®ÂØÒňΠ™ Workshop The Sounds of the Fantom-X © 2005 Roland Corporation U.S. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of Roland Corporation U.S.
About the Fantom Workshop Booklets About This Booklet The Fantom-X Workshop booklets explain some of the exciting features of Roland’s Fantom-X family of products. Each Workshop booklet covers a single topic, and is intended as a companion to the Fantom-X manuals. In this booklet, we’ll discuss the sounds, or “patches,” of the Fantom-X. We’ll explain how a patch works, and how to quickly get to the patches you want. We’ll also check out some of the exciting built-in Fantom-X sounds, and visit Piano mode.
Selecting Patches on the Fantom-X In this section, we’ll talk about selecting a patch for the Fantom-X keyboard. While there are a few ways to locate a patch you want, the first step is to let the Fantom-X know that it’s a keyboard patch you’re after. Looking for Patches To search for a patch to use, press F1 (Patch List)—a screen like the one shown here appears. Normally you select a patch for the keyboard and a rhythm set for the pads. However, you can turn this around if you like.
Search by Location Press F5 (Patch) to view your patches sorted according to their locations in the Fantom-X’s memory. Viewing patches in banks is handy when a patch’s location— on a memory card or expansion board, for example— makes it easy to find. It’s also a great way to quickly play your samples. Select the desired patch as we described on Page 4. Selecting Favorite Patches The Fantom-X has an even faster way of selecting patches you use over and over.
Add a Patch Directly from the Patch List 1. On the Patch List screen, press F3 (Favorite) to display the Favorite Patch window. Exploring the Fantom-X Patches Now that we’ve discussed the ways in which you can easily get to any of the many patches, we thought we’d point out a few patches that show off the Fantom-X’s range. We recommend finding these patches by category from the Patch List screen for now. Make sure to press F4 (Patch Categ) on the Patch List screen to display patches by musical category.
Realtime Controllers The Fantom-X boasts an assortment of realtime controllers: • • • The Pitch Bend/Modulation lever— Push the lever forward to turn up the current patch’s LFO. Push it left or right to bend the pitch of notes down or up, respectively. The keyboard itself—You can use “aftertouch” to control sounds by pressing down into the keyboard. The REALTIME CONTROL knobs (circled in red below)—By turning the knobs, you can: • adjust a patch’s filter and envelope settings.
Piano mode opens up by default with the Fantom-X’s extraordinary 88-note multisampled piano. You can, if you wish, select other acoustic piano patches, or select an electric piano patch. simulates the way in which a real piano’s strings cause its neighboring strings to vibrate in sympathy, creating a piano’s characteristic resonance. You can set the desired amount of resonance.
You can turn on: • • • • • Tremolo—This effect causes notes to swing side-to-side, left-to-right, as in classic Stage-model electric pianos. Chorus—Chorus adds the shimmering effect so commonly applied to electric pianos. Phaser—Funky electric pianos often use phasing that adds a whooshing swirl to the sound. EQ—EQ allows you to brighten-up or smooth out an electric piano sound to taste. Speaker Simulator—This effect helps recreate the sound of vintage electric piano speakers.
Each tone has its own set of about 90 parameters that determine how its waveforms or samples play. Tones can be set to play together in different ways, resulting in a variety of different sounds from the same basic sonic materials. In addition, there are parameters that control the behavior of the combined sound produced by the patch’s active tones.
Since the Fantom-X can play a whopping 128 voices at once, you’re unlikely to have any problems playing patches in Patch mode. When you’re using multiple patches during recording, however, you may notice notes not playing in passages with lots of dense instrumentation. If this occurs, check the patches you’re using and see if you can live without any of their tones. You can easily see how many voices you’re using at any time.
The TVF Envelope Edit Screen The TVF Envelope Edit screen allows you to automate changes to a tone’s frequency content as a note plays, as described on Page 71 in the Owner’s Manual. The TVA Env Edit Screen The TVA Env—for “Time Variant Amplifier” envelope—Edit screen allows you to automatically shape a tone’s volume as a note plays, as explained on Page 72 in the Owner’s Manual.
The Pro Edit Parameters For detailed editing, the Fantom-X offers Pro Edit mode’s Patch Edit screen, in which all patch-wide and tone-specific parameters are arranged in sections from top to bottom on the display. To move from section to section, press F2 (↓) or F1 (↑). To edit a parameter within the selected section, press 5 or 6 to highlight it and turn VALUE to adjust its setting. To enter Pro Edit mode, press F6 (Pro Edit) on a graphic editing screen.
• CTRL 1, 2, 3, 4—These parameters constitute the patch’s “matrix control” area. Matrix control lets you use a variety of devices, including MIDI messages, to alter patch parameter values as notes play. Each of the four CTRL screens lets you select a controlling device, or “source,” and up to four parameters, or “destinations,” for manipulation. Sources can be controllers transmitted from the REALTIME CONTROL knobs, as explained in the next section.
Initializing a Patch If you’d like to start a patch from total scratch by setting all of the current patch’s parameters to their default values, you can “initialize” it using the Utility menu’s Patch Initialize operation. Don’t worry about running a saved patch by initializing it—you’re only resetting the parameters belonging to a copy of the patch currently in the Fantom-X’s edit memory. You can save this copy to a new memory location as described in “Saving New or Edited Patches” in the next column.
To name a patch: 1. The first character position is underlined, so turn VALUE to select the first character of the patch’s name. 2. Press 4 to move the underline to the next character’s position, and turn VALUE to select the second character. 3. Repeat Step 2 to enter the characters of the patch name you want. As you name the patch, you can: • • • Press F1 (Change Type) repeatedly to jump between upper-case, lower-case and numeric characters.
Group PR-F PR-G PR-H PR-I GM (2) CARD USER SAMPLE CARD SAMPLE XP-A SRX-01 SRX-02 : XP-B SRX-01 SRX-02 : XP-C SRX-01 SRX-02 : XP-D SRX-01 SRX-02 : Number 001-128 001-128 001-128 001-128 001-256 001-256 001-2000 001-7000 001001: 001001: 001001: 001001: Bank Select Program MSB LSB Number 87 69 1-128 87 70 1-128 87 71 1-128 87 72 1-128 121 0-4 (see patch list) 87 32, 33 1-128 64 0-14 1-128 65 0-53; 54 1-128; 1-88 93 0 193 1 1: : : 93 0 193 1 1: : : 93 0 193 1 1: : : 93 0 193 1 1: : : The End We hope you’ve e
