Roland Cloud - big change

[sacer]

Still no word on whether roland plugouts are finally transferable to cloud equivalents yet?

I asked yesterday, they said anything's possible but nothing's guaranteed.

So, not yet.

They told me about two years ago that something was in the works for plugout owners.
What makes it really annoying is that the right thing to do is pretty simple in this case. Own a roland plugout? Here is your license for the perpetual Roland Cloud version. Because it's the same frickin' plugin with fixes/improvements.

thats a kick in the ass for their first customers

[thenumber23]

Does Zenology have all the sounds from D-50 and XV-5080?

I think it has all the sounds from the XV-5080. There are 896 patches in their PRST_E XV Collection bank. I didn't see a 1:1 match of the 16 XV-5080 drum kits (by patch name).

I don't believe it has the D-50 sounds, or at least, it's not trying to have 1:1 patches like the D-50 plugin itself.

[clipnotic]

I generally don't understand, why people are using such cloud solutions? You have to calculate, whether it pays off or not, different monthly contribution options, different licenses, lifetime with or without resell option ...

I prophesy that cloud solutions won't have a "lifetime future"!

[xenofungus]

I saw Roland Cloud uses Xsolla for payment processing anyone used before ?

The other day I bought something from Groupees and it uses xsolla if you choose CC. Amazn and Paypal are also available, but I wanted to support business other than amz, and with PP I had bad experience recently. Anyway, all went smoothly and nothing dubious happened to my account... yet.

[gentleclockdivider]

The zenology plugin just like the jup x and jup xm will under certain circumstances (depending on patch ) not behave 100% like an xv 5080 , simply because there are are certain structure routings missing in the zencore .
The hard clip router ( algo 3 - 4 )and a combined ring mod strucuture ..think it's structure 10
It's roland after all , you gotta see through the marketing blurb

[v1o]

I think Roland admitted they'd hit a wall with their ACB tech hence the move towards the Zen-core tech seen in both the Zenology plugin and the Jupiter XM etc. so at least what they're working on now is at the forefront of their software and hardware ranges so hopefully any synths they build using the Zen-core approach now will also be rolled out to software.
I wonder if there's any scope for DSP acceleration of Zen-core somewhere down the road?

Where did they say they hit a wall? AFAIK both technologies are still being used and developed. ACB is still in use in many of their current products. Zen Core is just more suited to their workstation style products because it allows for greater polyphony. Whereas ACB is more suited to emulations as its more accurate.

[v1o]

I generally don't understand, why people are using such cloud solutions? You have to calculate, whether it pays off or not, different monthly contribution options, different licenses, lifetime with or without resell option ...

I prophesy that cloud solutions won't have a "lifetime future"!

Sir you are in danger of getting left behind. Perpetual licences are going the way of boxed optical disc software products. Everything is going to the cloud even gaming.

I think cloud solutions are good for folks in low income countries, where a typical plugin like Dune or Zebra would cost you one months salary. If you're only paying 4 bucks a month for access to world class sounds that is a steal.

[dionenoid]

So is anything known about how often you have to "phone home" to keep your software running ? Also, is the log-in procedure for your plug-ins changed (central log-in in stead of per plug-in) ?

I tried the old Roland Cloud for a few months and the biggest let-down (next to the cpu useage) was the fact that i had to be online pretty often to authorise every used plug-in in a daw project, plus Roland servers were down quite often which meant i couldn't do any work.

[PAK]

Still no word on whether roland plugouts are finally transferable to cloud equivalents yet?

I asked yesterday, they said anything's possible but nothing's guaranteed.

So, not yet.

They told me about two years ago that something was in the works for plugout owners.
What makes it really annoying is that the right thing to do is pretty simple in this case. Own a roland plugout? Here is your license for the perpetual Roland Cloud version.

Not perpetual. I wish. Closest you'll get to that is buying their hardware. Online authorisation is only good for the life of the product on the service. Assuming there was a still a service, after a plugin got discontinued, Roland also reserve the right to replace it with whatever they considered an equivalent product.

After this long I wouldn't get my hopes up. But maybe there's a chance, considering people due member reward plugins seem to be in much the same position. IE They're due their two plugins, but the whole thing seems to have been suspended earlier in the year, whilst they give priority to making sure the new back end changes work. So, unless they're going to ignore those people too, they might just put something in place yet. Problem is it always seems to be "later".

[Stefken]

The zenology plugin just like the jup x and jup xm will under certain circumstances (depending on patch ) not behave 100% like an xv 5080 , simply because there are are certain structure routings missing in the zencore .
The hard clip router ( algo 3 - 4 )and a combined ring mod strucuture ..think it's structure 10
It's roland after all , you gotta see through the marketing blurb

There is some marketing BS but as soon as you start digging just a little deeper it's clear that the zen-core is a somewhat simplified implementation, that in turn yields a very nice polyphony. Roland doesn't make a big secret about it.
Also if you use one of the vcf filters or ABM models you'll have a bigger cpuhit eating away some of the polyphony.

I do like the sound of the hardware though so it's all good for me. And the default filters have somewhat of a Daft Punk character to them, so I'm not very inclined to switch to the vcf filters.

[PAK]

Where did they say they hit a wall? AFAIK both technologies are still being used and developed. ACB is still in use in many of their current products. Zen Core is just more suited to their workstation style products because it allows for greater polyphony. Whereas ACB is more suited to emulations as its more accurate.

The Juno 60 was added to the existing JU-06, to create the JU-06A, last year. However, prior to that, AFAIK you do have to go back to 2017 to find the last ACB product.

Also, the JX8P is offered for Zen Core, but it hasn't seen an equivalent ACB version. That's not enough to say anything definitive, but kinda suggests a move towards favouring the Zen Core approach over ACB. The reason for this would be obvious - the cut down Zen versions can be used in many more Roland products.

Zen Core is about costs. High polyphony, using ACB, would've taken much more processor power, which pushes up prices and makes it more difficult to trickle down into their lower cost keyboards without low polyphony. But there's some irony that the decision came right when desktop CPU power has literally exploded. EG I wonder how much polyphony a 3960X (24 core AMD) could achieve with ACB plugins?

[PAK]

At least Roland have answered what Zen Core means for the fate of their software. In that sense this is very positive news. This is them saying software is now viewed as part of their main strategy, and not just a side earner.

Done right, tight integration will encourage plugin users to buy their hardware and vice versa. But it's really MIDI 2.0 which holds the potential to genuinely change things, and they're one of the few companies who have the dual skill set (software and hardware) which will be required to make the most of what's possible with a new generation of instruments. We'll see..

Plus the whole thing looks better thought out now. Laying the ground work with a worthwhile free offering aimed at getting people onto the service, and hoping to sell you sound expansions.. Plus the paid Pro version, aimed at those who want all the sounds Roland offer under one flexible plugin. Only down side is it seems like the Pro version might be rental only. Hopefully not.

At least you can now purchase the other plugins finally. They're a bit "ouch" priced if you want a whole bunch of them, but it's nothing a good Black Friday offer wouldn't solve

Either way, things are looking a lot better than they did a few months ago. Obviously they've been working on this all along, with them transitioning away from their website to basically doing everything via their Cloud Manager software.

[rezoneight]

Just some ideas on pricing...

TB-303: $149

thats a joke, right?

you can get a hardware version for a £129!

ABL3 is only €95...

You can't get a hardware TB303 for that much. You can get a Behringer copy that appears to have some issues, including shitty build quality. and if ABL3 is cheaper and you don't want the Roland version then buy ABL3. Why shouldn't Roland charge what they want? People will either buy it or not. I suspect at $149 many will just buy a subscription.

[AnX]

Just some ideas on pricing...

TB-303: $149

thats a joke, right?

you can get a hardware version for a £129!

ABL3 is only €95...

You can't get a hardware TB303 for that much. You can get a Behringer copy that appears to have some issues, including shitty build quality.

BS, its an excellent unit

and yes, roland can charge what they want, and customers can also choose the better quality cheaper alternative

[rezoneight]

Just some ideas on pricing...

TB-303: $149

thats a joke, right?

you can get a hardware version for a £129!

ABL3 is only €95...

You can't get a hardware TB303 for that much. You can get a Behringer copy that appears to have some issues, including shitty build quality.

BS, its an excellent unit

and yes, roland can charge what they want, and customers can also choose the better quality cheaper alternative

BS? Have read enough complaints online I've stayed away. Glad you got a functioning unit without issues.

And yes its wonderful people have the choice to buy what they want. Why do you seem so outraged by the price? Pretty simple. Don't buy it.