Roland SonicCell Compared To Fantom X

[anotherscott]

A few quotes from my own article in Recording Magazine -
...

What I did find interesting though is the tremendous amount of overlap of presets between the Fantom and the Sonic Cell. Out of the 896 included presets, a full 587 presets, or roughly 65%, are in the Fantom synthesizer, or at least sharing the same name. I tried comparing as best I could back-to-back with a Fantom XR with the Sonic Cell. For the most part, the handful of sounds I tried were identical.

An important distinction there is that the original Fantom was a different animal from the Fantom X/XR (or S). The SonicCell overlaps the latter, not the former.

IIRC...

Original Fantom (76) had the 64 mb XV-5080 soundset. The later Fantom S (61 or 88) was the first model with a substantially new sound set, though also 64 mb. The Fantom X (available in all 3 keyboard sizes) had a 128 mb sound set which included the 64 mb Fantom S sound set (at least most of it, possibly all), plus added sounds. The 128 mb SonicCell sound set is drawn primarily from these later Fantoms, not the original Fantom/XV-5080 sound set. At least that's my understanding.

[DevonB]

A few quotes from my own article in Recording Magazine -
...

What I did find interesting though is the tremendous amount of overlap of presets between the Fantom and the Sonic Cell. Out of the 896 included presets, a full 587 presets, or roughly 65%, are in the Fantom synthesizer, or at least sharing the same name. I tried comparing as best I could back-to-back with a Fantom XR with the Sonic Cell. For the most part, the handful of sounds I tried were identical.

An important distinction there is that the original Fantom was a different animal from the Fantom X/XR (or S). The SonicCell overlaps the latter, not the former.

IIRC...

Original Fantom (76) had the 64 mb XV-5080 soundset. The later Fantom S (61 or 88) was the first model with a substantially new sound set, though also 64 mb. The Fantom X (available in all 3 keyboard sizes) had a 128 mb sound set which included the 64 mb Fantom S sound set (at least most of it, possibly all), plus added sounds. The 128 mb SonicCell sound set is drawn primarily from these later Fantoms, not the original Fantom/XV-5080 sound set. At least that's my understanding.

Ah yes, I should have put in the X after Fantom to avoid any confusion. I did say I compared it against my Fantom XR, but yes, there was a Fantom (no X no S, like you stated.) So implied, but not clearly stated.

Devon

[MeteoXavier]

Welp, after 4 months and 200 hours at least scouring through dozens of synths and ideas and updating my studio and music computer and even having Roland Cloud for a little while, I ended up buying the Roland Sonic Cell anyway. It was like going from New York City to Los Angeles traveling EAST and around the f**king globe, but that's what ended up happening anyway.

I'd give it an 8.3 out of 10. It's not perfect and it's a bit more quiet than I'd like, but for less than $300 for that module and all the stuff I listed above, I'm satisfied enough that I'm not shopping around after that. I won't be able to really upgrade to a major, modern synth until my ancient Yamaha Clavinova from 1986 finally dies, so this is the way it was meant to be.

[Ex Machina]

For anyone curious, do a Google search on "Sonic Cell specs." You'll be taken to the following Vintage Synth Explorer page which will tell you all you need to know.

https://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/son ... 0creations.

[MeteoXavier]

I find Vintage Synth is becoming less useful over time. They don't even have the polyphony right on the Sonic Cell - it's 16 parts that they've had as "6 parts" for a very long time.

[Ex Machina]

I find Vintage Synth is becoming less useful over time. They don't even have the polyphony right on the Sonic Cell - it's 16 parts that they've had as "6 parts" for a very long time.

Yeah, Vintage Synth used to be a great site and forum. The conversations almost always remained civil. But now it's a ghost town. Everyone seems to have migrated to Gearslutz which is dominated by the same 10 blowhards saying the same old shit day after day. If you post anything that even seems to challenge the orthodoxy, you will be subjected to relentless childish personal attacks that are intended to shut down anything the lumbering herd doesn't want to hear.