topic), I have not noticed an issue where the black keys trigger too easily or respond louder than the white keys.

 

So...it's like they took the FA-06 keys--that is very lightweight action and smaller key size compared to the FA-07--and fixed the responsiveness issues for these new Fantoms.  As you can tell from my previous comments, I would have rather seen them just keep the action from the FA-07...but at least I can't say this new action is outright defective the way it seems like the FA-06 was (from what you guys are saying--I've never played that one)

 

About the size, it's pretty much the conclusion I made by comparing the photos from Roland website, but I was not sure about that 1/4". So my method was pretty accurate  . I think that 1/4" difference in keys length is not a problem for playability. About the weighting, from what you say, the new keybed could be easier to play faster runs like mono lead solos, coud be also more comfortable when the board is placed on the top tier of a stand. I have had FA-06, then FA-07 when it came out. Action of FA-07 was noticeably "firmer" (by being more springy, particularly black keys) than 06, which makes FA-07 pretty decent to playing electric piano or even acoustic piano parts on it. And it was very comfortable to play as the bottom board in 2-board rig or just as a single board. A bit lighter springs don't mean the action will be bad... The combination of less springy action with the proper size of the keys (I mean octave width) may be the perfect compromise for most uf us! Maybe also me  

I am still looking forward to JUNO-DS successor. Now they can use same keybed in JUNO series.

[Benis67]

Roland "Wave and SuperNATURAL Expansion": compressed and 16-bit linear formats

If  you are interested in learning more about how Roland uses and manages  the expansions that contain the various multisamples, I have tried to  clarify a bit. How is it possible to upload 900MB of samples into 256MB  Flash? What has changed since the U-110 / U-220 expansions, from the  JD-800 to the Fantom? This and much more in the following link 🙂

http://www.benis.it/cm/blog/RolandCompress_ENG.htm

[MathOfInsects]

If the action and keys are the same as or worse than the FA-0X, this moves back into the non-starter category for me.

[AnotherScott]

10 hours ago, Sean M. H. said:

So, I finally had my FA-07 and Fantom 07 in the same room at the same time...as my fingers suspected, the Fantom keys are in fact smaller than the FA

...

it's like they took the FA-06 keys--that is very lightweight action and smaller key size compared to the FA-07

Between your measurements and mine, it sounds like the Fantom-07 keys are shorter than those in the FA-07, but still longer than those in the FA-06/DS61/VR09.

 

1 hour ago, MathOfInsects said:

If the action and keys are the same as or worse than the FA-0X, this moves back into the non-starter category for me.

I think it varies with which Fantom-0 you're looking at.

 

Fantom-07 appears to have lesser action than FA-07.

 

But Fantom-08 uses the improved PHA-4 action compared to the Ivory Feel G in the FA-08.

 

Assuming Fantom-06 has the same action as Fantom-07, it would not seem to be very different from what was in the FA-06, though the keys are a bit longer.

 

So when we compare Fantom-0 to FA actions, I think we end up with one that's better, one that's worse, and one that's about the same.

[miden]

Probably just found the "deal-killer" - well for me at least...not to mention the few other "niggles" I have with it which I was sorta prepared to compromise on (and they are noted elsewhere in the thread) but I just discovered that the Rhythm Pattern thing, only has slots for 20 user patterns. There are 60 factory ones, most of which are not really useable, and mostly naff....but ONLY 20 user slots? Nah...this unit could be going back I feel.

[MathOfInsects]

I don't want to pile on to a board I've never laid a finger on, or a company whose products I have used throughout my career, but I have to say: I so often wonder about how Roland market tests its products. There are so many little elements that seem antithetical to how "real people" interact with their instruments. The "yes-yes-are you sure" pattern on the FA for example, which goes "right button-right button-LEFT button" for no perceivable reason. Just let me hit the button and save the sound or studio set, don't make me read the options so I'm on top of it when you arbitrarily switch which one is the "good" button.

And indicate for me if I've never saved the latest tweak to a studio set. Flash an annoying light or something.

And stop dropping me in the middle of a studio set just because that's where my cursor was the last time I saved that set. Time after time I call up a studio set and end up playing some idiosyncratic patch that I'd stuck at the end of it some time in the past, just because that was the most recent thing I did before saving. Start me at the top, in the order I put together myself, and let me scroll to the patch I need, which is in the place I put it.

And give me one-button navigation to the "name" level of the studio set, so that if I want to go to the next one, I don't have to sit there going "up up up up up up up" with the cursor" to get there, which I only know I have to do after spinning the wheel and mistakenly changing whatever patch I was on, which--another thing--I didn't know because there is essentially no difference in appearance between the selected item and any other item. Make it dummy-proof obvious what is selected.

And light up the nav arrows. We play in the dark, it's kind of our thing.

And for crying out loud, fix the action. Except for the RD-2000, which is from God, who is their action for? The synths are too somehow stiff and flimsy at the same time (tied to where the contacts are I assume), and how do you keep introducing boards without aftertouch in the mid-pro price range? I get they have had some without it, but a new board? 

And why would you tier the boards so that the action improves with the number of keys? That doesn't make sense to me. I know that's not just Roland, but because their lower-tier action is so crappy, it feels more severe with them. A 61-key board isn't just a "cheaper" 73/76-key board, it's the literal size of the board I need for that job. So let me upgrade to the action that works best; don't downmarket me because I didn't buy a larger board than I need. 

Etc. So many odd decisions that would seem completely obvious the first time a player touched the board in the field.

 

[TomKittel]

Here is another Fantom 0 deal killer: the synth expansions are NOT free of charge as they are with the original Fantom. JP8, JX8P, Juno106 and SH101 would set you back 600 bucks plus taxes. This plus the lower-grade keybed puts the lower price for the Fantom 0 in a different light. 

In addition, you can not sell the expansions, should you want to sell the Fantom 0 some day. You are stuck with these licenses forever, no matter if you still own the instrument or not. The Roland Cloud licensing policy is ridiculous. I wish a journalist like Stephen Fortner would address this issue which definitely is a case for consumer protection. 

[ABECK]

Makes sense  - they need to differentiate their price points.  It's a fair compromise.

[Sean M. H.]

1 hour ago, TomKittel said:

Here is another Fantom 0 deal killer: the synth expansions are NOT free of charge as they are with the original Fantom. JP8, JX8P, Juno106 and SH101 would set you back 600 bucks plus taxes. This plus the lower-grade keybed puts the lower price for the Fantom 0 in a different light. 

In addition, you can not sell the expansions, should you want to sell the Fantom 0 some day. You are stuck with these licenses forever, no matter if you still own the instrument or not. The Roland Cloud licensing policy is ridiculous. I wish a journalist like Stephen Fortner would address this issue which definitely is a case for consumer protection. 

 

Good to know...but personally, I had no real desire to add these instruments, so it's not a deal-breaker for me.  I'd also agree with ABECK that it's a fair compromise to differentiate the product line.  Think about it this way: even if I did want these expansions in my Fantom 07 and dropped $600 on them,  I'd still end up roughly $1200 cheaper than a full-fledged Fantom 7...so I can't really fault Roland for this*

 

*I'm speaking only of charging for the expansions...not defending the licensing issues or the business ethics of the subscription model.

[miden]

....and to follow on from Sean - from what I have heard and seen, a lot of that stuff on the expansions can already be done on the 0 series with a bit of tweaking...IE there is nothing really earth-shattering about what's there, jmo  

Certainly nothing worth $150.

[nadroj]

That’s what has always annoyed me with Roland. They fit great features into keyboards that are just impractical or unfun to play. I agree with MOI, but their market research/play testing teams need to get their fingers out and speak to real people. Even their 88 key’s behemoths with beautiful actions are cumbersome and ergonomically difficult to work with outside of the home. 
 

which is a shame because on paper their boards slay.