New workstation: Roland Fantom 06/07/08

The Lounge Other Gear
#62

The MPC has a better build quality and a better keybed, and is more for the people seeking some sort of modern ASR-10, and of course it’s more flexible regarding effects and routing.

The Fantom-06 in my opinion is a better workstation, and better stage keyboard despite having an inferior keybed because it has a ROM, thus changing presets doesn’t incur some sort of long blank unlike for the MPC and Fabric XL. The Fantom 06 also has a better sampling engine with more settings, doesn’t have the instrument plugin limitation the MPC has because subtractive synthesis is completely integrated with the regular patch engine, the Fantom 06 has more controls, a much more modern sequencer with an actual step-rec mode which the MPC lacks, and of course it has MIDI clips for jamming which the MPC key lacks.

Finally, the Fantom 06 has audio over USB, which means the musician can track out each track directly to a DAW, the MPC can’t do that. The MPC can’t even do USB MIDI without some network driver…

To me it’s not even up for debate, the Fantom 06 is a better workstation than the MPC key, because the MPC key wasn’t designed from the ground up as a modern workstation, it’s just a MPC Live with a keyboard attached to it and you can’t even have the pads control 1 instrument and the key control a separate instrument independently, they will play the same selected track (or performance but I shouldn’t have to set up a performance to do such basic thing). No problem via MIDI out with a remote keyboard though…

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#63

You have completely changed my mind, thanks for the analytical takedown. Now I’ve got Fantom GAS again. Would be cool if there was a Fantom Module with the sequencer retained, but probably too much product overlap with the MCs.

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#64

Maybe look into a Roland Integra as a module for the MPC. Has all the supernatural stuff and all Roland Expansions in it though you can only load four of them at the same time…. It 16x multitimbral still

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#65

Agreed. I even find editing individual notes with the touch screen completely awkward. Unfortunately, there is also no stylus that works with the Fantom-0. I’ve already tried four or five pens for capacitive touch displays, without success.

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#66

Are you saying the MPC Keys has a better keybed because of aftertouch? I actually find the Fantom 06 keybed to be very, very good. It’s quiet, well dampened, with very little key wobble. It has a perfect resistance for fast synth leads with an action that’s close to fatar but a tad lighter.

For reference, I prefer it to the keybed on the Digitone Keys, which is a fatar. The only keybed I’ve tried that I like more is the original DX7, Fantom 6, Matriarch and Montage.

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