system 8 owners

[rcmusic35]

still nothing for system 8 user. they are saying something will come since weeks now.....at least S8 plug in should be free, really need a librarian...

[jerry_merry]

Here is an interesting conversation I was having with the Roland Cloud bunch on facebook.

I will just add the critical comments from Roland Cloud......

My Question.....
Ok, lets change the question slightly. When will the Jupiter and juno plug outs be available to purchase from the Content store? Also when will you release further plugouts for the system 8 and will they be available to purchase also from the content store or will they only be available to rent from Roland cloud?


And Roland Clouds Answer.......

Roland Cloud The good news is that we don't "rent" anything. You have a membership and after one year you keep a plugin of your choice... forever. So if you do the math, its more like interest free payments while you have access to upwards of what will eventually be 50 plus products. Secondly, System 8 owners will be offered an incentive so sign up on our free trial or wait a while and enjoy the service. Third, content store is going to go away. It's in a transition but there are currently no plans to release anything new there. But, by making these plugouts more widely available under this model, it means we won't discontinue ACB plugouts a few years from now as would be expected. We will be able to support your System 8 much longer. Roland Cloud isn't a store but a service that is dedicated to keeping your software functioning and your sounds fresh. It doesn't cost anything more than roughly a plugout a year and you're still "owning" not "renting" with us. And we are introducing technologies such as rendering that will make life easier and music far more productive than the way software worked in the past. Enjoy!

[Skijumptoes]

I've not seen anything about owning a plugin of your choice after 12 months of membership?

They are doing such a poor job at communicating this service, it's ridiculous.

[Manic]

According to this http://experience.roland.com/tfr2017a/ I guess there will be new plug-outs for the S8 on June 20 :)

[realtrance]

Here is an interesting conversation I was having with the Roland Cloud bunch on facebook.

I will just add the critical comments from Roland Cloud......

My Question.....
Ok, lets change the question slightly. When will the Jupiter and juno plug outs be available to purchase from the Content store? Also when will you release further plugouts for the system 8 and will they be available to purchase also from the content store or will they only be available to rent from Roland cloud?


And Roland Clouds Answer.......

Roland Cloud The good news is that we don't "rent" anything. You have a membership and after one year you keep a plugin of your choice... forever. So if you do the math, its more like interest free payments while you have access to upwards of what will eventually be 50 plus products. Secondly, System 8 owners will be offered an incentive so sign up on our free trial or wait a while and enjoy the service. Third, content store is going to go away. It's in a transition but there are currently no plans to release anything new there. But, by making these plugouts more widely available under this model, it means we won't discontinue ACB plugouts a few years from now as would be expected. We will be able to support your System 8 much longer. Roland Cloud isn't a store but a service that is dedicated to keeping your software functioning and your sounds fresh. It doesn't cost anything more than roughly a plugout a year and you're still "owning" not "renting" with us. And we are introducing technologies such as rendering that will make life easier and music far more productive than the way software worked in the past. Enjoy!

I know Roland has always had terrible marketing, but the lies above about "oh, we're not renting" and "don't worry, it's just a service!" are such drivel that they've reached new lows here.

If this is the direction Roland is going, or promoting, I think they can say goodbye to most of their customers.

Oh, and subscribing to use synthesizers so you can keep your sounds "fresh"? Ridiculous. If I want "fresh" sounds I'll twiddle a few knobs on Absynth for a minute or two.

It really does seem like Roland is done, in the electronic music department. Glad their last hardware instruments were pretty good.

They can stay afloat with schools and churches from here on out.

It's not just them, though; Korg, Yamaha have also reached the endpoint of what they have to offer.

The future redefined is a future without these companies plaguing us any more with bad marketing and financial scam tactics, quite clearly. :)

[mimoid]

For now, I intend to stick around as a subscriber, as I find the ITB versions of the plugouts simply much easier to use than to my actual System-1 and System-8 keyboards. For me, the simplicity is worth the relatively low monthly cost. But the future depends on how Roland intends to continue this path. If they truly plan to keep releasing new ACB plugouts and audio tools with regular intervals (up to 50 instruments, as they say), and if they honor their promise that we may keep one plugout of choice indefinitely after each year of subscription, I will continue subscribing. If they on the other hand abandon the concept and just release more of that Anthology crap, I will probably bail out.

[Skijumptoes]

I wouldn't hold out on keeping a plugin after a year, because there's absolutely nothing about that when you sign up, or any official agreement. Incredibly shameful way to behave, taking money from people and offering 'promises' via forums/social media, it would take someone 30 mins at most to add a bit of text to the Roland cloud site, or sign up pages to make this official.

There's a high chance that you may have to be on the higher (storm?) service before getting any plugins to keep. Because, right now, i can't see what the Storm service is going to offer if you're getting everything unlimited for $20 already. If this was to be official, do the months that you've subscribed on the 'cheaper' beta rate even apply to the 12 month free plugin duration?!

I would be very cynical, The plugins are the jewel in this crown, and for many people they may only be subscribing to use 1,2 or 3 of them regularly, so can't see them allowing those paying the reduced 'beta' monthly sub to take them so easily, because they could sell them individually for more, and not have all this hassle.

In fact, the more i think about it, It truly is pathetic that they can't even convey the service correctly, happy to take $20/month from trusting users, and post 'promises' in comment sections on social media. In truth, this 'all access' service offered during the beta period could equate to the 'storm' service than the standard cloud service.

The CPU usage, and confusing model is why i'm not even going to start using these and embedding them into projects, it could turn out that you need to be paying out $40/month to be able to even load projects in the future (Which you need to bounce down/remaster etc.), or to plug them out.

As it's a side operation of Roland (Virtual Sonics seem to be the main force behind Roland Cloud?), Roland or Virtual Sonics themselves could as yet distance themselves from this should the service prove to not be a financial success, and when that happens you're left with nothing.. But worse, a back catalog of projects that still remain reliant on a service you can no longer authenticate to - That's why ownership is such a huge factor in this.

Man, i hate being so down on it, just wish they'd be clear! Had this before with Novation and Automap, everything was fine until the day Automap stopped working on my OS, and had to wait for an update, my projects failed to load as they relied on Automap plugins to exist. I do everything i can to avoid that scenario again.

[mimoid]

Yes, I agree that the contract is extremely vague. There is nothing describing the different upcoming levels of subscription at all. Is it possibe to skip in and out of a subscription, like pay for one month, skip one, go back and pay for one month more? We don't know. Roland also states that there will be an incentive for System-8 users. I don't know what that might be, there is nothing about that on the site right now.

Let's see how this one turns out. 20 USD is a steal, 30 USD would be pushing it. Anything above that is for me a firm no-go. If the beta equals the Storm level for 40 dollars, I am out.

I am not too worried about ceasing the subscription and losing the plugins, I always render everything to audio as soon as possible - both the MIDI tracks for my physical units as for my virtual ones. It's like renting an instrument for a gig.

[Manic]

I read that the 12 months are including early beta access and if you stop and then resume, they will count all your previous months, in order to give you ownership to 1 plugin after 13 months.

[Skijumptoes]

Where did you read that Manic? I can't find anything official on it whatsoever.

[Manic]

On the Roland Cloud fb page

[mimoid]

On the Roland Cloud fb page

A bit strange to put this information on a FB page and not where you actually sign a contract... I wrote a message on the Roland Cloud web site asking a couple of questions, amongst others this one. Hopefully I will get a reply soon, I will post the information here.

By the way it is quite interesting, Roland several time says quite clearly that an actual D-50 is on its way:

Roland Cloud: We are doing both. 1987 is available now and a ported D50 is on the way

and

Roland Cloud: Well, a sampled D-50 may sound like a D-50 whereas a simulated D-50 is feature functional as a physical D-50. And we are offering both deep sampled and full simulations and didn't want to make it confusing.

[SepticUnderground]

I hope Roland will release a PG1000 ARIA™ version with the D50 plugout, it isn't possible with the controls on the SYS-8 to SERIOUSLY edit the D50 engine. LA synthesis is totally different than standard subtractive synthesis, for those who do not know yet.

[Manic]

I hope Roland will release a PG1000 ARIA™ version with the D50 plugout, it isn't possible with the controls on the SYS-8 to SERIOUSLY edit the D50 engine. LA synthesis is totally different than standard subtractive synthesis, for those who do not know yet.

That would be great indeed!

[mimoid]

Still a bit puzzled how a D-50 emulation can be achieved with the System-8 hardware. There are only four volatile RAM chips on the main board, and nothing that can be used to store samples. So either you will have to load the D-50 on each reboot, or I am missing someting (the latter being more likely).