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INTRODUCTION

I have just bought one of those Roland ARX-03 SuperNATURAL Brass expansion boards for my Fantom G from those great guys at Absolutemusic. I believe I have purchased it for the best price in  in the Country and the postage was free – what an incredible deal.

Brass to me is one of those strange sounds that whilst it is not particularly modern and has certainly been around awhile, it can still be used in today’s sounds in any genre of music. It can be used to create fun, punch, haunting, rhythmic and sexy sounds in a variety of ways. In order for you to use these sounds correctly in your songs you need something to give you all the nuances and tweakability as if you had a whole brass section at your disposal. With the ARX-03 board, I believe Roland have attempted to do this.

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The Roland Fantom G8 is without doubt the best Piano / Synth Workstation I ever owned. The points that sell it are simply – its looks – its keyboard action and feel / playability and its huge 8.5″ TFT colour screen which is mouse-controlled. The sound has a clarity that out-classes the Fantom X. This difference is like the difference between 16bit and 24bit sounds. Everything sounds just that bit crisper and cleaner. I particularly love the fact that the screen displays what you play and where and you can see exactly where your keyboard splits are. On most other keyboards, you would have to guess for example where your piano range ends and where your brass begins or you may have many splits where it is even more difficult. With the Fantom Gs you can clearly see it right in front of you in colour.

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