Picked up my spankin' new Fantom G7 Yesterday from Guitar Center and at the lowest Internet price quote. Read this tactic on some Roland Fantom forum site and decided to try it. I requested a quote from this outfit (don't know if I should name them on a public forum?) which was $600.00 less than the standard GC/ZZ Sounds/SameDayMusic advertised prices. I called GC, told them I had a quote and from who, and could they match it with a price that included GA's 7% sales tax. Jamal or Jabar or whoever answered the phone, said he'd check with his manager and get back to me. He called back in less than five minutes and said he could do the deal. I went over 30 minutes later, paid up, and picked up my factory sealed spanking new Fantom G7. They never even asked to see my quote. COULD THESE DAMN THINGS POSSIBLY BE THAT OVERPRICED? I may never buy from the Internet again. I haven't tried this price-match thing with any other store but GC certainly seems to honor it. Maybe I'm just benefiting from a bad economy, but I'll take it.

So far I know nothing. I had to play last night and babysit my grands this morning so I just got around to sitting it up for a listen. The damn thing is huge and heavy. The only first impression is that the black keys seem really skinny? Is it my imagination? No problem with fingering but it looks kinda weird.

OK, Diki, where are you? I may need to shell out for a round-trip plane ticket and all the sushi you can eat, to help me figure this thing out. THIS BOARD IS DEEP. I have to again thank Fran for turning me on to the Traynor K4. I hadn't prepared a place for it in my 'studio' so it's on a stand in the rec room where the K4 rests between gigs. I plugged it into what is normally the 'C1' organ channel (this channel has 'tube' and overdrive and is meatier than the other channels) with no tweaking and the sound is nothing short of amazing. I'm sorry, I love arranger keyboards and I've heard a couple of our members (mainly Diki) coax some excellent sounds out of boards like the G70, but when it comes to total palette of modern sounds, this thing is just in another league. I am very impressed. With my approach to learning a new board (study for 3 minutes, play for the next hour), it'll probably be six months before I scratch the surface of what it can do. If Diki is unavailable, I'll go for Gary or SqueakD .

I'll post something as soon as I am able to duplicate that demo that sucked me into buying it in the first place .

Now for the M50 .

chas