Many of the attributes that make the flagship Fantom-X series so popular have been ported to the Fantom-Xa. Check out these mouth-watering specs: 128-voice polyphony, up to 644MB expandability, Skip Back Sampling, high-resolution built-in sequencer, realtime audio timestretching, COSM® modeling effects, mastering processor, USB port, WAV/AIF compatibility, and an SRX expansion slot. The Fantom-X’s sequencer has the largest capacity in the industry, and the Fantom-Xa is no different. It’s always waiting for you to start recording — just press the Record button from any mode and you’re off.

Under the Fantom-Xa’s hood is one of the most powerful synth engines on the market. It’s loaded with great raw waveforms, semi-modular structures, multiple filter types, and up to eight syncable LFOs per patch, including the Fantom’s user-programmable Step LFO, which you’ll find highlighted in the Pulsating and Beats&Groove categories. Use the onboard rhythms to launch a breakbeat from the pads, then press the Category Lock button to surf through dozens of perfectly sync’d rhythms for instant dance-floor inspiration. Enable the Xa’s arpeggiator (choose from over 100 programmable patterns) and warp it with the twist of a knob.

The foundation of any workstation is its sounds. They should inspire you to play, create, and write music, and keep you coming back for more. Like its big brothers, the Fantom-Xa shines with great patches, covering all the traditional keyboard and orchestral categories, plus banks of modern electronic textures and beyond. Over 1,000 patches are categorized by family (Electric Guitars, Soft Pads, Organs, etc.) so it’s easy to find your sound quickly.

The Fantom-Xa is equipped with a powerful and innovative feature found in the Fantom-X series: Skip Back Sampling. It’s an ultra-cool sound design tool, and is also handy for “rescuing” magical moments that you would have otherwise lost. If you play a great lick, for example, and wish that you could hear it back (and even retain it as a sample), simply hit the Skip Back button and there it is! Skip Back can also be used for handy recording of external guitar or vocals in time with the internal sequence, or as a productive way of quickly resampling your realtime performance with knob and controller tweaks.

Whether you’re sequencing MIDI tracks, triggering samples, or even recording audio directly to RAM, the Fantom-Xa makes combining these elements a simple process. Lay down a drum track by combining the internal drum sounds with audio loops, which can automatically sync to tempo via realtime time-stretching. Then record some keyboard parts via MIDI and finish your song by tracking a guitar or vocal as audio. The high-resolution sequencer holds up to 400,000 events, and supports Standard MIDI Files.

The Fantom-Xa is loaded with studio-quality COSM effects. There are three MFX processors onboard, plus dedicated reverb, chorus, and even a mastering processor with multiband compression. Export your polished, finalized mixes to a PC or Mac via USB for CD burning.

There’s no shortage of I/O on the Fantom-Xa. Take advantage of four audio outputs, a headphone out, a pair audio inputs, MIDI in, out, and thru, a Hold pedal input (halfpedal recognition), Control pedal input (assignable), and a USB port that supports file transfer and acts as MIDI interface. One handy USB cable connected from Fantom to computer is all you need. The onboard PC Card slot allows up to a gigabyte (!) of patch and sample data storage. You’ll also get Roland’s famous D-Beam controller and V-LINK output.