I’ve been running the free demo for a month, but really don’t like the subscription model. Apparently, if you subscribe for a year, you get one of the plug-ins to keep.
I do like the 808 and 909 plug-ins. The reason why is - recently, I’ve been trying an approach where I start my beats with an off-the-shelf kit, but replace the patches afterwards with various different sound-sources (plug-ins and/or hardware), so starting with an 808 to get the basics down is something I’m finding quite useful. Off-the-shelf kits tend to have kit pieces set up for sitting together in a mix. If I start from scratch with patches, I find it can get in the way of the beat programming.
…but the Roland Cloud plug-ins are arguably too good a set of copies of the original. They don’t tend to go over and above the originals. For example, the 808 doesn’t allow re-pitching of hi-hats.
That’s a lot of money each month for just a few drum sounds.
… and for something you never actualy own.
What about grabbing a 2nd-hand Maschine and Komplete from NI?
I find the drums in Maschine and NI Expansions (buy in Black Friday deals) a go-to for starting tracks. There’s lots of great sounds/patches and patterns to kickstart songs.
Great plugins within Komplete too. Again, also get updates/instruments in black friday deals etc.
I have the latest Komplete, but I’m not ever-so convinced by its electronic drums capabilities.
Battery’s preset kits are very so-so and not many of them are ever-so useful. I normally use my own samples in Battery, but prefer to use synthesised drums where possible. Maybe I should give Battery more of a role, maybe with a classic 808/909 sampled kit as a starting point?
Reaktor has a few inroads into synthesised drums, but not much which really tickles my fancy.
Quite. Which is what I’m trying to get my head around.
Of course, you get access to a sizeable selection of plug-ins for the time you’re subscribed, but £20 a month is not cheap. You’d need to be really invested.
Get an Elektron Rytm mk2. Sample the shit Out of the Cloud free month and then unsubscribe from the cloud. I think Roland Cloud sucks. I am not willing to Support this Kind of neo liberal Business Model. 240$ for some 808 Sounds that you can Download for free. http://www.goldbaby.co.nz/freestuff.html
I have a yocto 808. Most of the sample libraries and 808 oscillator simulations sound much better to work with. I have had the Arturia’s spark for years and can do more with that. Save your money bro. If you also have battery 4 the round robin 808 and 909 is really good to work with.
Not worth it imo.
Too expensive, besides I really want the subscription scheme to fail.
Get a hardware or a plug-in you pay for and it’s yours to keep.
Maschine, Elektron AR or Akai Mpc Live.
Subscription based models have become a disgrace. Same as the computer gaming industry. They worked out they can make more money by not giving people the whole thing for eternity in one go. Rockstar are taking it further by making GTA V1 a much smaller base game. Then adding content later so you stick around for years. But no longer the entire game. Roland are just out to extort money as best they can.
Or even one of the 808 clones. Behringer RD808 or Acidlab Miami. The Behringer is going to be 299$…and you can play with it even in ten years from now on and dont rely on Roland still existing in a decade…
I tried some of the synths and the gui really sucked. the knobs didn‘t respond well and the graphics were bad. I go with U-he synths and good samples from goldbaby or wave alchemy
or maybe get a Roland Tr8 for these sounds. They are really cheap these days
I’ve had two trial periods of Roland Cloud. First one when the service was new and a second one around when the TB-303 was released.
Enjoyed trying out the plug-ins in the Legendary category, especially the “analog” synths. The vintage rompler style synths (D-50, JV-1080 and the SRX stuff) was great fun, but mostly for nostalgia.
Over all sound quality is really good, nothing to complain about there. I did however have problems with crashes when using the plug-ins in Cubase (on a Windows 10 machine). A couple of times the plug-ins even managed to crash Cubase. Very very rare these days for me with my current setup with my other instruments and effects.
How authentic the emulations are is something that I can’t really say, only ones I’ve had had back in the day was a Roland TB-303 and a Roland XV-5080. Cloud version of the 303 is damn close to my ears. Way better then the TB-03 and TB-3 hardware. But I’ve got a TT-303 and in software ABL3 from Audiorealism so I got my 303 stuff covered already.
ABC technology in software eats a lot of CPU. Kind of like U-He Diva can make your CPU cry if you play chords. Especially the System-8 seems to be a CPU hog, but damn the pads on that one is fantastic.
If Roland keeps adding stuff and improves the UI for the plugins for use on larger screens I think they have a really nice collection coming, but as of today it’s to expensive for me.
Yes, Spark from Arturia is nice. Used to have the V-Collection version 5 (they are up to 7 now) and the iSpark for iPad is also very good. Very nice punchy sound, great presets and tweak-ability. However a kind of weird and boring sequencer… Perhaps I haven’t understood it fully, but it seems like a bit plain compared to a Elektron sequencer.
Yeah, I can’t help but agree with the general view here that the Cloud service is far beyond overkill for some x0x emulations. I’ve been hanging off signing up for the 1 month trial period myself. Not because I have some fundamental issue with a subscription model (the modern world is what it is) rather that I think getting that many softsynths at once just adds to the problem of option paralysis. I’m about 2 or 3 years out of date with Komplete and VCollection and there’s still stuff in there I’ve got nowhere near.
So, yeah, maybe sometime when I’ve got a chunk of time off work and little else to do I’ll sign up for a trial and spend a few days creating a bunch of one-shots for the DT/OT primarily from the nostalgia-laced digital stuff before cancelling again.
Yeah, this is what’s been holding me back from getting a subscription… well, that and the price. I really just want the JV1080 plugin, because I miss having one, and it never left the house, so having a plugin version would be good enough for me.
Ahh, there’s an idea. I did that with my 1080 when I had it, but didn’t do a complete sample set. I do have a ton of free time at the moment…
Roland Cloud Manager is a very poor app. As much as Roland pushes it, it feels like traveling in time to a Windows 95 program. I just updated the new version. It is stuck in “thinking” … Roland needs to at least use the hourglass icon.
I had a year membership and didn’t renew because of how frustrating the cloud manager is. It makes me hate computers. About every six months I check and hope to see improvements. The program seems to get worse and less responsive each time. I’ve tried multiple PC’s to make sure it wasn’t a hardware issue.
Yeah I really despise the Roland Cloud. The plugins are not bad at all, but when the server is not up and you need to log in to use your plugins, it is super annoying. And then if you buy the plugin, you still need to log into the cloud and authenticate. Man that sucks, it is just poorly executed software.
Roland has made some really nice hardware lately. I do love the Roland Tr8/6 S. I think its a fantastic drum machine. I also do not need to log into the internet to use it, which is a nice bonus.
