New budget Fantom X
 

http://www.roland.com/products/en/Fantom-Xa/index.html

Very interesting. All the Fantom X features except half ROM and few minor changes. Seems like no point in buying Triton LE's anymore.

Im a bit suspicious......

So absolutely no difference in sound quality? I wander what the retail will be? Everytime I hear "Budget" version I think Mackie's 'Tapco' or something.

"Designed in USA, made in china! Under ISO9000 quality standards"

"Designed in Germany, manufactured in Malaysia"

etc......

What about Motif?

Retail is somewhere above 1300 euros. Not ultimately cheap (which tells it's not a piece of crap). I think it has pretty good price/value rate. It is based on same engine and architechture than the big Fantom X. The ROM is just smaller (I'm afraid that the brilliant piano sampling of the big brother is gone) and less expansion slots & FX engines.

Since that thing got a sampling option as a basic feature, it wouldn't be a bad investment at all.

I wonder if Yamaha is going to release Motif ES lite. I bet they also want their slice of that budget workstation cake. Also Triton Extreme Le wouldn't be a suprise. Much is happening on a workstation front nowadays.

I think more and more companies will start to produce a "Budget" range, which I am not sure will do more harm than good?

On the one hand, it gives more people a chance to be creative and access more technology

But I think also from the companies point of view, it is about money, and more market share, and will this motivate them to produce cheap quality products, just for a quick buck?

I have heard good things about the original Fantom, I hope this new 'lite' edition doesnt sacrifice it's reputation...

I think it's good taht companies produce also cheaper products in addition to the high end gear. For example most people just can't afford a synth that costs 2500 euros. Having an option to get the same quality product with some restrictions with just above 1000 euros is nothing else than a good thing. And in addition to that if you play in a band and want a good rompler keyboard there's no point in paying for all the features of the big workstations that you don't actually need. There's always a place for stripped down budget workstations.

I understand your concern about budget products but some are really good. For example I believe that Fantom Xa is a fine piece of gear even it could be categorized as "budget synth".

Yup. Just a year or two back we got a totally new wave in workstation front. Instead of boring Korg monopoly Yamaha and Roland entered the ring and things started happening. Now the competition is tough and seems that Korg's workstation imperium has crumbled.

Nah. Roland won't shoot their own leg.

I dug up some additional info on that synth and it seems that is Fantom S with additional polyphony and patch memory.

been using a fantom Xr and its really really good! 3 multi fx engines, great arp patterns , sampler... you won't look back buying a roland fantom x-

Well, the keyboard version has the pads, big colour display, D-beam and really nice keyboard. So If money wouldn't be a problem the keyboard would be the best option.

sort of reminds me of korg and when they came out with the triton LE. Also the pads on the XA are the plastic ones I think. They are the same as on the cheaper model of the fantom. The plastic defenitely does not have the feel the rubber ones do. A little bit harder to get the velocity feeling out of them. :?

Reminds me of my old D50 (which I had to sell so I could move my crap back from college -- what a tool I was). When I read in the Roland mag that the MT32 was supposed to be the baby D50, I suckered some friends into getting one. Sounded like crap in comparison.