Roland slashes the starting price of its cloud synth subscriptions

[Vernon Barnes]

2 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

 Almost all the classic synths have really tiny UI (not scalable) and awful preset management.

Look for the option button , its in different places on each synth, there you will find the UI scaling options. I think 125% and 150% depending on the synth work best for me but you can go up to 200%

The preset management seems to be too tightly tied to the hardware band/patch structure. Korg improved some of their VST synths, like the Polysix and MonoPoly in a recent update by adding a decent modern patch browser.

So far my fear that if i tried the demos I would be hooked into the ultimate subscription looks like it will be unfounded, not that any of them are bad they just don't add that much to the party when I look at my existing options. I was keen to look at the SH101 for nostalgic reasons. I had one along with the MC202 sequencer version back in the early 80's. Truth is its good for what it was  but then comes the realization you had a SH101 because you could not afford anything else. I would have preferred a Sequential Pro 1 or a Korg Monopoly.

I am working through the rest of the collection I quite like the JX-3P and would buy it if the price was right. I have yet to compare the Jupiter 8 to the Arturia version.

I think I will keep the Core subscription running for a while and see where they take Zenology, apparently there are developments afoot. I like it as quick source of good sounds for sketching  but I feel it does need some extra editing ability.  However I do wonder how many of the sounds would make it to a final track and not be replaced by something better? I think its the hardware link that is the strength here.  Having those sounds organized and loaded up on a hardware synth for live use would be excellent.

 

 

 

[Matthew Sorrels]

2 hours ago, Vernon Barnes said:

Look for the option button , its in different places on each synth, there you will find the UI scaling options. I think 125% and 150% depending on the synth work best for me but you can go up to 200%

Your right!  That helps a ton.  Don't know why I didn't go looking at all the buttons.  175% works pretty well for my 4096x2160 monitor.

If they would sell lifetime for the whole collection for $400ish I'd consider it.  But the subscription kind of kills it for me.  I think if I'm going to do subscription instruments again I'll reactivate my Composer Cloud before I'd sign up for Roland's offering.  It will be interesting to see if they ever do sales/discounts on the lifetime prices going forward.  At the right price I might be willing to pick up a few of these.

[Vernon Barnes]

15 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

 I think if I'm going to do subscription instruments again I'll reactivate my Composer Cloud before I'd sign up for Roland's offering.  It will be interesting to see if they ever do sales/discounts on the lifetime prices going forward.  At the right price I might be willing to pick up a few of these.

I am happy with the composer cloud subscription. One thing I have found is I get more use form the items I would not have bought outright than the ones that appealed most at first glance. EW have kept adding new content which keeps it fresh.

[Vernon Barnes]

I have moved on to look at the anthology series and the Concerto player.  One issue seems to be if you insert the Concerto player in Cakewalk it only has one output, when you look in GUI it has the option to send different parts to different outputs as one would expect from a modern multi-timberal ROMplier.  (There is a similar longstanding issue with Drumcore where multi-outs are not available in Cakewalk.)

I cant say I am blown away by the anthology sounds I have down loaded so far. They are not bad but  given I have seemingly better options already they have not started to tempt me with the Pro membership.

 

[Matthew Sorrels]

In the VST3 version of Concerto if you open the advanced option and change the number of channels to 8 and then delete it from the synth rack and re-add it it seems to come in with the extra channels.

[Vernon Barnes]

1 hour ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

In the VST3 version of Concerto if you open the advanced option and change the number of channels to 8 and then delete it from the synth rack and re-add it it seems to come in with the extra channels.

Very intuitive. Thanks!

[Vernon Barnes]

I have downloaded several more of the Anthology series and I am not feeling the love. It would be disingenuous to say they are bad but nothing is grabbing me and I think in most cases I could find better sounds in my collection.

I also downloaded the SRX keys. It is a source of decent sounds with a small footprint but again I don't think it brings much new to my party.  I have yet to download others as unlike the Anthology sounds it seems to be necessary to install on the system drive. They are not huge but if you install all 10 SRX modules you are looking at approximately 3GB and having this on a SSD system drive negates the small footprint argument.

 

 

[John Bradley]

The $3/mo option works out well for me*, as it gets me Zenology and all the expansions for it. A small price to pay to have access to a large library of 'modern' synth sounds. I've already got a buttload of virtual analog VSTs from Arturia, IK, and others. This does things none of them can do. Sort of like having a non-crashy Rapture Pro with all the addons. Lots of 'real' sounds.

The $10 Pro option seems overpriced, as it adds a D50 and TR808 emulation plus access to Concerto and their sample libraries. Nice to have, but don't need them at that price. Maybe later when Zenology Pro is out, as well as the "model expansions" (whatever they are) the $10 package will be more tempting.

The $20/mo Ultimate (or whatever they called it) package appeals to me, because I'd *like* to have all the VST recreations of old Roland synths, but as a hobbyist I can't justify spending that to rent some 'nice to have's.

One annoying caveat: the Zenology preset browser is a freakin' modal dialog. You can't interact with CbB at all while it's open. And given the hundreds (thousands?) of presets if you have all the expansion packs installed, you need to use the browser. That's some bad software design, right there, given that Arturia and everybody else managed to make modern preset browsers that don't interfere with the operation of the DAW.

 

* To probably be dropped in a few months when I don't actually use it for anything. But for the moment, on paper, it seems like a thing that might be useful.

[paulo]

Every time I see this thread I see the first three words and suddenly feel great hope that the rest is going to read  " price of Fantom 7".

Every time.?