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Roland cloud : Play 4 Life Deal is back


Zo

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Buy a Year and Play 4 Life   

The Roland Cloud Holiday promotion Play 4 Life is back! For a limited time, purchase one year of Roland Cloud Pro or Ultimate Membership and get free Legendary Lifetime Key(s). Keep your favorite Legendary instrument for life, even if you don’t renew your membership. Use Roland Cloud for 365 days and discover which instruments you want to Play 4 Life. Act now, this promotion ends on December 31, 2021.

 

It's a great way to buy 2 titles at a great price and be served with a one full access of everything (talking ultimate here) , so if you wanted to buy let's say a TR 808 and the JD 800 it will cost you 149 + 149 regular , with the play you're going for 199 $ and can use everything for one years and have those two titles lifetime licences 

 

My question is can we buy 2 years of ultimate and have 4 for exemple lol 

 

https://rolandcloud.com/memberships

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1 hour ago, Zo said:

My question is can we buy 2 years of ultimate and have 4 for exemple lol

FAQ seems to say you can buy 5 years and get 10 instruments.  But I'm not sure I trust my reading of what they say.

https://rolandcloud.com/support

Quote

Q: How many renewals or instruments can I choose with the promotion?

A: You can renew up to four times after your initial purchase. That's ten Legendary instruments for annual Ultimate memberships (two per year) and five for annual Pro memberships (one per year).

 

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56 minutes ago, dee said:

you basically buy 1 instrument lifetime key for $99, so not sure if thats really good, are those lifetime keys on sale at all or is there any bundle available?

never seen em on sale , i went with the zen pro and expansions , i don't really like the legends ones , they do sound better than expansions , but expansions are so easier to handle .... but the drum machines : another story !!

and don't foregt you get everything for a years , enougth to make a smoking album !!

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9 minutes ago, Zo said:

never seen em on sale , i went with the zen pro and expansions ,

I read the terms of the offer and it states 

Quote

ZENOLOGY, ZENOLOGY Pro are both excluded from the Lifetime Key selection. ZENOLOGY Pro Analog Icons Lifetime Key Collection is also excluded from selection. 

or were you just saying you went with the $99 Pro subscription? 

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getting confused of these different roland products

so what is this zenology pro analog icons bundle for $499 (lifetime keys)

https://www.rolandcloud.com/news/zenology-pro-analog-icons-bundle-sale

seems like better option in terms of price then buy $99 for each product through promo play 4 life

😕

 

 

 

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49 minutes ago, dee said:

getting confused of these different roland products

so what is this zenology pro analog icons bundle for $499 (lifetime keys)

https://www.rolandcloud.com/news/zenology-pro-analog-icons-bundle-sale

seems like better option in terms of price then buy $99 for each product through promo play 4 life

😕

 

 

 

Zenology pro is Roland's newest synth platform rather than an emulation. But they've released expansions that neatly offer features and presets of some of their most famous synths. They're said to have better performance and the vibe of the originals that may be enough in a mix, but not trying to offer the most accurate emulation - the Legendary version attempts to do accurate emulation. 

Zen core is found in the Jupiter X hardware. 

So by way of analogy if you would rather buy a new Jupiter X than hunt down a vintage Jupiter 8 and deal with the quirks of an older bit of kit, you may prefer the Zenology Jupiter 8 model expansion to the "Legendary" Jupiter 8 vst.

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the ACB synths use circuit modelling for the emulation, so there's no compromise - but each voice is heavy on CPU

Zenology uses zencore synth engine parameters to do the analog model emulations.

zencore itself is like the xv-5080 synth engine with VA added to it,  the analog models are a layer that sits on top of zencore and pull its strings using range limiting, scaling and setting up macros eg kicking in an eq boost when juno 106 hp filter is set to step 0

it uses the 2 high quality "VCF" roland filters in zencore, one for jupiter 8 and the other one is tweaked to cover sh-101, juno 106 and jx-8p duties.

the same va/calculated oscillators are used for all the analog models, and it does use some PCM's too for jup 8 sin/tri, jx-8p pulse and sh-101 2oct sub

It's pretty impressive what they've done, but it has limitations from using that zencore engine as its base,  eg there's no noise LFO for the sh-101 as there is no noise LFO in zencore.

 

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The problem is you need Roland Cloud to run them. It want's to run in the background. I turn it off in Start, but it seems to change that setting when it updates. I think you have to run RC at least once every 30 days even if it's for life. I think RC is a PIA. I do like the 808 and D-50 so I am going to think about it.  

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On 11/6/2021 at 9:19 PM, Matthew Sorrels said:

FAQ seems to say you can buy 5 years and get 10 instruments.  But I'm not sure I trust my reading of what they say.

https://rolandcloud.com/support

 

Let me see if I understood this right: If I buy an Ultimate subscription for a single $199 payment after one year I can choose 2 lifetime keys for any of the products on there that have this option, and also I'll have the option at this occasion to pay another $199 to renew the subscription for another year and get 2 more keys after that....  and so on up to four times?

What I'm asking (and forgive me if this sounds stupid) is that I'll not have to pay $1000 in advance for those 5 years of subscription. Right?

I still hate the subscription Idea but I'm looking this mainly just as an opportunity to get the Roland lifetime keys I'm interested for a cheaper price.

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Beware , the lifetime is for legends only , zenology and xpansions aren t in the freebee list ... that said the legends versions sounds better , should i say closer to hw imho , but i really prefer the aenology version in usage , interfacing ...

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21 minutes ago, Sergio said:

What I'm asking (and forgive me if this sounds stupid) is that I'll not have to pay $1000 in advance for those 5 years of subscription. Right?

My take on it is you have to buy all five years now, during this special.  You may not get this special offer next year when your renewal is up.  So yes, $1000 now, maybe.  Who knows.  And no this isn't a "good" deal really.  If/when Roland gives up on the software as a service business and kills their servers all these lifetime instruments will quit working.

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43 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

My take on it is you have to buy all five years now, during this special.  You may not get this special offer next year when your renewal is up.  So yes, $1000 now, maybe.  Who knows.  And no this isn't a "good" deal really.  If/when Roland gives up on the software as a service business and kills their servers all these lifetime instruments will quit working.

Thanks for you opinion Matthew but I have a different perspective about this being a good deal or not. I have a System-1m hardware synth and I'm planning to buy a System-8 keyboard next year. On these devices I can load the ACB "plugouts" and have them as standalone synths, controllable by the front panel. And the Roland ACB emulations are top notch! I want to have them all, but not in a time-limited way.

About the subscription I understand that you're buying a Play4Life subscription, and this subscription can be renewed 4 times. And this is a different type of subscription than you had before, even if the price was the same. And this is reinforced by the fact that current owners can 'upgrade' to this new type (although this is not fair to someone who already paid $199 in advance IMO, as they'll have to pay more for the same product).

But I agree the FAQ is not clear. I'll ask Roland about this.

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Sergio , a jupiter xm for me would be a better choice if you want hw and software integration , you will have zenology and expansion a.ready , exellent editor and a superb keyboard and controller ...

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All of the instruments you can get via this Play4Life can just be bought out directly though, but a year sub including 2 instruments is a better deal (than buying 2 outright).  But I'm not so sure if having to buy 5 years now is a better deal.  Guess it depends if you need 10 of these instruments right now? 

I usually use 50% off normal retail as the benchmark for a good deal.  In this case $199 for 2 is 33% (two $149 instruments, even less if you pick the $129 or $99 instruments) with the year subscription as a bonus.  The old me might think that was a pretty good deal, but having dozens of projects I built when I had a Composer Cloud  subscription that aren't really usable anymore has convinced me that subscription instruments are a bad idea.

If they did allow you to continue to renew yearly with the you own 2 each year with renewal (lock in this deal), that would be a good deal.  But $1k up front locking you into 5 years is a bit harsh.

 

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37 minutes ago, Zo said:

Sergio , a jupiter xm for me would be a better choice if you want hw and software integration , you will have zenology and expansion a.ready , exellent editor and a superb keyboard and controller ...

Hi Zo. Roland does not disclose much about this Zen-Core technology but it sure have PCM samples at its heart. You can read about this in this page:

https://www.gak.co.uk/blog/roland-zen-core/

You can compare  with the ACB (Analog Circuit Behavior) technology here:

https://rolandcorp.com.au/blog/what-is-analog-circuit-behaviour-acb

And although Zen-Core is perfect for emulating their sample based synths (or ROMplers), like the JD-800, JV-1080 and even the D-50, when we're talking about the emulation of analog synthesizer (Jupiters, Junos, System-100, SH2, Promars, the analog drum machines, etc) the ACB is still the way to go. It's a thorough simulation of the original circuits and, even with current technology and dedicated FPGA chips, it's so CPU heavy that they cannot go over 8 note polyphony on the flagship synths. This is more expensive and less commercially viable than Zen-Core and, IMO, that's why it's been sort of relegated to a secondary role at Roland right now.

In short, Zen-Core achieves high performance in terms of polyphony and effects because they take some shortcuts, like using PCM samples. The differences can be negligible in the mix but if I'll spend money in a hardware synth I want the more authentic emulation. This will end my quest for the perfect Roland vintage analogs.

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59 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

All of the instruments you can get via this Play4Life can just be bought out directly though, but a year sub including 2 instruments is a better deal (than buying 2 outright).  But I'm not so sure if having to buy 5 years now is a better deal.  Guess it depends if you need 10 of these instruments right now? 

I usually use 50% off normal retail as the benchmark for a good deal.  In this case $199 for 2 is 33% (two $149 instruments, even less if you pick the $129 or $99 instruments) with the year subscription as a bonus.  The old me might think that was a pretty good deal, but having dozens of projects I built when I had a Composer Cloud  subscription that aren't really usable anymore has convinced me that subscription instruments are a bad idea.

If they did allow you to continue to renew yearly with the you own 2 each year with renewal (lock in this deal), that would be a good deal.  But $1k up front locking you into 5 years is a bit harsh.

 

I've just received an answer from Roland about this and I'll transcribe it bellow:

Hello Sergio Simoes,
 
Thanks for contacting us.
You can't pre-purchase a membership, but the membership auto-renews, so at the end of the year you'd be charged again and get another two lifetime keys. You just have to have purchased by December 31st of this year.
 
Please let us know if you have further questions concerning this matter.
 
Regards,
 
Travis

Roland Customer Support

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5 hours ago, Sergio said:

I've just received an answer from Roland about this and I'll transcribe it bellow:

Hello Sergio Simoes,
 
Thanks for contacting us.
You can't pre-purchase a membership, but the membership auto-renews, so at the end of the year you'd be charged again and get another two lifetime keys. You just have to have purchased by December 31st of this year.
 
Please let us know if you have further questions concerning this matter.
 
Regards,
 
Travis

Roland Customer Support

So if i understand correctly it is the date of contract that is making a sub elligeable for life ? Smart they are ...

Sergio , just try zenology , the engine is exactly the same as fantom , and jupiters ect and i can tell you it sounds superb ... i compared it to the real deal and some of the best emu s Softube and their own ) and it s really sometime a question of filter or adsr values , ect ... if you want real analogness just grab some real synths ,they re affodable now , i moght do alsôbt i swear it s not for the sound but more for intzrfacing ... stuff like fantoms , korg triton ect have been used like crazy and are still superb , and as for the zencore engine , it s even better in some aspects , and the delta is't worth the headache of using their interface witch imho deserve more attention. 

 

By the way do you if we get the licences a start or at then end of the year subscibed ? 

If we have a running plan , how dos it work ? 

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