Fantom

From $3,299 [street] roland.com

Once upon a time, the Swiss army synth workstation was king of the keyboards. The hardware boom of recent years, however, has favored specialized instruments from analog synths to drawbar organs to the sonic-Lego world of Eurorack. So, it’s intriguing to see Roland advance the new Fantom, a proudly generalist workstation. It performs myriad tasks so well that it really can take the place of multiple instruments that are desirable in their own right.

On the scene

The The Fantom’s user interface touts a “mode-less” concept