RolandFANTOM 8 Synthesizer (FANTOM-08)

This is the 3rd synth I have owned. The last one I bought 25 years ago. The technology has come a very very long way since my last synth. Everything is much better integrated with a computer than before, and works right out of the box.I had some time on my hand and decided to get back into piano/synths. This is what I bought. Weight keys and full 88 of them was one of my prime features request. The keys feel excellent. It is much easier to get the synth to communicate with computers than my historic experience, but it did take a bit to figure things all out.There are multiple hundred of pages of PDF manuals that come with this. They are a bit terse to wad through them all, but worth it. Just a testament to the shear power of this synth. Add to that, the DAW I decided to purchase has 800 pages as well. Basic Integration with Ableton live was easy. Some of the more detailed integration with the DAW are a bit deep in the manuals and only really obscured by the fact that there is so much detail being learned all at once.I reached out to tech support several times now, mostly on issues of clarification, not hardware issues. The response time was very fast, and very well done and friendly. They assigned a personal support agent. So I got to deal with the same agent every time I made a support request. Support was via email. The agent screen grabbed and highlighted relevant sections of manuals and provided written clarifications where needed.The Zenlogy VST that is offered with a subscription to Roland Cloud is extremally powerful and complementary to the synth engine (zencore) built into the fantom and other Roland products The Zenology pro version, provides a full large scale, on computer, editable implementation of the zencore engine internal to the fantom zero. Results are transferable to the Fantom. In many ways Zenology is easier to use because its on a computer screen and not lots of paging need like on the synth. There is an advantage to working directly on the Fantom and that is there are insert effects available and other features not found in the Zenlogy vst, but 99% are available either way you work. That being said, everything is available between software and hardware, just depends on your studio workflow.As a comparison, the Fantom does have additional features over the Fantom zero. The obvious upside of the Fantom zero vs. the Fantom series is it is more affordable. (gezz Roland could you make your naming convention any more confusing?) Also the weight of the fantom zero is light enough be make this series very portable for gigs. I am not a gig musician but check out he spec difference between the series.The biggest downside of the Fantom zero is there is only 256 Mb of memory for use with tones compared to the Fantom having 4x that I believe. This is not a serious problem if you also have Zenology pro (mentioned above) as you can have as many tones as you want that fit in your computer storage and just transfer over what you might need at only a slight inconvenience cost.The Fantom zero is an extremally powerful music engine and especially powerful when coupled with a computer, but is perfectly capable of being a stand alone song development workstation if that is what you desire.

I purchased the 08 over other models and brands to use for musicals and recordings. I chose this one for the sole reason of how the keys feel and their functionality. The action is close to an upright, and I love that the keys don’t feel like plastic.The sound is great, but keep in mind you’ll need either headphones or an external monitor to get sound out of it.Seeing as this line is cheaper than the standard Roland X line, it’s such an amazing price for what you’re getting. Portable, I’m able to take it to shows, and can fit in a compact car with the seats down.

Unboxed product. Plugged it in and nothing. No sound. Tried headphones, monitor speakers. Reread all manuals pertaining to setup and outputs. Still nada. Disappointment doesn’t even cover it. Like returning the key on a new Ferrari and it doesn’t start. :-(

There's simply no other workstation on the market with this much power and features at this price range.