Roland Cloud

[beely]

The JP8000s which I was referring to isn't from the early 1990s it was announced in late 1996 and came out in early 1997

Indeed, if you read my post I'm saying that by late 90s etc the output stages are not worth modelling, they're mostly essentially "fine". Which was why I said modelling the JP8000 DAC to me would be pointless.

In earlier 1990s era synths that was not the case like on the Wavestation

Yes, this was the point I was making. Early 90s, the output stages (in music gear, not hi-fi stuff) still could often be pretty coloured, but by the late 90s stuff was pretty decent.

Sorry if that wasn't clear...

[beely]

I confirm that SY-77 digital filter is a really total new development, beside the fact that previous TX-16W digital sampler was the first with filter tables loadable from floppy and also the testbed for SY-77/85/99 next development stage in Yamaha.

Ah yes, that rings a bell about the TX16W filters.

Yes, it's true. And it's true that Korg was for a brief time owned by Yamaha, but speaking with some Korg PMs, I was told that R&D was separated, so I don't know if "M1 used Yamaha filters" (it's the first time I hear a similar thing...)

Yes, it was a thing for a little while - specifically in the Wavestation development (which shared a lot of engine tech with the M1 too). This comes from the people that designed the Wavestation, and is easy enough to look up... It was the Yamaha voice chips they were using that couldn't do proper filters, hence the "workarounds" in the WS.

http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/yamaha-sy99/7493

Thanks for quoting my own site at me - I hadn't had time to go have another look and check as I'd just updated macOS and it took a little while...

I suggest you to have a look at the thread about the much anticipated SWAY SY-77 modeled plugin by Sheaf, and the hype of the old time users of TG/SY-77:

Yes, I'm following that thread and have posted there many times.

Maybe, asking to Sheaf details on SY's filter, you will be convinced of the really improved design and sound of it compared to competitors of that times...old times...

Yes, I was also going to mention that here, but remembered this wasn't the Sway thread, but a Roland Cloud one, so left it...

[IvyBirds]

This comes from the people that designed the Wavestation, and is easy enough to look up... It was the Yamaha voice chips they were using that couldn't do proper filters, hence the "workarounds" in the WS

The Wavestation doesn't use bespoke Yamaha chips the main CPU is an off the shelf Hitachi CPU, and the Tone Generator Chip is the Korg TG88 aka MB87726 which was made by Fujitsu only used in Korg products, and was part of the TG88, DF88, WS89 chipset

The DF88 Chip was used for the filter, mixer, and Amp Envelopes and the WS89 was used for the effects

If you crack open the case you will see all three of them labeled with Korg logos and the Korg part numbers

You can see them all here

http://studiorepair.com/gallery/Korg/WS ... 47346.html

Maybe they meant the chips Yamaha let them use?

Korg replaced the TG88 and DF89 with the TG92 and DF93. The DF93 used in the Trinity had resonant filters

You can read more here
https://www.dtech.lv/techarticles_korg_dsps.html

[beely]

Maybe they meant the chips Yamaha let them use?

I'd need to dig out the interviews with the people involved to give you more specific information, it's been a while since I read them, so I don't have links offhand... It's been a minute since the old Wavestation mailing list in the 90s and a lot of stuff has disappeared over the years... The one I'm remember was probably a John Bowen interview.

Yes, the Trinity was a later generation of Korg's engine tech that started with the M1, by then (the mid 90s) digital filters were somewhat more common.

[IvyBirds]

Maybe they meant the chips Yamaha let them use?

I'd need to dig out the interviews with the people involved to give you more specific information, it's been a while since I read them, so I don't have links offhand... It's been a minute since the old Wavestation mailing list in the 90s and a lot of stuff has disappeared over the years... The one I'm remember was probably a John Bowen interview.

Yes, the Trinity was a later generation of Korg's engine tech that started with the M1, by then (the mid 90s) digital filters were somewhat more common.

From what I understand the designers were from Sequential and the team that designed the Wavestation was headed up by Dave Smith and were the same people that designed the Prophet VS

It wouldn't surprise me if they came to Yamaha and asked for more powerful and therefore more expensive chips that could do more advanced things like resonant filtering and were shot down so these chips were the ones they were stuck with and were the "Yamaha Chips" and they had to make compromises with the design

It must have been frustrating fir them, I have read I think your excellent site that they had to make compromises on the Prophet VS as well thanks to cost and Sequential's financial state at the time

The Prophet VS and the Wavestation are two of my all time favorite Synths, I can only imagine what could have been if they had the resources they wanted and unlimited budgets

[beely]

From what I understand the designers were from Sequential and the team that designed the Wavestation was headed up by Dave Smith and were the same people that designed the Prophet VS

Sort of, yes. Some of the things, like Vector Synthesis and waveforms etc came from the VS development, but Chris Meyer (who was heavily involved in the VS) wasn't involved in the WS. It was mainly John Bowen, Stanley Jungleib, Scott Peterson and Joe Bryan had the idea for the A/D stuff, headed up by Dave Smith. (Joe Bryan went on to, amongst other things, create the UAD1 platform for Universal Audio). And the great Dan Philips came along more in the WS SR phase I believe (and he might be along to fill in some gaps, he's still with Korg today).

Also, if you look at the UI for the Prophet 3000, you'll see where the Wavestation UI came from too - they re-used a lot of those interface ideas. I always thought the WS UI was excellently designed, given the under-the-hood complexity. (SR excepted of course! )

It wouldn't surprise me if they came to Yamaha and asked for more powerful and therefore more expensive chips that could do more advanced things like resonant filtering and were shot down so these chips were the ones they were stuck with and were the "Yamaha Chips" and they had to make compromises with the design

They were basically reusing the tech/engine already developed for the M1 for the sample playback and effects stuff, and were constrained by the capabilities of those chips. The M1 has really weak filters as well. Designing new chips wasn't something that would be viable at the time, given the investment into the M1 (and it's subsequent popularity). It made sense to capitalise on that tech across new instruments.

I'll try to find it, it was a really good piece, I might have to trawl the Wayback Machine for it...

It must have been frustrating fir them, I have read I think your excellent site that they had to make compromises on the Prophet VS as well thanks to cost and Sequential's financial state at the time

Yeah, Sequential were in their last years at the time, as were Oberheim developing the Xpander/Matrix 12. Moog and ARP too, they were all struggling, largely down to the DX7, and customers expecting ever more complicated features which were getting ever more complicated and costly to develop for small companies. It was basically the death of the independent US analog synth companies. At least Yamaha picked up much of the Sequential team.

There's a lot more on the Sequential story in the "Prophet from Silicon Valley" if you haven't read that, I find a lot of the behind the scenes stories super interesting...

The Prophet VS and the Wavestation are two of my all time favorite Synths, I can only imagine what could have been if they had the resources they wanted and unlimited budgets

Yep, the Wavestation for a long time has been my favourite of the digital era...

[DashOfLime]

You guys do realize this is a Roland thread right?

[Septic Underground]

I find it highly informative...

continue discussing Roland when they release something new. Or shall we again start on the login hassles, millions of internet-reroutings in the RCM. Lifetime keys needing to validate every 30 days. Updates without release-notes. Killing off plugins (Soundcanvas) but letting ppl buy it, up to the day it was killed and was this considered some sort of service. Instead of releasing it for free, coz there will be no updates for it and it is as is.

Hows that?

[Jon at Roland]

I find it highly informative...

continue discussing Roland when they release something new. Or shall we again start on the login hassles, millions of internet-reroutings in the RCM. Lifetime keys needing to validate every 30 days. Updates without release-notes. Killing off plugins (Soundcanvas) but letting ppl buy it, up to the day it was killed and was this considered some sort of service. Instead of releasing it for free, coz there will be no updates for it and it is as is.

Hows that?

Hey Septic, happy to pass this criticism along for you. For clarification, we struggled a lot on how to handle Sound Canvas. The instrument wasn't working many users but people had been buying it for months before the decision was made. After we realized that updating the instrument would be more of a challenge than we thought, we wanted to honor customers who had made the purchase by allowing them to get the instrument after discontinuing it. This only seemed fair and it gave people the option to continue purchasing the Lifetime Key if that instrument is what they were using Roland Cloud for. We have added two new instrument to our library since then as well, DW Soundworks and EARTH Piano are now both included with an Ultimate Membership.

As for release notes, from what I can tell we almost always include them on our webpage when we make an update. Is there somewhere else you'd like to see them as well? I would like to see them in RCM when the update option pops up.

[SLiC]

Hey Septic, happy to pass this criticism along for you.

Hello Jon

Perhaps you should pass on that almost every post here and on other sites is very critical of Roland Cloud, that the cloud 'experiment' has failed and that Roland's reputation in general is being damaged by trying to push on with this. Its adding insult to injury.

[Jon at Roland]

Hey Septic, happy to pass this criticism along for you.

Hello Jon

Perhaps you should pass on that almost every post here and on other sites is very critical of Roland Cloud, that the cloud 'experiment' has failed and that Roland's reputation in general is being damaged by trying to push on with this. Its adding insult to injury.

Hey SLiC, it is my job and it is why I'm here so I will let them know you think Roland Cloud is a failed experiment.

[SLiC]

Hey Septic, happy to pass this criticism along for you.

Hello Jon

Perhaps you should pass on that almost every post here and on other sites is very critical of Roland Cloud, that the cloud 'experiment' has failed and that Roland's reputation in general is being damaged by trying to push on with this. Its adding insult to injury.

Hey SLiC, it is my job and it is why I'm here so I will let them know you think Roland Cloud is a failed experiment.

I say that as someone with a lot of Roland hardware, 30 years experience and an ultimate subscriber for the first 3 years (and half a dozen life time keys) so if you loose people like me...you need 2-3 real new instruments a year to keep existing subscribers interested don't think Roland is committed enough to develop at that rate, certainly not circuit modelled synths anyway...

[Jon at Roland]

Hey Septic, happy to pass this criticism along for you.

Hello Jon

Perhaps you should pass on that almost every post here and on other sites is very critical of Roland Cloud, that the cloud 'experiment' has failed and that Roland's reputation in general is being damaged by trying to push on with this. Its adding insult to injury.

Hey SLiC, it is my job and it is why I'm here so I will let them know you think Roland Cloud is a failed experiment.

I say that as someone with a lot of Roland hardware, 30 years experience and an ultimate subscriber for the first 3 years (and half a dozen life time keys) so if you loose people like me...

Yea man I totally hear you. I've written down your criticism before as well. Always appreciate it.

[IvyBirds]

For clarification, we struggled a lot on how to handle Sound Canvas. The instrument wasn't working many users but people had been buying it for months before the decision was made.

If you knew it wasn't working for many years but kept on selling it, that is an issue

When the choice was made to kill off the Concerto instruments you just made them free and it got your company a lot of good will

Instead of just killing it and making it unavailable for everyone even your subscribers you should have given it away for free with the knowledge that it was "retired" and would not get any further updates or big fixes

And anyone who had purchased a lifetime key in the prior year would get a free lifetime key to another instrument

Doing so would have cost nothing since you give away lifetime keys anyway and would have brought a lot of good will towards your company

In any case I suggest that a plan be worked up as how to handle retirements better in the future

I own a lifetime key for it, but it's not usable for me anyway because of the ongoing Roland Cloud Manager issues

Fortunately I still have the hardware and samples of all my favorite patches

[jamcat]

There are about 30,000 Roland Cloud subscribers, currently.
Roland Cloud seems to be growing by 1000 to 1500 subscribers per quarter in recent years, which is around maybe 15 new subscribers per day, net.

Q1 2024: https://ir.roland.com/en/ir/library/res ... 2024_E.pdf
Q2 2024: https://ir.roland.com/en/ir/library/res ... 2024_E.pdf

Not sure if that is meeting Roland's expectations or not, or whether they would consider it a success or a failure.