Roland Cloud

[Examigan]

All of these requests on Jon's list will be lost in time like tears in rain.

[mdx4ever]

Maybe I’m overly optimistic but, I’m giving Roland Cloud benefit of the doubt until end of this year (2024) to release new instruments
Somehow though, I don’t think it will happen

[dblock]

Maybe I’m overly optimistic but, I’m giving Roland Cloud benefit of the doubt until end of this year (2024) to release new instruments
Somehow though, I don’t think it will happen

I think it would be even more frustrating watching them release new instruments while not fixing the old ones. Makes me think the odds are the new stuff may have similar issues but that's just me.

[D-Fusion]

Maybe I’m overly optimistic but, I’m giving Roland Cloud benefit of the doubt until end of this year (2024) to release new instruments
Somehow though, I don’t think it will happen

I think it would be even more frustrating watching them release new instruments while not fixing the old ones. Makes me think the odds are the new stuff may have similar issues but that's just me.

My wish is that they make their Bloated unfriendly Cloud app stable and give us Proper offline authorization for our lifetime keys before they release anything else.

Then they should look into optimizing the Cpu usage on most of their products.

[dblock]

Maybe I’m overly optimistic but, I’m giving Roland Cloud benefit of the doubt until end of this year (2024) to release new instruments
Somehow though, I don’t think it will happen

I think it would be even more frustrating watching them release new instruments while not fixing the old ones. Makes me think the odds are the new stuff may have similar issues but that's just me.

My wish is that they make their Bloated unfriendly Cloud app stable and give us Proper offline authorization for our lifetime keys before they release anything else.

Then they should look into optimizing the Cpu usage on most of their products.

I agree. I might understand how they're not fixing issues because maybe they're so busy releasing new instruments or something but it doesn't seem that they're doing either. Again, maybe that's just me from the outside looking in. That said, if you're paying money you want things to just work right regardless.

[PAK]

Roland Cloud runs to Roland Japan’s hardware schedule. If Japan’s working on something else then that likely means no fixes for software until they’re done with whatever they’re working on, which could mean (and has proven to be at this point) long delays in bugs getting fixed. AFAIK The only bits Roland Cloud do themselves are the Manager software and probably Galaxia.

One bit of good news is that they added ACB to their flagship Fantom synth at the end of 2023. It means, in theory, any new ACB models for Fantom could be added to Roland Cloud, and vice versa. The spanner in the works being Roland tend to prefer releasing new products rather than strengthening existing ones.

So your best guide to figuring out when Roland Cloud will see anything new is to figure out what they might do on the hardware side. EG If they issue some sort of product replacement, for the System 8, that’s likely to spawn a bunch of new releases on Roland Cloud. But, if it’s some DJ Box, maybe not so much.

Even if they do new things, they might well slowly “drip feed” the releases to Roland Cloud, and some might never appear. EG They already did the work on the Boutique VP-330 years ago, but never used that for a Roland Cloud VP-330.

[dblock]

Roland Cloud runs to Roland Japan’s hardware schedule. If Japan’s working on something else then that likely means no fixes for software until they’re done with whatever they’re working on, which could mean (and has proven to be at this point) long delays in bugs getting fixed. AFAIK The only bits Roland Cloud do themselves are the Manager software and probably Galaxia.

One bit of good news is that they added ACB to their flagship Fantom synth at the end of 2023. It means, in theory, any new ACB models for Fantom could be added to Roland Cloud, and vice versa. The spanner in the works being Roland tend to prefer releasing new products rather than strengthening existing ones.

So your best guide to figuring out when Roland Cloud will see anything new is to figure out what they might do on the hardware side. EG If they issue some sort of product replacement, for the System 8, that’s likely to spawn a bunch of new releases on Roland Cloud. But, if it’s some DJ Box, maybe not so much.

Even if they do new things, they might well slowly “drip feed” the releases to Roland Cloud, and some might never appear. EG They already did the work on the Boutique VP-330 years ago, but never used that for a Roland Cloud VP-330.

I appreciate your post. Interesting and different perspective which is helpful.

[IvyBirds]

Roland Cloud runs to Roland Japan’s hardware schedule. If Japan’s working on something else then that likely means no fixes for software until they’re done with whatever they’re working on, which could mean (and has proven to be at this.

On the hardware side ACB and Zencore is getting very long in the tooth. If Roland is working on new things it will be new hardware based on new technology not ACB or Zencore

Even if they call is Advanced ACB or ACB II. Or Zencore II

They will say it's new enhanced modeling or whatever. That will enable them to market new hardware Synthesizers. I actually suspect it will be a hybrid modular approach of the two where one of the four partials in Zencore will be ACB based. So you can have an ACB modeled oscillators in any partial, and have ACB modeled filters as well. I suspect they will claim the new ACB models are better as well

If they do that on the hardware side they will just rehash everything yet again. Instead of New instruments we will get yet another Jupiter 8, yet another Juno, and yet another SH-101.

On the software side we won't get any new instruments, they will just rehash everything yet again. I think the era of actual new instruments that aren't rehashes is long gone

[D-Fusion]

Maybe I’m overly optimistic but, I’m giving Roland Cloud benefit of the doubt until end of this year (2024) to release new instruments
Somehow though, I don’t think it will happen

I think it would be even more frustrating watching them release new instruments while not fixing the old ones. Makes me think the odds are the new stuff may have similar issues but that's just me.

My wish is that they make their Bloated unfriendly Cloud app stable and give us Proper offline authorization for our lifetime keys before they release anything else.

Then they should look into optimizing the Cpu usage on most of their products.

I agree. I might understand how they're not fixing issues because maybe they're so busy releasing new instruments or something but it doesn't seem that they're doing either. Again, maybe that's just me from the outside looking in. That said, if you're paying money you want things to just work right regardless.

That is how i see it too

The plugins are great even if they are on the heavy side when it comes to the cpu usage and they could be better with some optimization.

The Cloud app is what killing the joy of using them for me when I know that it likes to stop working from time to time or if you don't remember to Delete your Browser Cache regularly and that you suddenly get interrupted because it need Re-authorization.

I Cured my problem by going HW when it comes to Roland and I will install my lifetime keys again the day they release a RCM App that is Customer friendly.

[MartyK]

It's really sad what I'm reading about the Roland Cloud. I really thought about trying it out because I really like the Roland sound, but if the software is so buggy and the support leaves a lot to be desired, then I'll probably give it a miss for now.

[Aloysius]

I started up Roland Cloud a couple of times recently (Open App). No luck but the software did send error messages back to H.Q.
Last night, after a W10 computer restart, I started RCM and it worked.
This morning I'm looking at the orange circle again.

[spacepluk]

It's really sad what I'm reading about the Roland Cloud. I really thought about trying it out because I really like the Roland sound, but if the software is so buggy and the support leaves a lot to be desired, then I'll probably give it a miss for now.

I recommend you try it and form your own opinion. It's working pretty well for me FWIW.

[jlgrimes11]

It's really sad what I'm reading about the Roland Cloud. I really thought about trying it out because I really like the Roland sound, but if the software is so buggy and the support leaves a lot to be desired, then I'll probably give it a miss for now.

In regards to bugs everything seems stable.

A couple of things suck though.

1. GUI. MAINLY on the older ACB synths, the GUI is horrible if you want to change presets and what not. The GUI for changing presets go back to a 90s or early 00s GUI and feels clunky. It feels a bit better on Mac and their Zenology VST is better in this category. I'd be more inclined to look elsewhere for emulations like the Juno or Jupiter as almost any other emulation has a better VST.

2. Authorization. Not a huge problem if you stay on the Internet but program checks online for authorization about once a month. If you are using these programs for live use or is a travelling producer this could be a dealbreaker.


With exception to Korg, hardware manufacturer VSTs appear to be an afterthought.

Korg gets it right though.

[Aloysius]

I quit RCM using the three dot menu in my tray.
I clicked on Open App again and it opened.
I clicked X to close RCM.
I clicked on Open App again and it did open but I was looking at the orange circle for a while.

[PAK]

On the hardware side ACB and Zencore is getting very long in the tooth. If Roland is working on new things it will be new hardware based on new technology not ACB or Zencore

I think they started ACB 2011-2012. The achilles heel, of ACB, isn’t the approach. It’s Roland’s own DSP processors (aka why they needed Zencore). I doubt they could justify the dev cost of their own new DSP chip today. So, just like Yamaha’s Montage M, I expect they’ll move to ARM based processors at some point.

They’d likely “rebrand” then, but I doubt they’ll throw the previous ~12+ years of ACB work away, especially given Roland’s love of repackaging code. So ACB will probably remain with us for some time to come, though you're probably right to suspect some sort of "ACB-2" type rebrand with that new processor. They might even do an emulation layer for the older stuff

There’s still a fair amount of things they can do (all the MKS rack stuff, 70’s synths etc) to prevent repetition, if they really want, and there’s maybe even a market for their early 90’s sample based stuff (W30 etc) if they actually got the converters right. Plus, as much as people gripe about them (often justified), how many will suddenly change their tune if a “proper” JP-8000 emu is released?