Members rockfan Posted February 9, 2014 Members Share Posted February 9, 2014 I will be playing 80s music in a band.I have an Alesis Ion and an Akai Synthstation to use with my iPad with the Minimoog, DX-7, and Oberheim apps.I also have the Roland PK5 and the Moog Minitaur for synth bass sounds. Currently in talks with a seller to buy the Roland VK8M.I am in need of a digital synth. I was going to buy the Roland G6, but now Roland is coming out with the FA06. I read that FA06 has less sounds, but has the same features I need: sequencer and sampler.Seeing almost all the 80s songs have synth, will the FA06 suffice or do I need the G6?Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tim gueguen Posted February 9, 2014 Members Share Posted February 9, 2014 No one has gotten their hands on the FA06 yet, so there's no way to know yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted February 9, 2014 Members Share Posted February 9, 2014 rockfan wrote: I will be playing 80s music in a band. I have an Alesis Ion and an Akai Synthstation to use with my iPad with the Minimoog, DX-7, and Oberheim apps. I also have the Roland PK5 and the Moog Minitaur for synth bass sounds. Currently in talks with a seller to buy the Roland VK8M. I am in need of a digital synth. I was going to buy the Roland G6, but now Roland is coming out with the FA06. I read that FA06 has less sounds, but has the same features I need: sequencer and sampler. Seeing almost all the 80s songs have synth, will the FA06 suffice or do I need the G6? Thanks in advance! The G6 has a more functional sequencer with built in audio tracks (24) and tons more midi (128). More flexible for controlling external gear from a capacity point of view The G6 has a sampler that can use samples as audio one shot sounds or as partials for building drums or keys. It is limited to the RAM expansion of the unit, you would probably need to upgrade this. The max is a DIMM/1 GB type (old computer memory, rare and expensive but worth it if you buy one) The G6 does not have SN sounds built in, the sound engine is pure PCM, but it has a great variety of filter options and you can stack 4 partial per patch. The editing available is quite deep. The G6 has ARX expansion boards which do not add load to the synth polyphony as they are synths on a Card with their own capacity and effects built in. Roland have only done three ARX cards and they cover Drums, EP and Brass... You have two slots, so not all three cards can be loaded at one time... http://www.roland.com/products/en/ARX-01/ http://www.roland.com/products/en/ARX-02/ http://www.roland.com/products/en/ARX-03/ In total it has this many parts: 16 parts (Internal sound engine) + 16 parts (dedicated to external midi sequencing - other synth etc) + 2 parts (ARX) + 24 parts (Audio Track) Maximum Polyphony is 128 voices, shared with the sampling section for internal non ARX parts. So a patch with 4 layers of sound, if you had all four layers sound at once it would eat 4 poly at that point in time for that one note. 128 is OK for most people as you do not need to stack 4 per note, most that do would use the additional layers in a way to act only as either or as you can configure how each layer responds to playing etc It has separate Patch Multi-effects (PFX): max. 16 units (76 types) for each of those Internal sound parts.It also has Multi-effects (MFX: max. 2 units (78 types) that can be freely routed, adding some extra flexibility beyond the usual global chorus and reverb Study this more: http://www.roland.com/products/en/Fantom-G6/ I see it is not listed on Roland .com as a new product, so looks to be on it way out. This means it could get replaced sooner or later or never depending on how Roland decide what to do. I suspect they will do a modern version with SN sound etc.. Just don't hold your breath... It won't be cheap ;-) The new Roland FA-06 Is more limited in some ways: Smaller screen Less midi capability and audio integration is more limited. As we understand it so far. 16 tracks only, each track can be midi internal or external and it appears track 16 is dedicated to the built in phrase sampler. The Sampler it uses is not part of the synth engine and so cannot produce new patches for key sounds. It is limited to 8 Poly. Keys have no aftertouch Pads are trigger only on the sampler Other things to note in general: Samples and sequences are saved to an external SD card which add to sample capacity, which may help some using it differently to the G6. It has SN sounds built in, a variety of those from the Integra It has a full SN synth engine (Roland GAIA on steroids but lacking the ease of pot per function editing) It has a PCM sound engine that can have sound added to two virtual slots, with content downloaded from Roland. As far as the wave data we do not know if Roland will charge for it. Patch data from the new download site has been free to date. It has a lighter build but retains real keys unlike the competition who cheap out with flexi crap It retains balanced audio main outs which is never seen on most competitors gear at the price point In summary When Roland brought out the G6, the dropping of SRX cards was a blow to Fantom X upgraders who lost a chunk of investment. For this reason it probably was not as successful as it could have been. Weather that affected usability is down to if you like the sounds it had and the ARX expansions. It was and still is the highest work station spec ever seen in keys if you ignore sound generation.. The FA is a real kick in the butt to the competition as it seems to be high bang for buck without dropping too much in content and quality. Just study the sounds it carries before deciding... At the low price you cannot go wrong buying one as you can add more gear to fill any shortfall later The FA does not replace G6 but it has some nice new features and that SN stuff.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rockfan Posted February 18, 2014 Author Members Share Posted February 18, 2014 Great info.I'll read and decide, based on my needs. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted February 18, 2014 Members Share Posted February 18, 2014 rockfan wrote: Currently in talks with a seller to buy the Roland VK8M. I am in need of a digital synth. I was going to buy the Roland G6, but now Roland is coming out with the FA06. Depending on your organ needs, you might find that you don't need the VK8M with the FA06, since it has clonewheel functionality in it, though it doesn't have everything the VK has (including, obviously, the real-time drawbar manipulation, which may or may not be able to be addressed with a controller add-on). I don't believe the G6 has any clonewheel function in it. rockfan wrote: I read that FA06 has less sounds, but has the same features I need: sequencer and sampler. Seeing almost all the 80s songs have synth, will the FA06 suffice or do I need the G6? Thanks in advance! For samples that you want to trigger from pads, I think the FA seems faster and more flexible, from what I can tell (though I am not that familiar with the G). But if you want to map and play samples from the keyboard, the FA won't do that, you would need the G.As a synth, the FA seems stronger, with the SuperNatural VA synth section (I think the G's underlying synth function is still all rompler-style sample-based).I don't know anything about how they compare as sequencers.The manuals for the FA (except for the Paraneter Guide) are now available to be downloaded athttp://www.roland.com/support/article/?q=manuals&p=FA-06 Bernard wrote: The G6 has a sampler that can use samples as audio one shot sounds or as partials for building drums or keys. It is limited to the RAM expansion of the unit, you would probably need to upgrade this. The max is a DIMM/1 GB type (old computer memory, rare and expensive but worth it if you buy one)One thing to keep in mind is that, if you do load the G up with a gig worth of custom samples, it will take a long time to boot. I saw someone mention about 8 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bernard Posted February 18, 2014 Members Share Posted February 18, 2014 AnotherScott wrote: Bernard wrote: The G6 has a sampler that can use samples as audio one shot sounds or as partials for building drums or keys. It is limited to the RAM expansion of the unit, you would probably need to upgrade this. The max is a DIMM/1 GB type (old computer memory, rare and expensive but worth it if you buy one) One thing to keep in mind is that, if you do load the G up with a gig worth of custom samples, it will take a long time to boot. I saw someone mention about 8 minutes. Excellent To the OP I mentioned this: ''The G6 has a sampler that can use samples as audio one shot sounds or as partials for building drums or keys. It is limited to the RAM expansion of the unit, you would probably need to upgrade this. The max is a DIMM/1 GB type (old computer memory, rare and expensive but worth it if you buy one)'' And this: "The new Roland FA-06 ...... Other things to note in general: Samples and sequences are saved to an external SD card which add to sample capacity, which may help some using it differently to the G6." However as AnotherScott points out the reality of this difference is more significant, especially to live users who may need to load lots of data in to the RAM (volatile memory) on the G6/8 We don't know how fast the FA will be but as it is streaming from an SD card it should be instant in theory as it appears they are treating the SD card as non volatile FLASH RAM.... The manual is available now on line so read up on the FA, check the sounds it does and see if extra speed helps you more... If your just loading instruments into the G6, IE not a full GIG then for that purpose it will probably be fairly quick... divide CD rate size as a portion of the 1 Gig RAM times the 8 minute estimate and that is roughly the time it would take... If you want to trigger long samples, they would take up more RAM and therefore more time to load... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bobcat22 Posted March 20, 2018 Members Share Posted March 20, 2018 Hi Bernard, Your comment here is the reason I signed up at HC. Extremely useful and well articulated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.