Roland’s acclaimed Fantom-X keyboards—the X6, X7, and X8—set the bar pretty high when it comes to workstations, and are a huge success, with close to 20,000 sold. The newest members of the Fantom family, the Fantom G6, G7, and G8, raise that bar even higher. They’ve got a huge number of amazing new sounds, a jaw-dropping display, and are packed with innovative features musicians have been longing for.

Patch Remain, Live Mode, and Live Sets

One of the most exciting new features, Patch Remain, allows users to switch between one sound and another onstage without silence or glitching in-between. The first sound’s notes and effects finish perfectly as the second sound takes center stage.

You’ll notice I’m using the word “sound” here instead of “patch.” There’s a reason for this. When you’re using a Fantom-G onstage, you’ll be using it in the new Live mode, where you play “live sets,” not patches. The difference between a live set and a patch? A patch is a single sound and its effect—logically enough, you play patches in the Fantom-G’s Single mode. In Live mode, you can use up to eight patches at once, split and/or layered any way you like. That’s a live set. And with the Fantom-G’s awesome effects-processing horsepower, each of those patches has its own effect. That’s eight full-on effects at a time—plus a shared reverb and chorus! No wonder the Fantom-G live sets are so rich.

This makes the new Patch Remain feature even more astounding—it doesn’t just let you switch seamlessly from one patch to another: It lets you go from one live set of eight patches with their eight effects to another live set of eight patches and effects. That’s sheer muscle, and a feature performing musicians have been waiting for since the dawn of workstation effects.

Deeply Effecting

Speaking of effects, when you sequence on the Fantom-G, you can have up to 16 internal patches with their own effects, plus an additional pair of multi-effects, a reverb and a chorus. Add in the mastering effect and input effect, and you’ve got 22 effects at once. But really, there’s more. Each optional ARX SuperNATURAL™ expansion board you install has its own patch effect, pair of multi-effects, chorus, and reverb. Since you can install two ARX boards, well, let’s just say, that’s a lot of effects, and a real breakthrough for workstation sequencers.

On the Face of It

Before we get much further, we’ve got to talk about what it’s like to work on the Fantom-G. Front-and-center, of course, is the Fantom-G’s full-color LCD display. There’s simply never been anything like it in a keyboard workstation. It’s huge, and provides lots of helpful information for the task at hand. It’s bright and clear in any playing situation. And if you’ve got a USB scroll-wheel mouse, plug it right in—the icon-driven display is ideal for mousing. No matter how you like to work, getting around on the Fantom-G is a breeze.

The DYNAMIC PADS section of the Fantom-G also makes a huge leap forward from its Fantom predecessors. You’ve always been able to play drum sounds and rhythms from the pads on a Fantom, and you still can. But now you can do a lot more. You can instantly select Favorite sounds from the pads—a heaven-send in performance—play samples, arpeggios, and RPS (Realtime Phrase Sequence) phrases. You can also mute parts, select tracks, and much more. You can set the pads’s behavior globally, or to do different things depending on the currently selected live set, patch, or studio set.

We also have to mention the eight assignable faders and four assignable knobs that give you so much realtime over your sounds. And really, could there be a more convenient way to mix patches in a Live set or sequencer tracks than to just grab their faders? Speaking of realtime action, the Fantom-G retains the D Beam controller you expect to find on a Fantom.

Sounds, Sounds, and More Sounds

The Fantom-G sound set is spectacular, especially in Live mode. With twice as much built-in raw waveform data as the Fantom-X, the Fantom-G ships with over 1600 patches and over 500 live sets to get you started. Also new to the Fantom-G are the ARX SuperNATURAL expansion boards we mentioned earlier. This amazing new Roland technology incorporates modeling and other high-tech wizardry to provide some of the most realistic, user-customizable sounds ever. Each ARX board specializes in a particular type of sound. So far, there’s ARX 01-DRUMS and ARX-02 ELECTRIC PIANO, with more ARX magic on the way.

The Fantom-G Sequencer, and More on Studio Mode

The Fantom-G workstations have a brand-new sequencer, too, designed from scratch for the G. To begin with, you can have up to 152 tracks in each song, with 128 MIDI tracks and 24 audio tracks. Use the tracks for internal sounds, ARX sounds, or outboard MIDI instruments. In addition, the sequencer is phrase-based, making editing and song construction easier than ever, especially with a connected mouse.

Quality Interface Time

The Fantom-G can act as a key performer in a computer-DAW-based studio. Since the Fantom-G can stream audio via USB to a connected computer—and has mic, guitar, and line inputs—you can use it as an audio interface for your computer-based-DAW. Of course, you can also digitally send its sounds into a DAW via USB for recording, and also use it as a killer MIDI controller when you’re sequencing DAW tracks.

Yes, There’s More

There’s really just not enough room here to list every new and exciting Fantom-G feature, or even to list all of the traditional Fantom tools in the G that musicians have come to rely on. Check out the Fantom G6, G7, or G8 web page, and then get over to a local Roland dealer for some serious hands-on time. The Fantom-G keyboard workstation is a knockout.