As always, Roland is slow with updates to the OS, and they seldomly listen to users (the gripes mentioned above were reported thousands of times to the manufacturer).

I recently made a decision to trade in my Motif 7 for a Roland Fantom X8, so I will be gigging with two Fantoms. I love this instrument and I recommend it to anyone that knows the basics about programming. If you are not afraid to read a manual, go for a Fantom X.

As stated before, the piano sounds are tiny, which makes for an unsatisfying playing experience, but lets the sounds sit extremely well in a mix. You will hardly need any EQ or compression to make it fit, so to speak. As a stand-alone workstation it really is awesome, but although it was nice of Roland to include USB, its implementation is clumsy at best. You have to switch between MIDI and data-transfer mode, which is manageable (although it does mean that you have to close and restart your DAW everytime you switch back to MIDI), but you also have to unplug and reconnect the bloody cable everytime you do. Also, other manufacturers have added far more comprehensive interfacing with computer-based DAW's, Roland's USB port does midi and...well, you can transfer audio and data to and fro, but this temporarily turns off all other functionality of the Fantom. So far, to my knowledge Roland has not improved any of the live-functionality or addressed any of the issues I pointed out in my previous reviews. So it's still cumbersome to use live, but in spite of all these complaints, I have sort of learned to live with them, and now I really do appreciate the versatility and quality of the sounds on offer. I still prefer them over Yamaha's Motif or Korg's Triton, although the former wins on points for features and functionality and the latter scores on playability. But the Fantom's rich and detailed sound characteristics give it an edge all of its own.