roland Fantom XR Rack User reviews -Page 1

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Average rating: 3.2 out of 5

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jw dalton a professional user from ireland writes:

fantom xr is full of great sounds but to get there you have to do a lot and i mean a lot of editing which thankfully is quite easy to do on xr after taking a while to get the lay of the land. piano, strings brass and organ sounds on xr are far more realistic than the triton extreme of which i have one as well, but the extreme sounds are just so much better processed and punchier, xr can sound a bit thin. the programming team at roland are quite simply not bothering to programme, they are leaving it up to the individual. dont get me wrong the xr is way ahead of triton extreme for recording as sounds are more authentic if you have the time in the studio to do the tweaking, and i cant imagine anyone using too many of the acoustic sounds on the triton extreme for recording, but who wants to waste time tweaking and editing? sounds should be there when you select presets. for live work triton is the way to go, sounds just cut through so much better for studio xr can sound so much more like the instument you are trying to mimic

Rating: 3 out of 5 posted Monday-Aug-06-077 at 21:24

jw dalton a professional user from ireland writes:

Rating: 3 out of 5 posted Monday-Aug-06-077 at 21:20

Will Bill a professional user from USA writes:

My friend just bought the Roland Fantom XR rack the other day so I decided to go and give it a test run. After about 2 weeks of composing R&B and Hip Hop tracks with it... I've decided to save my money and stick with the Yamaha Motif. The Fantom is a typical Roland synth... the sounds are bright and thin... I can't combine the sounds with the Motif because the Motif's sound engine surpasses Rolands. Bottom line. Tip for Roland sound programmers: Try making thick, muddy and raw sounds instead of sooo much 'rave' and 'techno' sounds. Not all of us compose that type of music.

Rating: 2 out of 5 posted Friday-May-13-055 at 13:59

zz top zz a professional user from singapore writes:

Just had a motif es, awesome though, but would like to own one of the fantom xr. Heard a lot about it... sigh...cant wait. Shipment not in singapore yet..

Rating: 3 out of 5 posted Wednesday-Apr-06-055 at 22:34

Ron Wilson a professional user from USA writes:

I've owned everything from a MiniMoog on up and the Fantom XR - like every synth, has its good points and bad.

First of all - don't even THINK of doing any serious sound editing from the miniscule LCD display on this unit. Although you can access all the parameters without a computer (unlike the MotifES) but it is a royal PITA because the display is so small and there are only a few buttons on the module.

It is unfortunate when someone plays with a FantomXR in a store and then comes to the conclusion that it's nearly impossible to edit. This simply is not the case - if you use a computer for editing it's a snap to get any sound you want.... really, are you going to do live sound editing on a rack unit?? If you need tweekability in a live situation, get a keyboard version. IMNSHO - the Windows software that comes with the Fantom is excellent, if you have even a basic understanding of synths, you can do whatever you want with the Roland software without even looking at the manual - Yamaha, pay attention here.

OK, on to the sounds - which is what we're really interested in with a rack unit anyway. Tons and Tons of every sound you could want. The Roland doesn't sound as clean and precise as the Motif - but it does sound more "real" than either the Motif or the Triton. The analog synth sounds on the FantomXR are killer, phatttt city. The Hammonds have too much key-click for my liking and this really stands out if I layer the Fantom with my Triton or Motif. Rhodes sounds are some of the finest I have ever heard, period. Sax and brass sound very, very realistic - more so than my other boards. If there is a downside to the sounds on the XR it would be the strings - which to me sound grainy and flat - so much so that I won't even use them. And, as you should expect, the Fantom sounds like a Roland.

I would not really consider this a techno or a dance keyboard....... can you say "Virus"?? But it is an excellent rompler with an unbelievable amount of room for expansion boards and sampling to boot. Nice - even right out of the box.

I don't care about or have a need for a dozen simultaneous effects busses. Maybe you do, and that might be something to consider. But I have come to the point where I could care less about specs, bits and bytes, and having a bunch of "extras" that I will never use anyway. But that's my personal taste in sounds.

If I had to have only ONE synth, it would not be the Roland..... The Yamaha sounds the cleanest for studio use, the Korgs sound the best for cutting through in a live situation and the Fantom is somewhere in-between.

Bottom line - Virtually every "signature" Roland sound you ever wanted, all in a 1 space rack.

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Saturday-Nov-20-044 at 17:38

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