Roland Fantom G Sound List

[Maribeth Seagers]

UPDATESWhen Roland released the next-generation FANTOM in September 2019, it was just the beginning of a programme of continuous development to ensure we keep fulfilling the ever-changing needs and expectations of our customers. With over 50 significant new features added to date, FANTOM continues to define the music composition platform arena. Our commitment continues.

In 2001, the original Roland Fantom was heralded as a new breed of workstation. It had a large graphic LCD and centralized control of its many different functions. This 76-key workstation featured professional quality sounds from the XV-5080 which had the highest performance sound generator of its time and a wide range of realtime performance functions. It boasted an expandable sound engine and digital outputs and at the time had everything you could ever want in a workstation keyboard.

Now, ten years later, we enter a new era in FANTOM evolution. FANTOM is a new kind of creative hub, made for quick and straight forward music making and musically expressive performances. Inspiring onboard production tools and deep computer integration give you an experience that feels intuitive, natural, and full of possibilities. The expandable sound engine delivers our best electronic and acoustic sounds, with the depth and control to combine and shape them in exciting new ways. FANTOM is the fastest way to turn inspiration into creation.

The new FANTOMs are instruments begging to be played and with so many ways to control the sound, and create new ones, first experiences can be a little overwhelming. How do I access the find the sounds I want? What is multi-sampling? What are Scenes? Where are the Zen-Core sounds and for that matter, what is Zen-Core?

TRANSPOSE. If you hold down the TRANSPOSE button you can use the OCTAVE [DOWN] [UP] buttons to raise or lower the pitch range in semitone steps. If you just press the OCTAVE [DOWN] [UP] buttons you can raise or lower the pitch range in octave steps.

Last but not least. the S1 and S2 buttons can have various parameters or functions assigned to them.If you hold down the [SHIFT] button and press one of these buttons, it will access a screen that lets you assign different functions of your choosing.

With ASSIGN1 and ASSIGN2, you have freedom to choose what the sliders and knobs do for your FANTOM. ASSIGN1 assigns parameters that you set for a scene, and ASSIGN2 assigns parameters that you edit in system settings. Hold down the [SHIFT] button and press one of these buttons to access a screen that lets you assign a function. Holding down [SHIFT] is a consistent function throughout most Roland gear and a quick and easy way to access the parameters you need to change!

The S3 button can have various parameters or functions can be assigned to it. Again, just hold down the [SHIFT] button and press it to access a screen that lets you assign a function.

The [SPLIT/KEY RANGE] button turns the split function on/off. If you hold down the [SHIFT] button and press this button, the key range setting screen appears. As an example this is super handy way to assign a bass sound to the left hand side of the keyboard and an electric piano sound to the right hand side of the keyboard!

The buttons numbered 1 though 8 positioned just above the eight faders are the ZONE INT/EXT buttons. These can have different options and will present these options via different coloured lights. They specify whether the applicable zone does sound or does not sound when you play the keyboard. In conjunction with the current zone, this determines how the internal sound engine (external sound module) produces sound. The best way to understand this is to refer to this chart below.

Of course there is also the buttons and one slider here for the USB Audio. If you press the [USB AUDIO SELECT] button, the USB AUDIO setting screen appears. The [USB AUDIO IN/OUT] button switches the function of the USB AUDIO slider between input and output, or turns the USB AUDIO function off and of course the slider is for USB levels, both input and output.

[MASTER FX] button causes the MASTER FX screen to appear and if you hold down the [SHIFT] button and press this button, the MASTER EQ editing screen appears.

The knobs below the screen modify the functions or parameter values that are shown in the screen and are sometimes user programmable. Pressing a knob has the same result as a button operation but sometimes also shows alternative functions.

The other buttons on the right here are for selecting Tempo (tip, you can set the tempo by tapping this button) [DEC] [INC] buttons for changing values, (tip, if you press one of these buttons while holding down the other, the value changes more rapidly. If you press one of these buttons while holding down the [SHIFT] button, the value changes more greatly.) and cursor, EXIT and ENTER buttons, as well as the VALUE dial are all fairly self explanatory.

By pressing the [SCENE SELECT] button you can select different scenes. The [SCENE CHAIN] button lets you recall scenes in a specified order and there will be more on this in a seperate chapter.

Then at the bottom is the [SINGLE TONE] button which when pressed, recalls a piano sound to zone 1. and the other zones are turned off. NOTE! When you press this button, unsaved scene settings are lost.

The OSC Oscillator section is where you can choose different oscillator types using the TYPE button, change settings related to the oscillator with the VALUE knob and access the TONE EDIT ZOOM screen with the PARAM button where you can access the oscillators settings.

In the FILTER section, you have the knobs for adjusting the filters cutoff frequency and the amount of resonance affecting the filter. There is a button to select what type of filter you want as well as the PARAM button, which accesses the FILTER setting screen of the TONE EDIT ZOOM screen.

The PARAM button takes you straight to the TONE EDIT screen where you can see these parameters and in fact manipulate the ADSR settings by touching and dragging on the multitouch screen.

Above these buttons are the usual STOP, PLAY and RECORD buttons as well as other buttons for Sequencer and Song Pattern management which will be covered in depth in the Sequencer Chapter. RHYTHM PATTERN is also found here to bring up the screen for selecting different drum and percussion patterns.

The last front panel section for discussion here is the PAD section. The pads here are initially for playing samples stored in the FANTOM but in fact serve many different purposes which we will cover later in this article.

The [HOLD] button turns hold on/off when you are triggering samples from the pads, allowing the sound to continue even after you release the pad. The [BANK] button switches the pad bank. The [CLIP BOARD] button lets you move or copy a sample from one pad to another.

The [PAD MODE] button is very important for the PADS themselves as it gives you many options from choosing and muting oscillators when programming new sounds to controlling Logic on an external computer!

Again, if you press the ASSIGN 1 or ASSIGN 2 buttons, then you can turn one of the knobs or move one of the sliders to activate the assign screen and assign one of the menu select parameters to the knob or slider you choose!

Please note, only use the specified expression pedal as some other brands have a different polarity which means the pedal will actually work in reverse, not what you want and you risk causing problems.

You can store an idea for a song or phrase as a scene, and manage scenes by switching them for each song and you can easily recall saved scenes in the SCENE SELECT screen that appears after startup. As a point of interest, when FANTOM is shipped, the Orange scenes are performance patches that normally have a number of layers with effects playing at the same time. The Yellow Scenes have sequence clips data in them, so press play on the sequencer and you will here a short four bar phrase. Then there is the Purple and Blue scenes. These are complete songs, so press the play button and sit back and listen while FANTOM performs for you.

There are different types of Tones. ZEN-Core, which produces the sound of an individual instrument like a synth, Drums, Supernatural Sounds and V-Piano. V-Piano tones can only be used in Zone 1.

The ZEN-Core engine is made of up to four oscillators or what Roland calls partials. They are called this because each partial can be either a virtual analogue oscillator, i.e. a saw wave, a mono or stereo PCM file, or now since version 2.0 a sample or even a multi-sample. A tone consists of the combination of the ZEN-Core sound engine and effects (MFX+EQ).

To play a tone, you assign it to a zone. For each zone, you can specify whether it is connected to the keyboard, and make settings such as its key range, volume, pan, and controller reception.

There are 16 zones; by combining zones you can create sounds that consist of multiple tones, or create specific performance settings for each song. You can also use specific zones to control an external sound module (EXT ZONE) instead of the internal sound engine.

There is four types of Zone view displays. The active Zone by itself, a four zone view, an eight zone view and finally all sixteen zones. Each time you press the [ZONE VIEW] button, the VIEW number (the number of zones shown simultaneously) alternates through the cycle, just like this following graphic.

NOTE. Zones whose ZONE INT/EXT button is lit green are controlling an external MIDI sound module. To switch to the internal sound engine, once again hold down the [SHIFT] button and press the corresponding ZONE INT/EXT button to make the button light red (INT setting).

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