Roland Fantom-XR Review

The Fantom-XR has so many features, I couldn’t get through all of them in the amount of time that I had it! The digital I/O along with the built-in USB MIDI interface are definite benefits for the studio. The ability to “drag and drop” samples to and from your computer is huge! Imagine being able to store the sounds that you used on your recordings and use them at your live performances.

The number of sounds in this unit is insane! It took me hours to listen through banks of patches. The XR has 1,024 patches, over 1GB of sounds to choose from. The sounds range from gritty synths to pizzicato strings. And if that’s not enough, you can add specialty cards for even more sounds! It has six expansion slots for Roland’s SRX series cards. There are 12 available SRX expansion cards including: World Collection, Dynamic Drum Kits, Big Brass, Complete Orchestra, and Complete Piano to name a few. By adding different cards, you can customize what sounds you carry with you, ultimately eliminating the need to buy a whole other sound module.

I used one of my Pro Tools MIDI sequences to trigger a synth bass, strings, and additional drum parts. The added textures took the song to another level. If you’re looking for an expandable sound module, the Fantom-XR takes it!