Roland Cloud

[JamminFool]

Quick question about the subscription. this was my first year and I found it quite interesting.
Got Ultimate presently and expire/renew soon (have to decide).

1. If I want to renew, do I need to choose my 2 lifetime key before renewal ? or at the renewal it increase to 4 the number of available lifetime key and I have another year before making my choice?
2. knowing lifetime key not apply for buying Zenology pro, if I buy it does it give me extra to subscribe to Core or even Pro ?
3. Is it possible to downgrade my subscription from Ultimate to Pro (or Core)
4. One of my 2 computer get old (13year) and have to change it this year. Is it easy to remove the application on that PC and installing in another one whitout hassles ?

Thank you for your answer

1) it will increase to four and you have another year. but you can also choose and still switch if you change your mind afterwards, as long as your subscription is valid.
2) i'm not sure i understand the question. extra what?
3) i'm not sure
4) you can switch devices in the Account/Preferences section of the RCM. i've not done it but it looks straight-forward.

[Captain]

RCM updated itself, looks like some dialogs etc. now have a slightly better/modern/unified look in OS X. But this being RC, of course there's some new bugs, inconsistencies and irritating things.

I saw there was an update for JD-800. Cool, I clicked update, it disappeared from the "Updatable" list, but the update process didn't actually start. I had to find JD-800 again, click Update again, then it worked.

Or did it? After the update was done, the status dialog-window-thingie looked like this:

Screenshot 2022-01-18 at 11.14.29.png

...so are the instruments now up to date, or not?

Another funny little thing (new to this version, I think): If the RCM window is open, I can't quit the app with the standard Cmd-Q or selecting Quit from the app menu (nothing happens, it also prevents the computer from rebooting). So I have to close the window first, then quit, or use RCM's own Quit command.

Also, RCM is still unbelievably slow at times. It can take forever to open the app, or list the products in library. My computer can run 8 x 2.4 billion instructions per second, I have a pretty fast net connection and only SSD drives. How can it take close to half a minute to start a simple software manager and show a list of products? Exactly what is it doing during that time? This is just lazy and bad coding.

Yeah, none of this is super serious in the end, but again makes me feel that RCM is not getting the love it really deserves.

[vulpes777]

RCM updated itself, looks like some dialogs etc. now have a slightly better/modern/unified look in OS X. But this being RC, of course there's some new bugs, inconsistencies and irritating things.

I saw there was an update for JD-800. Cool, I clicked update, it disappeared from the "Updatable" list, but the update process didn't actually start. I had to find JD-800 again, click Update again, then it worked.

Or did it? After the update was done, the status dialog-window-thingie looked like this:
Screenshot 2022-01-18 at 11.14.29.png
...so are the instruments now up to date, or not?

Another funny little thing (new to this version, I think): If the RCM window is open, I can't quit the app with the standard Cmd-Q or selecting Quit from the app menu (nothing happens, it also prevents the computer from rebooting). So I have to close the window first, then quit, or use RCM's own Quit command.

Also, RCM is still unbelievably slow at times. It can take forever to open the app, or list the products in library. My computer can run 8 x 2.4 billion instructions per second, I have a pretty fast net connection and only SSD drives. How can it take close to half a minute to start a simple software manager and show a list of products? Exactly what is it doing during that time? This is just lazy and bad coding.

Yeah, none of this is super serious in the end, but again makes me feel that RCM is not getting the love it really deserves.

Another problem that has once again started happening consistently since the last update (although it might be a coincidence): RCM is popping up every now and then, pushing a notification about a software I haven't installed - probably one of the editors for the hardware.

I don't think RCM should be flagging as updatable the applications and assets that weren't installed in the first place, and in either case, updates should not warrant constant notifications; one at startup is enough, especially since the latest RCM now clearly displays the number of updatable items near the library tab.

Re: RCM being slow, the library has become just...bloated. Before you can apply any filters to the list it loads the full set of items; locked, unlocked, installed, not installed, hardware, software, instruments, patches, samples...It would be much easier if the default view was restricted to the licenses I own AND the products I have installed. NI and Arturia have been doing this since forever.

As usual, just my 2 cents.

--
Marco

[JamminFool]

yup, i saw similar stupidities:

it updated, then said i have 2 updates.

except the two things it wants to update have NEVER been installed on my system (the TR-6S/TR-8S and JUPITER-X/XM hardware editors). so now i (apparently) can't get rid of the update notices, which will make it confusing when there ARE actual updates.

furthermore, i DO have the JD-800 installed. but it did not inform me of an update (as shown two posts above this).

and yeah, they also buried the "Exit" command even deeper, making it yet more difficult to kill the thing.

ffs, hire someone who understands software design.

[Captain]

Re: RCM being slow, the library has become just...bloated. Before you can apply any filters to the list it loads the full set of items; locked, unlocked, installed, not installed, hardware, software, instruments, patches, samples...It would be much easier if the default view was restricted to the licenses I own AND the products I have installed. NI and Arturia have been doing this since forever.

Yeah, true. The bloated-ness itself shouldn't be a reason for the slowness. I sometimes joke when a piece of software chokes with some utterly mundane task by saying something like "poor computer, no wonder it takes some time, you have to read dozens of small items from the drive and process hundreds of bytes of data!". It should be all the same from a human's point of view if a list of products consists of five or five thousand products, all the basic operations like loading, saving, ordering, filtering etc. still take a fraction of a second. Or should take, you really have to suck in basic coding if you can make something like this so slow with modern computers.

But yes, you are right, the library could be better in other ways too. Simply defaulting to the "Installed" filter when you start the app could already make it feel cleaner.

ffs, hire someone who understands software design.

My thoughts exactly.

[Introspective]

To be fair, developing distributed installation software for multiple platforms at multiple versions is actually quite complex.

But, yeah, they @#$^ed something up yesterday. I also ended up with the aforementioned behavior.

...That said: I am not overly surprised. Hell, even Steam screws up now and again.

[JamminFool]

To be fair, developing distributed installation software for multiple platforms at multiple versions is actually quite complex.

But, yeah, they @#$^ed something up yesterday. I also ended up with the aforementioned behavior.

...That said: I am not overly surprised. Hell, even Steam screws up now and again.

i agree that software can be complex. but i've been involved in software development professionally and a software installer/updater/license manager is rather straight-forward.

true, everyone screws up now and then. but it would be nice if RCM got it right now and then.

and we are paying for this. that means there is no excuse for releasing untested, un-professional software.

[Introspective]

i agree that software can be complex. but i've been involved in software development professionally and a software installer/updater/license manager is rather straight-forward.

Hmmmn. As a software developer myself, albeit a web-dev, I find that claim sketchy. But, hey! Experiences vary.

I choose to cut 'em some slack. ...obviously.

[JamminFool]

not sure what you are claiming is sketchy, but ok.

[vulpes777]

For what it's worth, I have reported the issue together with my suggestions above, which I consider very reasonable to implement. Hopefully something will come out of it.

Until then, I'm unchecking the desktop notifications.

Regards,

--
Marco

[J Veronica]

What was the last word from Brian the messenger of Roland High Table? Is JX-8P / MKS-70 ACB plugin happening?

Even the JD-800 wasn't ACB anymore

Those times are gone forever, I'm afraid.

Hi, friends! Brian from Roland Cloud here. One of those synths mentioned MIGHT be happening in '22.

Hi Brian, I know you can't say what month this might come out, but just out of curiosity, what is your favourite number between 1-12?



I was going to grab a Pro annual sub to get the free lifetime key but seem to have missed the Play4Life offer. For some reason I thought it ended late Jan

[Brian.McClelland]

Hey, friends! Looks like there are a few questions since last time. Lets take a look.

Hey Brian! Hahaha cool, really cool you took it with humour .
Thx for replying, i was kinda thinking you dont read the feedbacks, im happy that you do!

Hey, Caine123! I'm actually the social media and feedback guy for Roland Cloud, Zenbeats, and Zentracker. Even if I'm not posting on here everyday, I do audit all of the feedback weekly to track issues and requests.

Hi Brian, any news on getting reverb in the FX sections? There are a host of classic RV and SRV models and surely Roland still has the algorithms somewhere?

Hi, WatchTheGuitar! The answer to your question is yes. It is in the works. A reality of reverb processing is that it can be very intensive to process, but other feedback from the community has signaled that processing cost is a concern, so there are considerations on how to implement this effectively to the quality of sound that meets the standard when requests for both are roughly equal.

Also, while we're at it: the patch browser. I hate it with a passion.

-- as a matter of fact no, I don't, I kind of love it; what I DO hate is it that, on Windows (no idea about the Mac counterpart), it's modal to the plugin GUI AND the host, so if I'm auditioning patches and I want to tweak a parameter or, say, turn down the track gain a bit, I get the "No can do, chief!" sound from the OS and I need to close the browser window before I can do anything of the sort. Next patch, maybe it sounds barely audible and I want to hear it better...you guessed it: I have to close the browser window again. Hope you can see why this can quickly get frustrating.

This problem is not limited to Zenology, by the way*, and it's what I consider a terribile design decision that I hope to see fixed at some point.

*but at least the other plugins all have a simple patch menu in the main GUI, so in the end I only need to open the patch+category browser if I need to do some advanced filtering or I'm importing/exporting sounds.

Regards,

--
Marco

Hi, Marco! I understand the frustration that you're talking about. The edit window being modal was a requirement to keep the editing of a sound from effecting multiple instances of ZENOLOGY in the case that you had more than one track with ZENOLOGY in a session. This feedback has been covered with our engineering department and we are exploring options for future versions of ZENOLOGY.

Hi Brian from Roland Cloud,
This does not work. I uninstalled. Then I rebooted. Then I loaded the JD-800 to verify that it was uninstalled. Then I reinstalled (as you stated) and same old garbled version appeared.

So maybe you fixed it. But apparently it wasn't made available. Can you please verify and advise?

Hey, JamminFool! I'm going to follow up with the team about this. Don and I coordinated to make the correction, but I did not deploy the new version myself. I'll follow up with the team to verify. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Quick question about the subscription. this was my first year and I found it quite interesting.
Got Ultimate presently and expire/renew soon (have to decide).

1. If I want to renew, do I need to choose my 2 lifetime key before renewal ? or at the renewal it increase to 4 the number of available lifetime key and I have another year before making my choice?

2. knowing lifetime key not apply for buying Zenology pro, if I buy it does it give me extra to subscribe to Core or even Pro ?

3. Is it possible to downgrade my subscription from Ultimate to Pro (or Core)

4. One of my 2 computer get old (13year) and have to change it this year. Is it easy to remove the application on that PC and installing in another one whitout hassles ?

Thank you for your answer

Hi, caramik! Lets break it down.

1. You can change your rewards at any point during an active membership. Your reward choices only become permanent when your membership ends. To make or change a reward instrument selection, visit RolandCloud.com, and head to the My Account section in the top right.

2.ZENOLOGY Pro is available as a Lifetime Key for $229. Separately, ZENOLOGY Pro Model Expansion Lifetime Keys for the JUNO-106, JUPITER-8, JX-8P, and SH-101 are available for $149 each. If you get the ZENOLOGY Pro Analog Icons Bundle, it includes ZENOLOGY Pro, the JUNO-106/JUPITER-8/JX-8P/SH-101 Model Expansions, PLUS a year of our Ultimate Membership, which unlocks all of the content and expansions for The Roland Cloud Collection, and is one of the best values in the service.

3. It is. Please get in touch with us through the Contact Support portal in the lower left menu of Roland Cloud, and we'll take care of your account.

4. I would recommend installing the newest version of Roland Cloud Manager, version 2.6.2, on the new computer from the link here. Please double check the system specs before installing as we now require to Windows 10 or MacOS 10.14 for installation.
https://www.rolandcloud.com/catalog/ess ... ud-manager

Thanks!

[Synthack]

.......

[WatchTheGuitar]

Hi Brian, any news on getting reverb in the FX sections? There are a host of classic RV and SRV models and surely Roland still has the algorithms somewhere?

Hi, WatchTheGuitar! The answer to your question is yes. It is in the works. A reality of reverb processing is that it can be very intensive to process, but other feedback from the community has signaled that processing cost is a concern, so there are considerations on how to implement this effectively to the quality of sound that meets the standard when requests for both are roughly equal.

Thanks for acknowledging that. I look forward to seeing it happen.

[vulpes777]

Hi Brian, thank you for following up re: the Don Solaris expansion. As it is now it's not game-breaking, just mildly annoying, but then again something must have happened before the proposed update was deployed.

As far as the reverb in Zenology in concerned; that is also good news, although I'm still surprised the JD-800 reverb wasn't ported as part of the JD Multi, when that was made available. Looking forward to hear it as well!

Lastly, as I mentioned, I hope to see the patch browser in Zenology become less intrusive. Zenology is HUGE, even if you don't take the expansions into account (and if you do, by now there's more than a hundred of them, I don't dare to count how many patches), so I'm bound to spend some time browsing, auditioning and tweaking sounds to my needs. These are the occasions when a little QOL improvement actually makes a big difference in the user experience.

Regards,

--
Marco