Owner's Manual - Roland

Overview of the Fantom-XTempo TrackThe Tempo track records tempo changes of a song over time. It canbe used for tempo changes during a song. If a song has the sametempo from beginning to end, the Tempo track can be ignored.When a song is first recorded on the Fantom-X, a tempo setting atthe time of recording will be stored at the beginning of the Tempotrack. Therefore when song playback starts from the beginning, thesong will always play back at this initial tempo.Thus playback tempo is determined by the Tempo track setting. Ifyou modify the tempo during playback, the overall tempo of thesong will be controlled by the setting you make.Beat TrackThe Beat track records the time signature of each measure of a song.Set the Beat track when recording a new song, or when you want tochange time signature during a song.PatternPatterns are a place to store performance data separately fromphrase tracks. You can create up to one hundred patterns; as with aphrase track, each pattern can contain up to sixteen MIDI channels ofdata.Patterns can be assigned to phrase tracks. This means that if yoursong uses repeating phrases such as drum or bass riffs, you canrecord each phrase as a pattern, and then use the Step Recordingwindow to assign the patterns at the appropriate locations (p. 176).In this case, the phrase track only contains “pattern call numbers”which specify which pattern is to be played. This is convenient, andalso lets you conserve memory.The RPS function (p. 203) for immediate playback also applies toPatterns. Patterns are therefore convenient for live performance, ifyou’ve recorded necessary sequencer data as Patterns and take themto the gig.Patterns also make fine scratch-pads for musical ideas.Songs and the Sound GeneratorModeThe Fantom-X’s sequencer can be used at any time, regardless of themode of the sound generator (Patch/Performance).In Performance mode you can use up to sixteen sounds, with eachpart playing a different sound. This means that Performance mode isideal for recording or playing an ensemble that uses multipleinstruments, such as drums, bass, and piano.In Patch mode you can play using the sounds that are assigned to theKeyboard part and the Pad part.Positions for Storing a SongTemporary AreaThe sequencer has an area called Temporary Area that cantemporarily store one song. So we call this temporary song.To play back a song saved to a disk with the Fantom-X, it doesn’thave to be loaded into Temporary Area. Only when you’re going torecord a song or edit a song saved to disk, do you have to load it intoTemporary Area. Since only one song can be worked on duringrecording or editing, all the Temporary Area has to do is store onesong (about 120,000 notes).The song in Temporary Area is volatile and will be lost when thepower is turned off. To keep a song, you must save it to usermemory or memory card.Memory Card/User MemoryWhen keeping a recorded or edited song in Temporary Area, save itto user memory or memory card as a song file. Up to 256 songs canbe saved to a card and user memory.If you want to keep the song in Temporary Area that you recordedor edited, you must save it as a song file onto a memory card or intouser memory. Either method lets you save up to 256 songs.A card and user memory can contain two file types. The three-lettersymbol shown in parentheses ( ) is a file name extension thatdistinguishes the different file types.Song File (.SVQ)This file is a song created on the Fantom-X. It is called an MRC Pro song.Standard MIDI File (.MID)Standard MIDI File is a standard file format that allows sequencerdata to be exchanged between most musical applications. Fantom-Xfiles can be saved as Standard MIDI Files. This also allows you toplay back commercially available music data (GM scores) that iscompatible with the GM/GM2 system.fig.04-010.eTemporary Memory User MemorySong fileInternal MemoryStandard MIDI fileFantom-XMemory CardSong fileStandard MIDI file31