I came across a cahe of old synthesisers...

In these turbulent times it is unsurprising that some of us seek solace in the familiar. For me this has manifested itself in digging out some of my old gear. With lockdown in force, I found myself with time on my hands and a desire to create some music again. There are piles of old digital synthesizers and keyboards scattered around the house; all of which are just collecting dust and going to waste. Some sort of Pavlovian response kicked in last week and I dug out my old master keyboard and plugged in some headphones.

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.

Disappointed by a legend

In the last week, I made a new addition to my studio. I placed an ill-calculated bid on a Korg Triton Rack module/sampler expecting to be outbid and accidentally won the auction. As I already own several ‘ROMpler” type instruments I was keen to find out how the equally loathed and revered Triton stood up to its Roland and Yamaha counterparts. It is an expensive way of finding out I will grant you, but find out I did.

As I unpacked the box, I could not help but notice the Triton had a floppy drive. My experiences with Akai samplers and their floppy drives led me to feel a deep sense foreboding. Having wired up the Triton I let it play through its nasty demo tracks and perused the thick instruction manuals. There were some nice sounds but nothing my Fantom or even my JV-1080 could not conjure up.

On delving into the various menu’s and editing pages, I became increasingly disorientated and bemused by the Triton (even with manual to hand). Whilst I do not consider myself as a dedicated enthusiast of any one particular manufacturer, it became obvious that the Triton was neither as easy to set up or as flexible as similar Roland products I own. This is in part due to the fact that the Triton was produced in 2000 and my workhorse Fantom X has only just been superseded. Similarly, the Triton is a damn sight better than my old Yamaha SY85. Yet the Triton is still convoluted and restrictive with no discernable sonic advantage. When I realised that the Triton will not even store settings for its “Multi” mode in non-volatile memory I gave up tinkering.

So the Triton is about as popular as a ginger step child in this studio. Its only hope of redemption are the expansion boards which I am awaiting. A brief scan of the instruction manual suggests I may have to load the program data for the sounds on the boards from a floppy each time I boot up (surely this can't be true?). Roland expansion boards are simple 'plug in and play' affairs which require little or no tinkering, naively I expected every manufacturer to be able to make ROM expansions this easy to use.

This experience has taught me to treasure the flexibility and ease of use of my Fantom X8 and confirmed my long held belief that Korg haven't produced a decent synth since the M1. The long awaited Korg expansion boards will decide the Tritons fate next week.