Recording - April 2010 - 28

Roland Fantom-G Fantoms have always had the four “tone” 2009 issue’s review of the Roland synth system, but never anything like the Korg engine inside the Cakewalk SONAR VCombination presets. The Fantom-G has Studio 700.) The level of detail can be a changed that with the new Live Sets. blessing to someone who just wants that With up to eight layers playing simulta- little bit of extra control and realism that neously with all multi-effects inserts intact, typical static samples don’t have. it’s an eargasm waiting to happen and For me personally, the biggest problem they switch seamlessly when you change with these boards for me is that the interthem, so you don’t cut off sustaining nal sounds of the Fantom-G are already notes or effect tails when calling up a so good. So in a sense, Roland is directnew Live Set! ly competing with itself. If “good” is tonecrafting as some others might be. It’s While the unit ships with 512 Live good enough, the internal sounds will worth noting that the ARX boards aren’t Presets, only (!) a good 300 of them are serve you well. But then I’m not as inter- just more or better samples; each board layered or split in this fashion. The other ested in in-depth electric piano or brass has its own internal processor and syn200 or so are dedicated to havthesis engine, so their level of ing entire categories of presets The Fantom Synthesis Engine programmability is intense. For Each preset, called a Patch, starts with a total of four slots example, the ARX-03 has a cusready to flip through, but not activated and ready to play. The called Tones, in “Roland-speak.” For each Tone source, tomizable auto-voicing section Live Set feature is something called the Wave Generator (WG), we can sync phrased for brass ensemble playing. that’s easy to miss, but really loops to tempo, do frequency cross modulation, delay the There’s a lot under the hood brings the total of ‘presets’ to tone playback in several ways, and modify pitch via veloci- for the connoisseur who wants roughly 2000 in the box. This ty or keyboard playing position. the “best of the best” and wants The Time Variant Filter (TVF) offers six filter types; three vari- to be able to tweak an electric was easily my favorite new feaations of low-pass, a high-pass, a band-pass, and a peaking piano or demands to have the ture on the Fantom-G. As I’ve come to expect from filter. Cutoff and resonance controls for the filter are provided, subtle variations in the sound of Roland, the sounds are top qual- as well as various filter envelope manipulation methods that brass instruments in ways that’s ity. With 256 MB of samples, can be affected by key playing positions and velocity. not possible with mere samThe Time Variant Amplitude (TVA) section provides the ples. If you have the need for and nearly 2000 solid patches, it’s kind of hard not to find what standard four part ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) ultimate depth, the ARX boards you’re looking for. Overall, it’s a envelope for amplitude levels. Other features include seven are awesome. uniformly satisfying experience; velocity playing curves to choose from, sensitivity and Bias great leads, punchy and boomy level (volume) based on key playing position, and panning Conclusion The Roland Fantom-G defines basses, an excellent selection of of the audio based on key playing position. SC provides two LFOs per Tone and a total of 12 LFO shapes what a quality keyboard workacoustic instruments that sound really good in their own right (sine, saw, square, etc.) along with a 16-part step sequencer. station is all about. It truly is the (but certainly not in competition Beyond the requisite rate and depth controls, it’s possible to workstation to end all workstawith a multi-Gigabyte library), control the offset of the phase, delay the start time based on key tions. With the quality-built following, and adjust the LFOs’ fade in or out time. keybed and controls, oodles of and so much more. Finally, global parameters include level, panning, pitch tun- quality sounds, inbred samWhat’s different this time around is the standard patches ing, analog “feel”, legato, portamento, as well as setting off- pling ability, large easy to read really didn’t employ a variety of sets for cutoff, resonance, attack and release times that group display, and so much more in enhancements dissimilar sound layers. For all four tones together, but leave the relative values for each performance that I didn’t even get a chance example, pianos were pianos, tone intact. SC has a semi-modular routing structure with 10 ‘fixed’ to cover, I could easily write and hardly anything more. This is certainly a departure from the Patch Structure variations. It’s possible to do something as whole releases with this keylast two decades of patch pro- simple as pass the tone (WG) to the filter (TVF) then to the board alone. gramming by Roland; they have amplitude envelope (TVA). More complex routings include left that for the Live Set presets, such configurations as routing the WG into a ring modula- Price: Fantom-G6/7/8 where it’s easy to get as crazy tor, and then passing the signal through the two filters seri- (61/76/88 keys), $2699/3499/4099; as you want. Just keep that in ally then to a final amp envelope.—DB ARX boards, $529 each mind as you surf through the multitude of sound cateMore from: Roland US, gories. www.rolandus.com. The ARX SuperNATURAL expansion boards Devon Brent (devon@recordingmag.com) Roland was kind enough to is a musician, recording throw in two of the three available engineer, and murderer of audio PCs, ARX boards in my shipping carton; living and working in Jacksonville, FL. the ARX-02 Electric Keyboards and Much as he enjoys plug-ins, he’s thrilled to ARX-03 Brass. (John Rossi III looked at be playing real keys this time around. the ARX-01 Drum board in the NovemberRECORDING APRIL 2010

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Recording - April 2010

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