Roland Cloud

[fmr]

Roland cloud put the D50 sounds in there zenology vst

Thanks. I will install and test.

I wasn't impressed with the RC D-50 VST

You weren't impressed? It's basically THE REAL THING. What's missing there to impress you?

Regarding Zenology... Yes, it may have "the sounds" (read: the ROM sounds) of the D-50, but, as matter of fact, it doesn't. And ieven if it had them, it ISN'T the D-50, unless you think that ANY ROMpler Roland made after that is the D-50. The sound structure is similar, but that's not all.

Zenology pretends to be a kind of "do it all swiss army knife", but it's not a very good one, IMO. It wants to be all and do it all but in the end it isn't really good at anything. Essentially hype, and severely overpriced. I never used it, and will not miss it.

[fmr]

Does anybody know of any free JX-3P bin files? The plugin (plug-out) seems to come with only one bank.

Why not program your own. The synth is very simple and easy. You may even pick the Juno sounds to start from, and simply adapt them to the JX-3P.

I have the MKS-30 and made MANY sounds for it.

[sinemotor]

The new update for RCM is allowing a single authorization every 30 days. Also, Pro Members may now activate any two Legendary products at any given time. That is a good move.

[Benutzername]

You weren't impressed? It's basically THE REAL THING. What's missing there to impress you?

I think the problem with the D50 plugin is that it sounds like a brand new device that is attached directly to the DAW with a digital cable. With a real D50 you have to go through the analog domain at some point. The famous sounds from the 80s that we associate with a D50 were recorded through big studio consoles on tape, processed with high end outboard compressors and eqs and topped by real plate reverb units, analog BBD choruses and tape delays in the mix.

My trusty old D50 has way more noise than the plugin (it needs a recap) and it benefits a lot from the preamp and eq of my mixing desk. All this adds a lot of character to the sound and being able to touch the actual legend makes the the sound even better. However, I will probably fail miserably when challenged in a blind test once I take care of the noise and go directly to my interface. The plugin is a one to one clone and it works as advertised.

That being said, my personal opinion is that the D50 is very special because the technology was pretty new back then and the presets were absolutely fantastic and unheard of. It's definitely part of music history. From today's perspective it's IMHO nothing special and a lot of synths can easily do pretty similar sounds. When I need sounds that are recognizable as D50 sounds then I personally just use some samples from my real one and it's good enough for me.

However, the D50 plugin is still of great use for me because it comes with a lot of nice presets beyond the stock card sounds. I will probably transmit quite a few of them to my D50 and sample them to preserve the sounds for the future projects.

The nice thing about my D50 and my samples is that they will most likely still be around even when all the paranoid cloud based plugins are a thing of the past and absolutely no one can open old projects anymore just because some clueless guy in a suit thinks that "it is time to reorganize the product portfolio to optimize the shareholder value" or something like that.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

My trusty old D50 has way more noise than the plugin (it needs a recap) and it benefits a lot from the preamp and eq of my mixing desk. All this adds a lot of character to the sound and being able to touch the actual legend makes the the sound even better. However, I will probably fail miserably when challenged in a blind test once I take care of the noise and go directly to my interface. The plugin is a one to one clone and it works as advertised.

So run the plugin out of your DAW and through your preamp and EQ.

[BBFG#]

Roland cloud put the D50 sounds in there zenology vst

Thanks. I will install and test.
I wasn't impressed with the RC D-50 VST

You weren't impressed? It's basically THE REAL THING. What's missing there to impress you?.

Interesting. I think I've always been more impressed with the idea than the reality of the D50/D55. Which boils down to never really being impressed with it at all. Hard or soft.
Played another plugin yesterday and found myself comparing it to the D series; and the thought that kept passing through was "why anyone would really want a D50 plugin these days when other plugins nail it better and beyond?"
Perhaps the best part of it was the contributor to it that left for his own venture...

[fmr]

You weren't impressed? It's basically THE REAL THING. What's missing there to impress you?.

Interesting. I think I've always been more impressed with the idea than the reality of the D50/D55. Which boils down to never really being impressed with it at all. Hard or soft.

That's the placebo effect. It's the same with the old analog glories of the past (up to an extent - there is more difference in those).

People is attached to a romaticized and smokey idea of what they knew or heard in the past, some 30 or more years ago, and nothing that's been done now will compoare to that idea (because it isn't real). When they are confronted with the reald dwal, and comparisons, they usually come up with lots of excuses about why the original is better and sounds better (which its usually doesn't).

Played another plugin yesterday and found myself comparing it to the D series; and the thought that kept passing through was "why anyone would really want a D50 plugin these days when other plugins nail it better and beyond?"
Perhaps the best part of it was the contributor to it that left for his own venture...

I also I'm convinced that Eric Persing's sounds have a great deal of responsibility on the fame the D-50. But they are still there, so...

[Benutzername]

So run the plugin out of your DAW and through your preamp and EQ.

My point was that you can't get a D50 sound from physical hardware without going through some analog gear while the plugin is absolutely naked by default. So if you want to compare sounds then you should at least add a console simulation or something like that to the plugin.

[WatchTheGuitar]

TR-707/727

https://youtu.be/kQz7XA7Rwtk

[beely]

the thought that kept passing through was "why anyone would really want a D50 plugin these days when other plugins nail it better and beyond?"

Plenty of plugins can make D50-like sounds. No plugins can *nail* the D50 sound completely though, it's quite unique (love it or not).

There isn't *any* other synth than can make, for example, one of my all-time favourite presets, the D50 "Soundtrack", which relies heavily on the D50's weird filter, strange square/PWM waveforms and modulation and very specific layering and envelope behaviour.

I've tried...

Eric did a good stab at it in Omnisphere, of course, but even then it doesn't have the dynamic nature of the original sound (when played softly it's almost a different sound).

In short, someone would want to use the D50 plugin when they want to play with a D50, and access all the *many* available presets, many of which were quite famously used (whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you! ). Similar for DX7, Matrix 12 or any emulated plugin.

I'm very happy they did the D50, personally.

[mholloway]

The hardware D-50 romanticization hyperbole runs deep in here, I see. It's not a magic box. In fact, by today's standards it I bet it sounds pretty 90s-cheese, no matter which 'analog hardware consoles and amps' you run it through.

Any body with the cloud VST D-50 and some basic know-how with the standard compression / EQ / saturation mixing plugins can make it sound just as 'good' as the original (with 'good' being, of course, a fairly arbitrary descriptor...)

That extra 1-3% of 'attaining literal sameness' one might claim is 'missing' compared to the hardware is nothing that anybody, ever, anywhere, would notice in a song, in a mix. It's certainly nothing that would be the difference between a Great Song and a Not Great Song. So while perhaps the 'difference' can be technically accounted for, it' s just, well...not meaningful.

[Atlatnesiti]

Well, Roland Cloud just became Apple M1 native
… and all plugins are still running in Rosetta emulation mode…
WTF?

[XpanderDude]

Isn't that how it works until your DAW becomes coded in silicon? Which at this point is just Garageband and Logic.

[jasonekratz]

Isn't that how it works until your DAW becomes coded in silicon? Which at this point is just Garageband and Logic.

No. If the plugin is native it will run native regardless of the DAW.

[jasonekratz]

Well, Roland Cloud just became Apple M1 native
… and all plugins are still running in Rosetta emulation mode…
WTF?

And? Is there something that M1-native versions are going to accomplish that we need right this minute? Diva runs faster under Rosetta on M1 than on native Intel if I remember correctly.