Goodbye Roland Cloud

[Bippo]

So yesterday I had a great strike of inspiration, I felt I must hurry and put those ideas down in my daw before I lose it.
I knew I needed a fast rompler with zero loading times so I can lay out all the different drums/bass/guitar ideas I had in my head, as fast as possible.

I chose the roland xv5080 plugin because it has nice sounds for sketching and fast loading times. That was my mistake.

I couldnt authorize the f**king thing for the life of me! My internet connection was up and running, has the latest roland cloud manager version..but the stupid thing didn't work, couldn't connect to the cloud manager.

I tried everything, reconnecting to internet, reinstalling the rcm...nothing worked. 15 minutes later, after wasting my time and energies on stupid techniqual issues, I was just frustrated and out of "the zone", zero inspiration and huge frustration.

That wasn't the first time the rcm failed me, but that was the last time.
I payed money for life time licenses for those plugins, and every once in awhile I need to prove again that I'm indeed the rightful owner of this shit, instead of just using it, yet I can't prove it because the cloud manager is a piece of useless bloatware that doesn't function!

I'm done with the roland cloud forever.
Uninstalled all the plugins associated with it and I"m never gonna look back.
Yes, I spent a good deal of money for those plugins, but it's not healthy to let your inspiration die whenever the cloud manager dies, which happens too many times.

Roland should learn from Korg how to operate in the vsts world, I used the triton and m1 vsts so many times and never had to fight my way through some shitty bloatware in order to use it.
Buy once, use forever. No need to prove yourself as the rightful legitimate owner, and failing to do so because you are dependent on some shitty bloatware.

Good riddance roland, I'll stick with korg from now on.

End of rant.

[SoundHunterrr]

I also like the idea "buy one, own forever". If I give my money for instrument, I want to use it when I want + need.

[Bippo]

"Own forever" - except when 14 days has passed and the cloud manager has gone on vacation

[layzer]

bad idea to try to live off food via subscription off some cloud too.
the good ol days of just buying something and owning
it on your system with a serial code is still the best way to go.
its been korg or freeware for me for some time now.
no DL managers, ilok, complicated protection on
anything i use.

[electro]

You suffer the consequences of being hostage to internet access and a working corporate server. Two prerequisite conditions that need to be maintained indefinitely for you to access your purchases.

DRM is never a good position for the paying customer to be in. The two worst forms of Copy Protection being Online Activation and Challenge Response.

We must support developers that resist the DRM trend by giving them the revenue to continue their current business model. Support talented developers such as Hornet, DDMF, TAL, U-he, Nembrini, Audiority, Aly James Lab, Kazrog, Melda.

[layzer]

Of course there is no debate, everyone should stay on 32 bit and use 20 year old freebies, because layzer says so.

or you can have this dudes attitude and continue dealing with
all the new DRM stuff.

[chk071]

Jeez... I thought Roland would drop Roland Cloud...

Self-important much?

[schpaeckulum]

Of course there is no debate, everyone should stay on 32 bit and use 20 year old freebies, because layzer says so.

or you can have this dudes attitude and continue dealing with
all the new DRM stuff.

[Polomo123]

DRM is never a good position for the paying customer to be in. The two worst forms of Copy Protection being Online Activation and Challenge Response.

You forgot the worst of the worst
ALWAYS ON and Dongles by the way too
(If I remember right Propellerheads Reason got such a system both )

[electro]

Always on DRM is absolutely unacceptable.

Dongles are good, second only to key files and registration numbers.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Never had a problem with challenge/response. Will never use ilok (even software based licenses) ever again due to some issues once that even their support wouldn't fix. Will never use a dongle. But this Roland Cloud BS may be the most untrustworthy. I too have some lifetime licenses but will not use them unless they change the licensing. Even though they sound great.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I know it's a pain in that ass but:

1. I had a similar issue where my plugins refused to activate. Turns out I had multiple versions installed in various folders. The version number on the GUI was the same as the most recent version on the cloud, but the activation method had changed behind the scenes and the plugins refused to auth. The solution ultimately ended up being: uninstall and reinstall and I never had issues again. Not saying that's what happened in your case but if you already selected a Lifetime Key for that plugin, and it refuses to authorize in the future, that might be it.

2. Roland Cloud's authorization sucks. They've been posting on Gearslutz to say the top priority is to improve the issues with authorization and Cloud services being unavailable. Kudos to them for venturing publicly into that minefield and not shying away from the issues. They've acknowledged the problems, they say they're working on them.

I'm not trying to convince anyone Roland Cloud is the best nor would I even consider this post a defense of them. There's definitely problems and I don't blame any customer for being pissed about them. Considering the DRM element won't go away, I really wish Lifetime Keys needed activation upon install and never again, with the ability to remotely de-authorize non-active PC's for instances where you've had a catastrophic crash or upgraded. That type of system I think most people could happily live with. The current "every 14 days [or whatever] and oh, there's all kinds of downtime on our service/servers" is pretty terrible as-is. Even without the downtime, I'd still be annoyed by it constantly phoning home.

[Echoes in the Attic]

2. Roland Cloud's authorization sucks. They've been posting on Gearslutz to say the top priority is to improve the issues with authorization and Cloud services being unavailable. Kudos to them for venturing publicly into that minefield and not shying away from the issues. They've acknowledged the problems, they say they're working on them.

Have they said whether they would consider changing the lifetime licenses to authorize once permanently and not phone home every 14 days? Someone must have brought this up. If they did this I'd probably buy more of them.

[layzer]

i own a JV880 HW unit and i love it.
i would love to own the JV1080 vst
and for someone that doesnt buy
VSTs very often, i'd pay a fair price
for a one time serial activated WINXP version.
LMAO.

[Robmobius]

Bought two licenses off Roland Cloud when they dropped their mandatory sub shit, never had an issue...