-tre

I DO have several complaints about it though: what's with the cheap build quality ? I'm not just picking on Roland as all the big 3 manufacturers are guilty of this. If I'm paying a couple thousand $ for an instrument, it should feel rock solid. Hell, I could drop my old Prophet or Yamaha CS20 off the roof of a building and they'd still work fine, but these new keyboards seem like they're all nothing but cheap plastic. At least stick some wooden or rubber end pieces on them ! The front panel buttons don't feel very solid either. There are not enough pedal jacks---one switch and one control pedal don't come close to being sufficient, especially considering the cost of the unit--our Motif gives more professional options. Most sounds are great but the Fantom is way lacking in usable organ patches and the strings could use some work--it seems like Roland is trying to make up for sub-standard string samples by drenching them in effects. I have the advantage of being able to do head-to-head comparisons with a Motif and Fantom in our studio, and the Roland sounds better in alot of categories, except for the previously mentioned strings and organ patches. The only other gripe that I have is that the pad sensitivity, although improved over the Fantom S, still needs some work.

Overall, this is an excellent sounding synth with a very friendly user interface. I LOVE playing and programming the Fantom X, but for God's sake Roland, improve the build quality enough to make it feel like it's not going to break in half if I sneeze on it !

So the bottom line is don't be fooled by The color Screen and pads before you purchase one listen to the sounds and by the way the effect processers on there do absolutly nothing at all just a big waste of time using the Roland Fantom was a realy Depressing experience.