When I fired up the enormous (and very heavy) Roland Fantom X8 it was in fully working order and didn't appear to have suffered during its 6 years in storage. My hands soon fell upon a 1 Gig flash memory card and some old sample CDs. "Well it would be rude not to give it a try," thought I. A few minutes later I had cobbled together a 8 bar loop and begun editing it on the on-board sequencer. I carried on tinkering like this for a few days until things suddenly escalated.
When you have become accustomed to sequencing via a DAW using a workstation is very frustrating. That is not to say the Fantom sequencer isn't capable, but it demands a greater ability to perform than I posses. I am much more of a programmer than a performer. I prefer to bash in a part and then tweak it in an editor. I have been known to step edit as much as play and the fully weighted keyboard on the Fantom, which is completely wasted on me. Consequently, I began to yearn for the power of Cubase and the ability to edit patches on my PC using the Fantom patch utility.
However, the last time I tried the Fantom with Windows 10 the drivers didn't work and I didn't have time to sort it out. In fact the whole thing was such a mess I just assumed my 'vintage' gear was just too old to cut the mustard with modern computers and packed it all away.
That was 6 years ago and in the interim people have managed to get their old Fantom keyboards running with Windows 10. These kind people have also made all of the resources and instructions needed to do this available on the web. With a bit of determination I was even able to get everything working on a laptop which has no dedicated soundcard. Using Cubase again after all these years was a great experience. My hands instinctively found their way to
the keyboard shortcuts and the ease of navigation was a joy to behold
after the frustration of the Fantom's onboard sequencer. I am only using MIDI to trigger the Fantom as a ROMpler (with a few samples thrown in) but its surprisingly easy to get a half decent sounding track up and running with just one instrument (albeit one with thousands of onboard sounds). It reminds me of my school days using an Atari ST, Pro-24 and a Roland D-10: such limited possibilities seemed to drive creativity.
I have since added a foot pedal to the set up as, whilst the weighted keyboard is wasted on me, my wife is a 'proper' pianist (i.e. she can actually play the instrument to grade 8 level). The headphones have been replaced by some powered speakers and I have even plumped for a coaxial digital signal to ensure that all of my half finished 4 bar loops and noodling is crystal clear.
But I do get the feeling that the longer the current situation continues, the more likely I am to get some more gear up and running. Maybe I will even finish a track one day.
