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How to Upload Samples to Roland Fa08

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Roland have condensed their considerable synthesizer workstation expertise into a single, affordable instrument.

For the past decade or more, Roland'southward flagship workstations have been big, heavy and imposing, and replete with big knobs, long faders and, more recently, large touch-sensitive screens. Everything about them has screamed, 'I'chiliad the real deal'. Yet here I am, sitting in front end of the new, top-of-the range FA08, and it boasts none of those attributes. It'south small, it's light, and it'southward constructed from plastic. There are no faders (long or otherwise), its screen is small and insensitive, and it looks like cipher so much as a stage piano with some extra features thrown in. Tin can it really supplant the mighty Fantom G8?

Physically, the FA08 foregoes the swish aluminium extrusions and space-age cheeks of the Fantoms, and it too lacks the sleek proficient looks of the long-defunct JV1000 and XP80. Furthermore, the plastic inlays that cover the screen and surround the controls already looked like someone had attacked them with a Brillo Pad when I received the review unit of measurement. But let's be off-white, the new model doesn't cost as much equally its predecessors and, at least in role, its lower price has been achieved by cutting hardware costs. Consequently, the FA08 lacks many of the controllers establish on more expensive workstations. In add-on to the left/correct/button joystick and ii buttons, information technology offers just 6 knobs (each with four possible functions, just one of which is programmable) plus 16 pads. And then there's the color screen. Roland draw this as "large". That's daft. To exist fair, the clarity is superb, but information technology's only a v-inch device of unspecified resolution.

Manufacturing plant Sounds & Libraries

You lot can trace the development of Roland's PCM-playback synth engines in a shine arc, starting with the U110 in 1988, to the JV/XP-series, then to the Fifteen-series and and then to the Fantoms. But more recently, Roland accept developed their SuperNatural Synth and SuperNatural Audio-visual engines (the latter of which is an umbrella for a range of physical modelling audio generators), and it's the combination of PCM-based synthesis and the two SuperNatural engines that forms the basis of the FA08, every bit it did the Integra 7 rackmount module. (See SOS, Feb 2013.) But the new workstation isn't an Integra in a keyboard. The module offers 256 SuperNatural Audio-visual Tones and 1109 SuperNatural Synth Tones, 26 SuperNatural Pulsate kits, and six 'virtual' expansion boards — v containing a total of 108 additional SuperNatural Audio-visual sounds, and one with seven additional effects for the SuperNatural Drums — plus all 896 of the Fifteen's preset patches, all of its drum kits, 12 SRX boards and a high-resolution GM2 expansion pack with 512 additional PCM-based sounds (phew!). In contrast, the FA08 offers... well, at first sight I wasn't sure what it offered. So I downloaded the Sound List and establish that the mill sounds comprise 100 SuperNatural Acoustic Tones, 1115 SuperNatural Synth Tones, five SuperNatural Drum Kits, 897 of the XV's preset patches, 56 PCM drum kits, 256 GM2 tones and nine GM2 drum kits. Near significantly, this means that the FA08 has lost more than one-half of the SuperNatural Acoustic tones and the 12 SRX boards in ROM that make the Integra 7 such an attractive proposition. Merely to redress the residuum a trivial, y'all tin download and import Integra seven patches from Roland's Centric audio library, and you can also import libraries of PCM waves and sounds into two Moving ridge Expansion Slots.

Inside the boundaries of this reduced sound set, the FA08 exhibits the strengths (of which there are many) and the weaknesses (of which there are a scattering) of its immediate predecessors. So, for example, the flagship 'Full Grand one' patch still exhibits the rapid transition from mf to f that was a characteristic of the Roland RD800 that I reviewed a few weeks ago. Another? Y'all tin just arrange the drawbars of SuperNatural organs in an edit window, and they yet suffer from the lack of a dedicated Hammond chorus/vibrato, which is astounding. Still, many of the SuperNatural Audio-visual sounds are superb, and SuperNatural Synth is an excellent VA capable of a vast array of multi-layered analogue (and analogue-mode) sounds. Ultimately, it would exist daft to imply that the FA08 sounds annihilation less than outset-rate and, once you get your caput effectually its anarchistic sound engines and their limitations, editing proves to exist surprisingly straightforward.

Studio Sets & Effects

You tin can combine sounds in a Studio Set, which is a 16-role 'Performance' that does what yous would expect in the usual way. However, there is at least one fashion in which it's superior to the Performance structures establish on earlier generations of Roland'south instruments.

I'yard a big fan of multitimbral effects and, if I want to chorus my Strat patch while torturing a pb synth, at the aforementioned fourth dimension playing an organ through a rotary-speaker effect and gating my snare pulsate, I expect modern instruments to permit me to do so. The furnishings structures of earlier generations of Roland workstations were, for the nearly part, rather limiting, and certainly junior to the larger and more flexible architectures of (for case) the Korg Trinity and OASYS. Happily, each of the Parts (a Tone in a slot) in a Studio Set now has its own MFX effects unit and three-band EQ, while a Pulsate Part tin have an MFX/EQ combination or upwards to six compressor/EQ pairs. Following these, at that place's a global chorus and reverb, your choice of an IFX (insert upshot) or a master compressor, then a main EQ and, finally, a TFX (full effect). It would be prissy to have multiple MFX slots per Part — you lot'll discover yourself wanting to chorus, delay and overdrive that Strat audio — but, at this price, the FA08's architecture is more passable.

In addition to the 67 MFX types quoted in Roland's literature, number 68 is a vocoder. This provides no control over frequency bands or gains, but allows you to mix the original with the vocoded signal for your Jon & Vangelis impersonations, and to use chorus and reverb to the output to create a pleasing vocal launder. Be enlightened, all the same, that at that place's no XLR microphone input, which might go out you scurrying to find a beaten-upwardly Shure Unisphere when you would prefer to exist using your Neumann U47.

Finally with respect to effects, it's worth noting that, despite its similarity to the Integra 7, the FA08 lacks Roland's Motion Surround outcome, which allows you to position each Part in a 'fake' soundfield. Although it's easy to pigeonhole Motility Surround every bit appropriate only for 5.ane, the RSS algorithms on which it's based were originally developed for ii-channel playback and, indeed, the Integra 7 supports this. Consequently, a 2-channel version could have been included in the FA08. Only it wasn't.

Other Tools

The FA08 offers a powerful arpeggiator that, at starting time sight, offers all of the usual functions: concur, octave range, notation order, and so on. At 2d sight, it provides much more. Every bit well every bit offering 128 preset styles and the ability to relieve 16 user styles, in that location are variations bachelor for each, and you can import SMFs (Standard MIDI Files) of up to 500 events to employ equally arpeggios. You can even import a MIDI track from your electric current vocal and use this as the basis of an arpeggio. And then at that place'southward chord memory, which allows you lot to play and strum chords with a single key, and rhythm patterns, which offer intro, verse, chorus and outro options, rhythm groups of up to six patterns, and the ability to create new patterns from SMFs (this time, up to 4000 events long!) and from the pulsate rail within the current song. That's a huge amount of compositional and doodling power.

Roland FA08 Moving on, I accept to acknowledge that I'g not usually a fan of workstations' sequencers. I don't know why only, for some reason, they don't lucifer a fully featured software package, a huge library of plug-ins, a pair of 24-inch loftier-resolution displays, and the ability to depict modulation curves straight into tracks... Ah, I think that I've merely answered my own question. Consequently, I wasn't concerned that the sequencer in the FA08 is a pace down from those in more than expensive alternatives, nor did it bother me that information technology doesn't record sound. But I quickly establish that it works well equally a MIDI scratchpad. In fact, information technology works brilliantly well, and I would venture that you can jot downward ideas as quickly within the FA08 as anywhere else (if not quicker). You tin can even allocate a track to replay the samples yous've allocated to the pads, either to create complete tracks from pre-recorded stems or to spin in audio and effects. What'south more, you lot tin import SMFs as songs, which explains why the FA08 contains those GM2 sounds and kits.

Unfortunately, ane of the promised functions is not what it seems. Export allows you to save a song every bit an SMF, as a stereo mix in WAV format, or as individual tracks in WAV format. Exporting sound takes place in real time, so you'll have to wait over an hour to export a four-minute song comprising 16 tracks, and none of the samples used are exported with it, so you could end up wondering what's happened to the things that brand your creation the masterpiece that information technology is. But that isn't my major gripe; information technology's this rather naughty argument from Roland: "The FA08 also includes a high-speed USB sound interface, cutting downward on ataxia and making it easy to become your music into your DAW — especially since you can now export 16 tracks of WAV sound simultaneously." Both parts of the quote are truthful, but the implication is not: you cannot export direct to your DAW, but to an SDHC carte inserted into the FA08 itself. Nor tin you access the audio from your Mac/PC after it has been exported unless you remove the carte from the synth and insert it into the appropriate slot on your computer. Does yours have an SD bill of fare slot? Mine doesn't.

In Use

The first thing that's apparent on setting upwardly the FA08 is its weight. Or, rather, the lack of it. It may take the lines of a '70s Volvo but information technology weighs merely 16.5kg (compared with 33.6kg for the Fantom G8) which makes it extremely manageable. Inevitably, the 'feel' isn't as robust, just the knobs, buttons, pads and spin wheel are solid and reassuring in use.

Switching on the FA08 is a rare pleasure because, in stark contrast to the minutes required past some other workstations, it takes just seconds to initialise. Having washed so, you lot tin can navigate its sounds apace, and I particularly liked the ability to set up sequences of favourites for live use. As for the sounds themselves, I've already affirmed their quality but, as on the Integra 7, its 128-annotation maximum polyphony might prove to be a bit limiting when sequencing layered sounds. Await a little note-stealing if yous don't plan ahead.

If I have a business, information technology centres on the 'ivory feel' keyboard. This was designed for digital pianos, then one tin can't wait it to respond like a semi-weighted unit such as that installed in the otherwise identical FA06. Nonetheless, I was surprised to observe that its response is besides slow for sequencing fast hi-lid rhythms in existent time. Of equal concern on an instrument that boasts 'Avant-garde Live Performance Features' is the lack of aftertouch. Sure, y'all can program aftertouch within sounds, and you tin can generate the appropriate MIDI message using the control pedal inputs, buttons S1 and S2, and whatever of the six knobs. But yous tin't printing downwards harder on a key to generate it. Doesn't that rather defeat the purpose?

Happily, the FA08 retains MIDI Visual Control and Five-Link although, for some reason, Roland Great britain doesn't mention this within its product pages. I dream of beingness able to afford a 20,000-lumen V-Link projector, and then I hope that Roland's reticence isn't a sign of things (not) to come. On the other manus, the company mention the D-Beam. Strange priorities.

Conclusions

Roland'southward marketing for the FA08 begins, "Until now, keyboard workstations have typically been difficult to utilize to their total potential, slowing down your musical inspiration with confusing features and complex interfaces." That's odd. The company have promoted themselves since 1988 as leading manufacturers of keyboard workstations, however they're now telling me that many of the things they have exhorted me to buy for the past 26 years take been confusing and overly complex.

What's more, the blurb tells us that the "new FA series completely reimagines the music workstation". That'southward worrying. 'Reimagines' is a word used by the film industry to tell you that it has run out of ideas and is recycling an old one, usually with crushingly disappointing results. And so, to summarise, my JVs, XPs and Fantoms were disruptive and overly complex, and they're being replaced by something embodying a agglomeration of recycled ideas that may be equally poor as the 2001 remake of Planet Of The Apes.

Of course, that's nonsense, and information technology's misleading on at least two counts. Firstly, I have gigged extensively with a JV1000, an XP80 and a Fantom X7, and they have all been fantabulous instruments. Secondly, the FA08 is way improve than the 2001 remake of Planet Of The Apes.

The daft thing is that the company have a much meliorate story to tell. So allow me do it for them. For the first time, Roland'south engineers have added a powerful sequencer too as an SP-style sampler to the combination of their Fifteen and SuperNatural sound engines. They take so eschewed everything that might have added to the cost and presented the result as a low-toll instrument that tin be carried under one arm. Information technology has limitations of, form — things such as the restricted I/O and the nature of the sampler mean that it wasn't designed to replace the Fantom G8 or compete with the likes of the Korg Kronos 88 or the Yamaha XF8 — but information technology provides strong contest for the Yamaha MOXF8, and fifty-fifty gives Korg's Krome 88 a damn good run for its coin. Clearly, Roland have come up with a unique package of features for a rather attractive price.

Now, why didn't they say that?

Expansion packs

At the fourth dimension of writing, there are three expansion libraries available for the Roland FA08. Strangely, once you've obtained the information, y'all then accept to utilize a USB memory stick to transfer the downloaded files to the FA08, even when your synth and reckoner are talking to each other over USB for other purposes.

The Sampler

I was excited when I saw the fable 'Sampler' on the FA08, but this feeling turned to bemusement when I investigated further. Before sampling, you have to allocate a bank (1 to 4) and pad (1 to sixteen) to which the sound will be saved. Having done and then, yous can sample from the counterpart and USB sound inputs too as whatever on-board keyboard performances (and so far, so good) with auto-triggering (also good) in mono or stereo (amend), and even import existing WAV, AIFF and MP3 files as samples. In one case on-lath, you can then truncate these and loop them and then... umm, well... nothing. You can play a sample from the pad to which you saved it, and perform housekeeping tasks such as moving, copying and renaming samples, but you tin't use a sample as the basis of a sound mapped across the keyboard. As for things such equally multisampling, filtering, and otherwise shaping the sounds... forget it. The FA08 may exist ideal for DJs who dial buttons to fire one-shot samples, and information technology will be superb for Pink Floyd tributes that need to trigger the sounds of cash registers, barking dogs and Irish gaelic doormen. Only, while it's great fun, it isn't a workstation sampler in the conventional sense.

The Rear Panel

The low-cost approach to design is evident on the FA08's rear console. With just a single 50/R stereo output pair, it'southward not designed to output individual parts, although a unmarried, monophonic Sub output allows you lot to direct a specified Role or a click track to a third destination.

Alongside these, there'southward a single, unbalanced quarter-inch mic/line input, plus a stereo 3.5mm line in. Iii inputs — sustain, plus two expression/switch pedals — provide analogue control, while 5-pin MIDI is bachelor in just In and Out flavours. 3 digital holes are provided for the USB/reckoner connectedness, for uploading sounds from a USB memory stick, and for an SD memory card.

Finally, there's a 9VDC input for the FA's external ability supply, rather than the IEC socket that you would expect to see on a professional workstation. Be conscientious with this. The FA08 draws 1300mA, so don't try to power it using a cheapo off-the-shelf adaptor or one supplied with an effects pedal. You'll melt it. (The adaptor, not the synthesizer.)

DAW Integration

Roland trumpet the DAW integration of the FA08 and, in one case you've downloaded and installed the advisable driver, there are two elements to this. Firstly, yous can use the FA08 to control a limited prepare of functions inside your DAW. Templates are provided for Logic, Cubase and Sonar, and you tin prepare upward a number of parameters for other systems. But don't get carried away: you tin only utilise the transport controls and assign sixteen further functions to the buttons and knobs, so this control is far from all-encompassing. Secondly, you tin can use the FA08 as a bidirectional audio/USB interface. Y'all tin can laissez passer incoming audio through a racket gate and reverb, which is pointless if recording to a DAW, but handy if using the FA08 as a guitar/vocal scratchpad.

With so much emphasis placed on integration, yous might be wondering whether there'southward an editor that would let y'all to use the FA08 every bit an 'external plug-in' within your DAW. There isn't, just it would exist nice to think that Roland'due south engineers were working on 1.

Pros

  • It sounds beginning-class.
  • The sequencer is excellent for jotting down ideas speedily.
  • Information technology offers a good complement of effects and furnishings slots.
  • Information technology'southward light and manageable.
  • It initialises quickly.
  • Information technology's attractively priced.

Cons

  • It has limited I/O.
  • It has an external power supply.
  • It offers few existent-time controllers past modern standards, and lacks aftertouch.
  • Exporting sound from the sequencer is slow, and you can't export directly to your PC/Mac.
  • You lot tin can't construct mapped sounds from samples.
  • A larger screen would be welcome.

Summary

Roland's latest workstation is a competitively priced musical instrument rather than a state-of-the-art monster. Information technology offers outset-rate audio quality and an fantabulous 'scratchpad' sequencer, housed in a physical parcel that shows evidence of numerous cost savings in areas such as controllers and I/O, most of which are sensible, and one or two of which are frustrating.

information

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Source: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/roland-fa08

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