Roland Cloud

[Mushy Mushy]

Logged on, was reminded it’s £20 a month, logged out, bought Wave Alchemy Revolution for £60 instead.

[Caine123]

Logged on, was reminded it’s £20 a month, logged out, bought Wave Alchemy Revolution for £60 instead.

i dont think it is worth $240 for only to have TR-808!
but i keep it cause of the rest so far.... still i dont like this cloudshit!

[Echoes in the Attic]

It's annoying that they are all separate products, every single drum machine included. So if you wanted to own the 808 and 909, it would take 2 years and 480 dollars. That's crazy. if they are going to do this yearly ownership stuff, they could at least bundle some things together like the 808/909 as a single product.

[fmr]

It's annoying that they are all separate products, every single drum machine included. So if you wanted to own the 808 and 909, it would take 2 years and 480 dollars. That's crazy. if they are going to do this yearly ownership stuff, they could at least bundle some things together like the 808/909 as a single product.

If you were Roland, would you that? Especially the Roland we all know?

[beely]

I think people are getting a bit too hung on the "if you wanted to own it" stuff.

Once you started paying for the service, the plugins are available for use in your DAW, immediately. They behave exactly the same as if you "owned" them. You're paying for a service to access any and all of the Roland plugins that you choose. Once you stop paying for that service, all those plugins won't work anymore.

Exception - as a bonus/reward for a full years' worth of paying for the service (and as an incentive to subscribe), you get the option for one nominated plugin to not stop working if you decide to stop paying - which is a nice bonus. But it is not the point of paying for the service.

If you don't like the service, or the terms, it's not for you. It certainly isn't for everybody...

[Caine123]

I think people are getting a bit too hung on the "if you wanted to own it" stuff.

Once you started paying for the service, the plugins are available for use in your DAW, immediately. They behave exactly the same as if you "owned" them. You're paying for a service to access any and all of the Roland plugins that you choose. Once you stop paying for that service, all those plugins won't work anymore.

Exception - as a bonus/reward for a full years' worth of paying for the service (and as an incentive to subscribe), you get the option for one nominated plugin to not stop working if you decide to stop paying - which is a nice bonus. But it is not the point of paying for the service.

If you don't like the service, or the terms, it's not for you. It certainly isn't for everybody...

i agree, but i think they added the bonus ESPECIALLY for the people (like me) who want to "OWN" (wrong word but i use it now ) a plugin. im subscribed for some plugins which i would pay $240 which is too much normally but well i love jv-1080 for example, what i hate is that the SRX plugin is a seperate one so i would have to spend for EACH SRX card, this is nonsense! if i would stop this service and would love to OWN them.

[beely]

Yes, it is an incentive to gain more subscribers. Seems to be working, too!

Of course, should they go back to selling individual plugins, that would more or less kill their subscription business overnight, and they've obviously done the maths/forecasting to come to the conclusion that the subs service will make them more money.

It's not my preferred way of using these plugins either...

[fmr]

Yes, it is an incentive to gain more subscribers. Seems to be working, too!

Of course, should they go back to selling individual plugins, that would more or less kill their subscription business overnight, and they've obviously done the maths/forecasting to come to the conclusion that the subs service will make them more money.

It's not my preferred way of using these plugins either...

At least, having a subscription, means that they also have to keep things improving, and new things coming, which is something NEW to Roland, which used to launch something, launch an update or two, and then abandon the product. With the subscription they have to keep updating ALL OF THEM.

Surely, they did NOT update the GUIs of the Jupiter and the Juno, though

[teacue]

Though I have a TR-8 I am really happy to be able to use the TR-808 as VST.

I am just wondering (dreaming) if one day the JD-Xi and the JD-XA will come to the cloud!

[krreed]

For professional studios which use lots of sounds all the time the cloud service may be a good deal but not for a home studio and gig musician like me. No interest in the cloud, but Roland could sell more if they make plugins available for purchase.

[robotmonkey]

Yes, it is an incentive to gain more subscribers. Seems to be working, too!

Of course, should they go back to selling individual plugins, that would more or less kill their subscription business overnight, and they've obviously done the maths/forecasting to come to the conclusion that the subs service will make them more money.

It's not my preferred way of using these plugins either...

At least, having a subscription, means that they also have to keep things improving, and new things coming, which is something NEW to Roland, which used to launch something, launch an update or two, and then abandon the product. With the subscription they have to keep updating ALL OF THEM.

Surely, they did NOT update the GUIs of the Jupiter and the Juno, though

They don't. They could easily drop the whole cloud thing. Cloud services disappear all the time. Sometimes even over night and without warning. In this case one would be left with nothing to use for their money at all.

Also, sooner or later they will run out of the interesting stuff and it will be more piano libraries and such.

[SLiC]

Yes, it is an incentive to gain more subscribers. Seems to be working, too!

Of course, should they go back to selling individual plugins, that would more or less kill their subscription business overnight, and they've obviously done the maths/forecasting to come to the conclusion that the subs service will make them more money.

It's not my preferred way of using these plugins either...

At least, having a subscription, means that they also have to keep things improving, and new things coming, which is something NEW to Roland, which used to launch something, launch an update or two, and then abandon the product. With the subscription they have to keep updating ALL OF THEM.

Surely, they did NOT update the GUIs of the Jupiter and the Juno, though

They don't. They could easily drop the whole cloud thing. Cloud services disappear all the time. Sometimes even over night and without warning. In this case one would be left with nothing to use for their money at all.

Also, sooner or later they will run out of the interesting stuff and it will be more piano libraries and such.

If you pay monthly there is no risk, infact you can subscribe for a few months whiulest doing a project, then stop, then start afagin 6 month later....its pretty flexible- pay as yoiu use...I have a ton of VST's that I 'bought' but now neve use (beter stuff has come out and replaced it) or stuff has just stoped being developed/supported (I am looking at you Alchemy!) -owning it doesnt always help....

As for Roland 'running out' of new stuff to put up...by that time (if every instrument/sound roland have ever made is in the cloud) I think subscription will be evn better value!

[fmr]

They don't. They could easily drop the whole cloud thing. Cloud services disappear all the time. Sometimes even over night and without warning. In this case one would be left with nothing to use for their money at all.

Also, sooner or later they will run out of the interesting stuff and it will be more piano libraries and such.

As was pointed out. you pay as you go, so, if Roland abandons the Cloud, you just lose the chance to use the plug-ins, but you don't pay anymore either.

Also, I think there isn't a risk of Roland running out of content. They can, for example, do "remixes" of the old instruments, creating new versions, with more features added, like many builders do when they "emulate" the old stuf, or create "hybrid" versions. TWe are talking about software, and the possibilities are limitless. You just have to use your imagination. So, no, I don't think they risk to run out of content, as long as they want to create more. And when the portfolio reaches the 20 or more instruments, maintaining them will be already a job that takes a lot of time and work.

Anyway, although I don't like the subscroption model either, I recognize that it isn't so bad, after all, as long as they keep their commitment.

[robotmonkey]

If you pay monthly there is no risk, infact you can subscribe for a few months whiulest doing a project, then stop, then start afagin 6 month later....its pretty flexible- pay as yoiu use...I have a ton of VST's that I 'bought' but now neve use (beter stuff has come out and replaced it) or stuff has just stoped being developed/supported (I am looking at you Alchemy!) -owning it doesnt always help....

As for Roland 'running out' of new stuff to put up...by that time (if every instrument/sound roland have ever made is in the cloud) I think subscription will be evn better value!

Alchemy actually illustrates my point perfectly. My copy of Alchemy runs just fine and will continue to run fine until there's no drastic changes to Windows or VST architecture. I can open any old project from years a go and continue to work on it.

With Roland Cloud, when I tried it, half of the time I could not even run their plugins because their authorization servers were crapping out all the time. The simple fact is that as soon as they shut down their cloud you are left with nothing.

I agree that it's not bad if you want a rent a piece of gear for a concrete project and then print everything. But over long term it just waste of money. Also there's assumption that one would want everything from the Cloud. The more realistic case is that there's couple of useful plugins that one is interested and the rest is pointless ballast. It's the equivalent of your tons of unused VST plugins, except you continue to pay for them.

[robotmonkey]

Also, I think there isn't a risk of Roland running out of content. They can, for example, do "remixes" of the old instruments, creating new versions, with more features added, like many builders do when they "emulate" the old stuf, or create "hybrid" versions. TWe are talking about software, and the possibilities are limitless. You just have to use your imagination. So, no, I don't think they risk to run out of content, as long as they want to create more. And when the portfolio reaches the 20 or more instruments, maintaining them will be already a job that takes a lot of time and work.

Anyway, although I don't like the subscroption model either, I recognize that it isn't so bad, after all, as long as they keep their commitment.

I think this was discussed before this thread, but there's not that many interesting synths in their lineup and sooner or later they will run out of their legacy stuff. That they have resulted to making every srx board as a separate synth kind of indicates this. Imagine if Korg had released all the M1 and Wavestation PCM exapnsion cards as separate synths. We would all consider it to have been ludicrous.

Of course, Roland can also start developing new synths for their cloud platform, I definitely see that option.