Roland FXWS07 User Manual
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Workshop
Smart Storage in the Fantom-X
© 2005 Roland Corporation U.S.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in
any form without the written permission of Roland Corporation U.S.
FXWS07
1
About the Fantom-X Workshop Booklets
About This Booklet
The Fantom-X Workshop booklets explain some of the exciting
features of Roland’s Fantom-X family of products. Each
Workshop booklet covers a single topic, and is intended as a
companion to the Fantom-X manuals.
This booklet requires Fantom-X O.S. Version 2 or higher. To
learn about the latest Fantom-X software, visit www.RolandUS.
com, or call Roland U.S. Product Support at 323-890-3745.
Other Fantom-X Workshop Booklets
• The Fantom-X Experience—A quick tour of how the major
Fantom-X creative tools interact.
• The Sounds of the Fantom-X—A tour of the Fantom-X
sounds and Patch mode.
• The Rhythms of the Fantom-X—Exploring the pads, drum
sounds, and rhythms of the Fantom-X.
• The Fantom-X Effects—This booklet helps you get the most
out the powerful effects processing in the Fantom-X.
• Sequencing on the Fantom-X—Learn how to record using
the Fantom-X sounds and its full-featured sequencer.
• Sampling on the Fantom-X—Capture loops, vocals, or any
other sound with the Fantom-X’s built-in sampler.
• Performing with the Fantom-X—Splits, layers, realtime
controllers, and more make the Fantom-X hot onstage.
• Making a CD of Your Fantom-X Music—Learn how to turn
your Fantom-X music into a final audio CD.
• Advanced Fantom-X Sequencing Techniques—Learn how
to use time-based effects, create arpeggios, work with
mastering effects, and record realtime patch tweaks.
• Audio Tracks—This booklet explains how to record live
vocals and instruments in your Fantom-X songs.
The Fantom-X offers a rich assortment of musical tools, from its
patches, rhythm sets and performances, to its songs, samples,
rhythm patterns, arpeggios, and more. To further enhance the
creative flow, the Fantom-X provides a speedy and intuitive
working environment as well as a variety of places in which to
store your work.
As you explore all that the Fantom-X has to offer, you’ll
inevitably want to know how to best preserve and keep track
of your work materials. That’s what this booklet’s all about.
Understanding the Symbols in This Booklet
Throughout this booklet, you’ll come across information that
deserves special attention—that’s the reason it’s labeled with
one of the following symbols.
A note is something that adds information about the topic at hand.
A tip offers suggestions for using the feature being discussed.
Warnings contain important information that can help you avoid possible
damage to your equipment, your data, or yourself.
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Making Memories
This section explains the Fantom-X’s
“memory,” a geeky term for “the place it puts
things.” It’s important to understand how its
memory operates as you develop your own
way of working on the Fantom-X.
Detour—How the Fantom-X Measures Things
The Fantom-X has quite a lot of stuff to hold
onto, from its built-in waveforms on up to
the songs you record. There are:
In the next few sections, we’ll be talking about the sizes of
certain things: memory sizes, song sizes, sample sizes. You’ll
see things described as being so many “K,” “MB,” or “GB” in size.
• things the Fantom-X needs to do its job—such as the PCM
waveforms that provide the basis for patches and rhythm
sets, the factory patches, rhythm sets and performances,
If you know what these abbreviations mean, you can skip
this section and head straight to the next one. If not, take a
moment, and read on.
the Fantom-X demos, their samples, and so on.
• your own materials—such as your patches, rhythm sets,
performances, songs, samples, the user rhythm patterns,
rhythm groups, arpeggios, and your system settings.
The Fantom-X measures objects by their size in bytes, as any
computer-based device does. Even the smallest samples
and songs are thousands of bytes in size, so their sizes are
counted in thousands of bytes to make life easier: kilobytes,
Since these materials are used in different ways, the
Fantom-X utilizes three different types of memory, with each
one perfectly suited to the stuff it holds.
or “KB.” But those are smaller samples and songs. Bigger ones
are thousands of kilobytes in size—that’s a million bytes,
son—and they’re measured in megabytes, or “MB.” One form
of memory in the Fantom-X can be a billion bytes in size, or 1
ROM
“ROM” is the acronym for “Read-Only
GB for “gigabyte.”
Okay? Moving on...
Memory.” It’s called “read-only” because
you can use what it holds, but you can’t
RAM
change, or “re-write” it, yourself. ROM’s
where the Fantom-X keeps its:
• PCM waveforms—These are the built-in sound recordings
that the Fantom-X patches and rhythm sets play when
they aren’t playing samples you’ve captured or imported.
• presets—These are the preset factory patches, rhythm sets,
performances, demos, and demo samples.
“RAM” stands for “Random Access Memory,” though that doesn’t
matter much here (computer historians, look elsewhere). What
matters is what RAM is: lightning fast. Because of this, RAM
makes an ideal place for holding things you’re working with,
or working on. When you play or edit most anything on the
Fantom-X, it’s in RAM.
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While RAM makes a great workspace,
it’s temporary—each time you turn off
the Fantom-X, its RAM is cleared of its
contents. As a result, you can’t actually
store anything there. The Fantom-X
provides a different sort of memory for
permanent storage, as we’ll see.
Audio tracks are a special case. Work RAM holds the audio tracks themselves.
The samples that audio tracks play, however, reside in sample RAM. To
learn more about audio tracks, see the Audio Tracks Workshop booklet.
We haven’t mentioned effects because, technically, an effect is an element
within a patch, rhythm set, or performance. Still, when you edit effects,
that, too, takes place in work RAM.
We’re sorry to repeat ourselves, but we can’t emphasize this enough:
Anything in RAM is there only temporarily. It’s critical that you save your
work to one of the Fantom-X’s permanent storage areas to avoid losing it.
Whenever you edit something you’ve already saved, you’re ac tually
working on a copy it that’s been loaded into RAM. This is great because it
means that you’re free to experiment as wildly as you like, secure in the
knowledge that the original is safe and sound in permanent storage.
While most Fantom-X activities take place in its general-use
RAM—an area we’ll call “work RAM”—sampling has its own
workspace we’ll call “sample RAM.”
In the Fantom-X Owner’s Manual, work RAM is called the “temporar y area.”
Sample RAM is called “temporar y memory.”
What Goes On In Work RAM
Outside of sampling, most everything you select, play, edit,
and record in the Fantom-X is in work RAM while you’re using
it. When you:
• select—patches, rhythm sets, performances, songs, rhythm
patterns, or arpeggios, they’re loaded into work RAM.
• edit—patches, rhythm sets, performances, songs, rhythm
patterns, rhythm groups, arpeggio styles, or chord memory
forms, you do so in work RAM.
• record—sequencer tracks in a song, you do it in work
RAM.
Work RAM has a pre-designated area for each of the items it
holds. The currently selected patch is loaded into its own area,
the current song goes into its own area, and so on.
Preserving Work RAM Work
Each time you select something new for one of these areas,
it replaces what’s currently there. Therefore, If you’ve been
editing or recording, be sure to save your work to a permanent
storage area before selecting something new to play or edit.
The Fantom-X helpfully provides some visual cues that let you
tell at a glance if something you’re viewing has been edited or
recorded but hasn’t yet been saved in its current state.
Patches, rhythm sets, and performances
that need to be saved have an asterisk.
In other cases, you’ll see
the word “EDITED.”
Later in this booklet, we’ll tell you where you can learn about
saving and loading all of the things that work RAM can
temporarily hold.
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What Goes On In Sample RAM
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Store, Then Play
Sample RAM, logically enough, is where you work with samples
in the Fantom-X. In fact, a sample has to be in sample RAM to
be played or edited. All new samples go straight to sample
RAM when they’re first captured. When you record an audio
track, its samples also go into sample RAM. You can load
samples manually into sample RAM, or the Fantom-X can load
them for you automatically at startup. You also import samples
into sample RAM.
As shipped from the factory, the Fantom-X sample RAM is 32
MB in size, a good size for getting you started.
For more involved sampling work—
and for recording audio tracks—you
can expand sample RAM up to 544
MB by installing SDRAM memory
chips, as explained on Page 244 of
the Fantom-X Owner’s Manual. This
provides ample room for even the
largest samples and longest audio
tracks.
The Sampling on the Fantom-X Workshop booklet discusses the use of
sample RAM in detail, and explains how to capture, edit, play, save, load,
and import samples. It also explains how to set up the Fantom-X to load
samples for you automatically.
When you play a sample on the Fantom-X, you play it in a
patch or rhythm set. Sample-playing patches and rhythm sets
identify their samples by their storage locations, so it doesn’t
make sense to use a sample in a patch or rhythm set until it’s
been stored. Store the patch in permanent memory before
using it in a patch or rhythm set.
Flash: User and Card Memory
For permanent storage of your work, the Fantom-X uses a type
of memory called “flash” memory. Flash provides a very secure
place for the permanent storage of your data. The Fantom-X
offers two kinds of flash memory in which to keep your work:
• user memory—The Fantom-X provides 32 MB of built-in
flash memory, referred to as “user” memory.
• card memory—You can install a PC card (purchased
separately) in the Fantom-X’s rear-panel PC CARD slot
to add up to 1 GB of additional flash storage space.
You can also use a Compact Flash or Smart Media card
with a Compact Flash-to-PCMCIA or Smart Media-toPCMCIA adaptor. Swapping multiple cards in and out of
the Fantom-X gives you lots of extra storage space.
From now on in this booklet, when we refer to “PC card” or “memory card,”
we mean all three types of cards that can be used in the Fantom-X.
Preserving RAM Samples
Since sample RAM is cleared each time you power-off, it’s
absolutely vital that you save all of the new samples and audio
tracks you want to preserve—as well as any sample you’ve
been editing—to a permanent storage area before turning off
the Fantom-X. Otherwise, they’ll be lost. Yes, this is the third
time we’ve said this—it’s important.
PC Card Compact Flash
card
Smart Media
card
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