Roland Fantom-G manual

1 © 2008 Roland Corpora tion U.S. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be r eproduced in any f orm without the written permission of Roland Corpor ation U .S. FGWS01 The Fantom-G Possibilities ®ÂØÒňΠ® W or k sho p Fantom-G W orkstation Keyboard[...]

2 About the Workshop Booklets Roland’ s F antom G6, G7, and G8—the F antom-G family—set a new standard for excellenc e in workstation keyboards, with spectacular sounds and incredible built-in effect-processing muscle. A beautiful full-color LCD display and innovative performance features make getting around a pleasure and make the G6, G7, an[...]

3 Hold It T o add a sustain pedal to the F antom-G, connect a damper pedal such as a Roland DP-2 or DP-10 to the rear-panel HOLD jack. Now Hear This F or this book let, you can listen to your G through headphones connected to the PHONES jack , or by connecting the jacks to an mix er , interface, or amplifier attached to speakers. Control Issues Whi[...]

4 The V alue Dial and Cursor Buttons In the W orkshop booklets, we refer to the up , down, left, and right cursor buttons as the 5 , 6 , 3 , and 4 buttons. T o navigate the F antom-G’ s display from the front-panel—which is to say, not using a mouse —you work with the cursor buttons and the Value dial: Y ou select something on the display usi[...]

5 Exploring the F antom-G Sounds Live Mode and Live Sets The F antom-G is more than anything else about Live mode, where you can select “live sets. ” A live set is a combination of eight patches, rhythm sets, or sample sets , along with their patch effects, or • “PFX”— from the Fant om-G’ s internal memory. up to two ARX patches— ?[...]

6 PRST 001:System G Let’ s begin with the first live set the F antom- G displays when you power up: PRST 001: System G. This live set does more than just show off the great sound of the F antom-G—it also show s y ou how you can split and layer patches in a live set. (If S ystem G isn’t already selected , use the pr evious steps to selec t it [...]

7 PRST 003:Within Y ou Within Y ou pr ovides a gr oup of instruments for playing Indian music. It shows the creativ e ways in which you can split your keyboard. First of all, we’ ve got something new here: Part 8 is playing a rhythm set, as shown in the T ype column. This gives Within Y ou tabla sounds that play from Middle C to the G# above it. [...]

8 In G-Grand, the pads play rhythm patterns . Rhythm pa tterns can be great for playing along with, onstage or when you’ re composing or jamming. Press a pad to begin playback of its r hythm pattern—the pad flashes as the pattern plays. T o change immediat ely to another rhythm pattern, press another pad . T o stop playing a r hythm, press the [...]

9 Although in Bell Mystic, the pads trigger only this single arpeggio style, each pad can trigger its own style, providing you a range of choices. This is just another of the pads’ interesting capabilities we’ll be discussing in the Power User Control 2: The Pads booklet. In this live set, the arpeggiator is adding texture. An arpeggio can also[...]

10 P atch Remain One of the F antom-G’ s best features is its Patch Remain featur e, which is available in both Live mode and Single mode, which we ’ll discuss next. Patch Remain allows you to switch from one live set to another—or one patch to another in Single mode—without hearing any glitching . T o understand how Pa tch Remain works, it[...]

11 Y ou can play patches or rhythm sets from the Fantom-G keyboard in Single mode, but for now we’re just discussing how to play patches. W e’ll talk more about your options in the Single Mode in the Fantom-G W orkshop booklet. The P atch List Screen Probably the best way to find patches on the F antom-G is on the Patch List screen. T o get the[...]

12 Since r ight now we want to select the second mode, RHY THM, press 2 the 2 pad. When you ’ re returned to the Single Play screen, you can see the Pad Mode parameter ’ s now set to RHYTHM. T o select the desired rhythm set, star t by highlighting the Single Play 3 screen ’ s Dynamic P ad Bank parameter , which can be set to USER— • for [...]

13 Highlight the first song, “Be I n My World, ” and press F8 (Load), and 3 then F7 (OK) to confirm your intentions—the song loads. 4 After the song’ s loaded, press PLA Y to hear the song as you watch its MIDI and audio tracks go by onscreen. Y ou can adjust the overall level using the F antom- G’ s VOL UME knob. Listen to the entire son[...]

14 T o navigate between the differen t types of par ts on the Studio Play screen, hold down SHIFT and use the 3 and 4 cursor buttons. A studio set also offers quite a lot of effect-processing power: PFX — • Each of the 16 Internal and EXP par ts has its own PFX. MFX (for “m ulti-effec ts”)— • Each studio set has a pair of MFX and a chor[...]

15 If it isn ’t already highligh ted—as shown abov e —highlight “Studio 3 Set Name, ” and then press the ENTER button. In the STUDIO SET NAME window , you can assign the studio set a new name. (As you ’ll learn later , ever ything you save or wr ite in the F antom-G gets its name in a window like this.) As the window opens, the first ch[...]

16 Phraseology Each time you sequence in the F antom-G, you creat e a chunk of MIDI data called a “ phrase. ” The phrase is assigned to a track for use in your song . There are two big advantages to phrase -based recording: Phrases make song construction and editing easier . 1 Y ou can use a project ’ s phrases as many times as you like in on[...]

17 Y ou can set the tempo by playing it— • when you tap three or four beats on the F6 ( T ap T empo) button. setting it the BPM (“Beats Per Minute”) value— • using the V alue dial. T o set the coarse BPM, turn the V alue dial. T o set the fine tempo , hold down SHIFT and turn the V alue dial. Press F8 (Close) when you’ re done setting[...]

18 And finally , to add a beat to the song, go back to the Studio Play 14 screen, select Part 10, press the SONG button, and use 6 to selec t T rack 10—you ’ll find it below the 24 audio tracks on the Song Play screen. Repeat Steps 12 and 13 to sequence your drums. 15 The Fantom-G offers lots of editing tools for refining your performance. They[...]

19 Selecting an Audio T rack Press the SONG button if the Song Play screen isn ’t already visible. 1 Press the 2 6 button to selec t an audio track —for now, selec t Song T rack 9, which is also Audio T rack 1. The Recording Process Press the I 1 3 button to return to the start of the song. Press the REC button to open the Audio Rec Standby win[...]

20 Press PLA Y to hear your new audio recording—playback ends after 11 your recording ’ s played back. Just as when you sequence, you can undo your recording by pressing MENU, F5 (Undo), and then F7 (OK). T o balance the levels of your MIDI and audio tracks—or to add chorus 12 and/or rev erb to them—press the STUDIO button to return to the [...]

21 Select a patch you ’ d like to play . 1 2 Play anything you like on the keyboard, for about 10 seconds. Press the blue SKIP BACK SAMPLING button. The 3 F antom-G goes back in time and creates a new sample from the last 10 seconds of your playing. Skip Back Sampling can be pre-set to grab anywhere from the last 5 to 40 seconds of music. (10 sec[...]