dagh wrote:JCJR wrote:Hmm, just noticed the new Roland FA-06 and FA-08. Looks purt good for the money. Might talk myself into getting one of these. Supposedly workstations are for squares and fogeys, so what can I say? It isn't a "dry" synth, but at the apparent sound quality, human interface, and price, assuming roland still makes solid hardware, looks like a good deal even if one never uses the arpeggiator, sequencer, etc.
I find the FA-06/8 just great, big screen, no touch latency or difficulties, a piano roll and virtually every feature one could ask for. But I'm having a problem with many sounds I've now heard from it or with the sound signature, if there is one.
The e-piano, many synth and some guitar presets (etc.) in the FA have this "middy attack". In the attack time of the voice there is relatively much mids and not much highs. And these mids sound a tiny bit noisy. And on some notes it's obvious when the same "wave source" is used for many notes downwards, the highs go down along with the fundamental and sound not so nice. Am I exaggerating?
It was not so easy to spot this in the newest Yamaha and Korg sounds, though they are not just "better". And the tone editing in the FA seems actually to be capable of providing sounds with a bright and clear attack, but I'm not sure. There is indeed a review on bonedo.de stating the Integra sounds "old".
Thanks for the good info. I'd have to drive 100+ miles one way or t'other to play any of these synths in a store. Lots of music stores in my city, but guitar and drums mostly, no pro keyboards anymore. Dealers probably got tired of people trying locally then buying cheaper mail order.

Am also getting old enough to even more distrust the ears, though they haven't completely gone to hell yet.
I have an assortment of old hardware synths that don't sound any worse than they ever did, but are weak on excellent acoustic bread n butter sounds, piano, rhodes, wurlie, hammond, basses, ensemble and solo strings, brass and woodwinds.
After listening to lots of online demos, last year ordered a kronos x, just looking for easy good acoustic sounds. Would have kept it had it not had an intermittent crashing bug, but the bug made me distrustful of the longevity of a healthy replacement so just sent it back.
Some excellent players can wring great performance out of anything, but there are many axes that sound good with somebody else playing em, that don't sound good when I play em. Though I would have kept the kronos were it healthy, the sound under my fingers with purt flat monitors in my face, seemed slightly lacking in highs, a little too bassy/middy. The hammond and rhodes didn't sound as good under my fingers as I'd expected. The 61 key keyboard would have taken "getting used to" not immediately pleasing, and the sound wasn't quite there even driven by my 88 key controller. It wasn't awful, just not as great as expected.
Listening to more online demos, I get the impression that the kronos seems a little dark, and the yamaha a little too bright, with the fa somewhere in the middle.
I don't care if a piano or oboe sounds "old" as long as it sounds like a piano or oboe, but maybe it would turn out I don't like an fa under my fingers. Dunno.