New Roland Fantom Keyboards

[fablues]

Hi guys,

I own a Fantom XR, whitch I play via a midi router capable of 8 zones.
I am interested in the new fantom workstations and I have some technical question, if any of you could kindly answer.

> Is it possible, in each single zone, to set and save the midi routing (Fantom playing internal sounds, or Fantom playing external device, or external keyboard playing Fantom sounds) having different setting in the same scene according to the zone?

> I suppose there are control switch to on/off zones. It would be possible to assign a switch so that I could switch on some deactivated zones and switch off some active zones with one touch?

Thank you.

fablues
(Italy)

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Welcome, @fablues! I don't know the answers to your questions, but hopefully someone else has some knowledge of this.

 

[b3maniac]

Welcome to the forums. If you have a contact number for Roland in Europe, it might be a good idea to give them a phone call for the technical questions on the newer products. Don aka B3

 

[Biggles]

Welcome.

You may also get answers over at the rolandclan forum.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

I had a look at the manuals for the Fantom, which I recommend that you download for more information.

> Is it possible, in each single zone, to set and save the midi routing (Fantom playing internal sounds, or Fantom playing external device, or external keyboard playing Fantom sounds) having different setting in the same scene according to the zone?

Page 22 of the Owner's Manual says the following:

By setting a specific zone to "EXT," you can use that zone for controlling an external MIDI device.

• You can make detailed settings in ZONE EDIT (p.14).
• The settings you make can be saved as scene settings. "Saving a Scene" (p.15)

From this I take it that any of the 16 zones can be set to control an external MIDI sound source. I didn't include it in the above quotes, but there's a table on page 22 which indicates that a given zone can be set to one of four options: (1) the zone controls both the internal and external sound engines at the same time; (2) the zone controls only the internal sound engine; (3) the zone controls only an external sound engine; and (4) the zone is muted.

> I suppose there are control switch to on/off zones. It would be possible to assign a switch so that I could switch on some deactivated zones and switch off some active zones with one touch?

I'm not sure about that, as I haven't examined the manuals beyond a cursory search for the information about controlling external devices. However, I would think that you can switch between zones using the panel controls, and that hopefully you can also switch between scenes using the panel controls. So I would think that you can either toggle zones on or off within a scene, or switch to a different scene in which specific zones are toggled on or off as desired.

But you should study the manuals yourself, and contact Roland for answers to specific technical questions.

 

[fablues]

Thank you all.
I contacted Roland Italy, they provided me with a couple of music store locations in my area, where I'll be able to see and try the keyboards.

 

[b3maniac]

Excellent ! Have fun !