You would think if the Roland G workstation has a built-in sequencer of 128 tracks (24 audio) not to mention the LARGE screen display released in 2008, Yamaha is still providing us with only 16 tracks and this is 2010 soon 2011,.....mmm...I wonder what the next roland fantom workstation specs will be,...motif xf is still a great workstation, but I don’t know how a buyer will overlook these specs, I guess they have a different target group they’re marketing the XF too…

How are those 128 tracks working for you?

Indulge - 20 August 2010 06:30 PM

I wonder what the next roland fantom workstation specs will be,…

I just talked with roland representative and the next fantom GF will have back 16 tracks since 128 were way too many and users got confused. The true is if you can’t make a hit with 16 tracks you won’t make it with 128.

128 tracks with 128 polyphony? Seriously?

What is this? 1 note per track?

Funny thing is, with most of my instrumental songs, I rarely use more than 12 tracks.

16 tracks have worked pretty well for me with my ES8, but I do have to say 32 tracks would be better. Why? That would allow me to put individual drums on its own track and get a better mix, or at least make it easier to get a better mix.

What I have been doing is setting a velocity low enough in each track at the start of a song so that when I want the more subtle voices to be louder in certain section of a song, its easier to accomplish if the bass drum is set at a velocity of 50 instead of at 80 or 90 at the beginning of the song. That way sounds like tambourine could have a velocity of over 100 in sections of a song where you want it to stand out more. Obviously, the bass drum and snare are naturally “louder” than a tambourine. You have to do more planning when yous start from scratch with a song so you have a higher velocity to work with in sections of a song where individual instruments need to be louder.

Where you can run into a shortage of tracks is where you have the drums on 8 or more tracks, and use 4 or 5 different guitar voices in a song to get the right sound for a song. That doesn’t leave a lot of extra tracks to record the other parts. That said, not all tracks are continuous throughout every song. I use PC to change voices on a track as well as CC for track volume as well as the expression pedal to vary the volume for different instruments on the same track. It is more tedious, but it can be done.

I would like 32 tracks so it takes less time to mix songs and give me more tracks to vary the sounds of the same instrument(s) like guitar parts for classic rock songs.

Cheers,

Mike T.

I use cubase with over 28 channels sometimes it controls 01V96V2 a table, a tc electronic VoiceWorks plus two multieffectos boss se50 and se70 and table lamps with midi dmx. I’ve read that the Fantom g can control your tracks external midi devices. I think that would be the usefulness of many tracks. Meanwhile to use all my equipment and I still need cubase pc.
Greetings.

Bad_Mister - 20 August 2010 06:58 PM

How are those 128 tracks working for you?

I would love to hear some songs from all those complaining that this or that workstation doesn’t have enough RAM, ROM, tracks, FX, waveforms, etc.

I really would.

delirium - 20 August 2010 07:20 PM

Indulge - 20 August 2010 06:30 PM

I wonder what the next roland fantom workstation specs will be,…

I just talked with roland representative and the next fantom GF will have back 16 tracks since 128 were way too many and users got confused. The true is if you can’t make a hit with 16 tracks you won’t make it with 128.

I heard it is named Fantom GK
GK only has 10 keys because most users have same amount of fingers.

Solution - laptop running Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, Sonar, or Digital
Performer.

It’s 2010, people. You have the solutions available to you.

I understant that for some 16 is adequate but not all of us would agree, I mean if you have all your drum sounds set to different channels lets say its around 10 that leaves you with 6 chanels left, these could easily be eaten up by bass piano synth strings etc, and then you wanna add special effect sounds or embellish your tracks with small sections to have variations and keep the interest alive.....16 just ain’t gonna do it, I think 16 lets you do the major sounds, and then you’re gonna have to dump it in your computer and only then can you make it pretty with additional tracks...which is not bad, I mean we all got pc nowadays but.....you get the point...I agree that too much music is overwhelming and doesnt leave room for the vocals, but its the little things that you wanna add here and there that would have you use additional tracks...I dont think going from 16 to 24 tracks is asking yamaha too much, it really isnt, I dont think its gonna affect the cost of the motif either, its more of a software programing issue than a hardware, instead of programing the motif with 16...do it with 24 tracks for God sake!! yeah yeah I get it, I gotta buy your cubase and that firewire option of yours.......okay smart.

DavePolich - 21 August 2010 03:18 PM

It’s 2010, people. You have the solutions available to you.

you people?

LOL

@indulge,
With the Sequencer limitations that some FG owners complain about, it is not strange to see lots of MIDI tracks on the beast, but if they are all useful ? well...all depends…

I own a Fantom X and I’ve never used it’s Sequencer for serious work, only to sequence passes from the X itself...always used a DAW for the whole thing.

Anyway, each one has its own workflow…

Cheers,
PauloF

Regarding the 128 MIDI Tracks on Fantom-G....

You have to note that it’s 128 MIDI Tracks, not 128 MIDI Parts…

There are 16 internal MIDI Parts, 2 ARX Parts, and 16 External MIDI parts.... Right there you need at least 34 MIDI Tracks if you want all parts on separate tracks.

The powerful feature in Fantom-G is it’s 16 dedicated external parts… That means you don’t have to sacrifice an internal part if you want to use an external sound module.

The 128 MIDI tracks are very useful......  You can put different patterns on different tracks, even playing on the same parts… You can put automation in midi phrases on different tracks for different parts… You can work with the track automations as separate midi object and move them around, mute.. etc.. try different combinations… So 128 MIDI tracks are really good…

The issue is the fact the sequencer functions are missing.. you can’t slice or combine two midi phrases easily.... that’s the major hurdle…

And the other issue is that all phrases for all songs are saved in same folder… so data management is really really bad..

Other than that… Fantom-G is the go to workstation/master controller.... specially those external MIDI PARTS is very convenient feature.