Roland Cloud

[vulpes777]

well, you can buy expansions/presets regardless of your sub status, so my guess is that RCM will check every available pack, whether it is installed or not.

Thank you, your post gave me an idea: it's not exactly clear where the assets for Zenology are stored, but

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Roland Cloud

looks like a good candidate, as it contains (mostly) empty folders for the RC instruments plus a rather large one for Zenology.

I have renamed the latter and started a fresh instance of Zenology Lite, and now I'm down to the 7-10-ish seconds from D-Fusion's post; while not lightning-fast is far more acceptable. Still kind of slow for just the 'Lite' banks, though

(And so I'm also back to my earlier opinion that the license validation is badly unoptimized.)

Regards,

--
Marco

[samlletas]

@IvyBirds Zenology might actually be loading the samples to RAM, the Resource Monitor on my PC shows a bump of around 500 MB when loading Zenology the first time, with new instances adding only 70 MB. But I think you are spot on about Zenology validating every preset bank, and installing more banks increases the load time (at least on my system).

@vulpes777 Zenology stores factory banks as .exz files in:

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Roland\ZENOLOGY\Patch

While user banks(.bin), favorites (.fzi) and sound packs at:

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C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Roland Cloud\ZENOLOGY

I'm not sure where model expansions are located though, I don't have any installed atm but they probably are in the above folder as well.

[IvyBirds]

@IvyBirds Zenology might actually be loading the samples to RAM, the Resource Monitor on my PC shows a bump of around 500 MB when loading Zenology the first time, with new instances adding only 70 MB. But I think you are spot on about Zenology validating every preset bank, and installing more banks increases the load time (at least on my system).

I have lots of software that loads bigger sample libraries than 500mb into RAM that loads significantly faster than Zenology did for me, that may be part of it however

[vulpes777]

@IvyBirds Zenology might actually be loading the samples to RAM, the Resource Monitor on my PC shows a bump of around 500 MB when loading Zenology the first time, with new instances adding only 70 MB. But I think you are spot on about Zenology validating every preset bank, and installing more banks increases the load time (at least on my system).

@vulpes777 Zenology stores factory banks as .exz files in:

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Roland\ZENOLOGY\Patch

While user banks(.bin), favorites (.fzi) and sound packs at:

Code: Select all

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Roland Cloud\ZENOLOGY

I'm not sure where model expansions are located though, I don't have any installed atm but they probably are in the above folder as well.

The AppData location is where I found what looks like an .fzi AND a separate folder for every expansion I had installed. The folders for the EXZ expansions also apparently have some sample content within them, as they add up to 1.5GB (the remaining folders are pretty much a few KB each).

So, after I let Zenology regenerate just the 'Lite' assets, all that is gone, except the fzi for the 'Lite' factory banks. I'll probably go ahead and try and do a cleanup in the VST3 folder, although things seem more...delicate there, just renaming the patch folder doesn't work and crashes Zenology.

On second thought I guess I can leave it be. For now, I'm happy I was able to remove the biggest culprit for the long load times.

Cheers,

--
Marco

[D-Fusion]

I remember now that I forgot to remove the Factory Presets when I tested the loading time so that might be why i didn't see any difference.

Zenology Pro is still only using 7 seconds to boot up the first instance and I have Synth models JD800, JX8P, Jupiter 8 and the Juno 106 Installed and the SRX Expansions Installed in Zen Pro are Dance Trax, Orchestra, Symphonique Str, World Instruments and Vintage Keys.
On top of that I have the Zen pack 0-99 that was sold as a bundle a while back installed.

I always have the Roland Zenology Pro Preset folder on my Pcie X4 m.2 drive and use symbolic link to point to it since I make my own presets sometimes that I add to my Roland Boxes.

That way I don't have to worry about loosing anything if i need to re-install the OS which has happened a few times in the past when I forgot to Copy the folder before New OS Install + It also saves time since I don't have to Download all the presets again since they are already in the preset folder.

Softube Model 80 and some of the Arturia Plugins takes longer time to start up on my system than Zenology Pro these days (Analog Lab is being the worst of them).

[Examigan]

All: does anyone have the D50 user banks from back in the day? I believe they came on a card or cartridge. any help would be appreciated. i'm looking for a specific bell type patch that had chase play on it. used it on sessions for years and even on my D550 after my D50 bit the dust from years of use. Also, does anyone know if Roland ever put any of the Combi/Performance patches anywhere to download. I sure could use those for my JV.

Also, there is this site.. but I'm not sure if the one IvyBirds recommended has all of those and more (?).
https://bobbyblues.recup.ch/roland_d-50 ... banks.html

[damoog]

As a none Roland cloud subscriber (but lover of Roland instruments) I sometimes check this thread and pretty much leave within 2 minutes as it all just seems like a pathetic experience overall and just a complete PITA

[WatchTheGuitar]

And that’s just reading the thread.

[PAK]

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Roland Cloud
looks like a good candidate, as it contains (mostly) empty folders for the RC instruments plus a rather large one for Zenology.

I have renamed the latter and started a fresh instance of Zenology Lite, and now I'm down to the 7-10-ish seconds from D-Fusion's post

I can confirm! Removing these “unused” folders "fixes" the Zenology loading delay!*
For MacOS the folder is “/Library/Application Support/Roland Cloud/ZENOLOGY”

Move folders for anything, you don't have a license for, out of that folder.
My Zenology loading time is now 6 seconds (from a clean reboot)

Edit: Further unrequired entries can be found in your User Name’s Library folder too, though they don’t appear linked to the loading delay (Make sure you don't delete the files for presets you use).
Mac OS: /Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/Roland Cloud/ZENOLOGY

(*) Really it's more of a work around, and is just further confirmation that the way Roland Cloud verifies the content, with the client plugin, is what's at the root cause of loading delay issues.

[N 4 LIFE]

Move the folders but don't delete them?

[vulpes777]

Move the folders but don't delete them?

That's what I did, I kept the renamed folder as a safeguard in case something went wrong. The next time I restarted Zenology it regenerated the entries for the two banks I'm licensed to use with a free account, and nothing else.

This can probably be a workaround to start with a clean-slate Zenology, so you can effectively redownload only the extensions you're going to use (which is likely not all the 180+ banks in the catalog )

Regards,

--
Marco

[trusampler]

Roland lost my respect when I bought two yes two new Fantoms for our studios and shows. A 88 and a 76 key, and they had the disrespect after two years of me subscribing to their Pro sub, that I didn’t get the free plugin pick. Literally dropped them the minute tech support replied.

[Examigan]

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Roland Cloud
looks like a good candidate, as it contains (mostly) empty folders for the RC instruments plus a rather large one for Zenology.

I have renamed the latter and started a fresh instance of Zenology Lite, and now I'm down to the 7-10-ish seconds from D-Fusion's post

I can confirm! Removing these “unused” folders "fixes" the Zenology loading delay!*
For MacOS the folder is “/Library/Application Support/Roland Cloud/ZENOLOGY”

Move folders for anything, you don't have a license for, out of that folder.
My Zenology loading time is now 4 seconds

(*) Really it's more of a work around, and is just further confirmation that the way Roland Cloud verifies the content, with the client plugin, is what's at the root cause of loading delay issues.

Shouldn't their support know this and ask the RC users to try that? I wonder if Jon at Roland asked any of the RC guys about this in the past.

[IvyBirds]

Shouldn't their support know this and ask the RC users to try that? I wonder if Jon at Roland asked any of the RC guys about this in the past.

It would confirm they know it's a problem, and it's 100% related to the Roland Cloud Paranoia that their paying customers are thieves out to steal from them and they need insane DRM

It would also confirm that the solution is rather simple and could be fixed on their end very easily, but again since we are all thieves they won't

[shatteredmindofbob]

And that's all well and good for people getting by on Lite, but what about those of us who do subscribe?