Roland Zenology / Roland Cloud

Hi - anyone using and having success with the Roland Zenology plug-ins / Roland Cloud in Gig Performer? I’m using GP to replace my Fantom, so having access to those sounds would be a big win for me, but seems like I’ve heard there might be some problems with it?

Yes, your Fantom won’t probably requier you to connect the Internet every month to go on working, right?

That’s the main reason why I don’t buy Zenology Pro and a few nice extensions…

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I actually started my free trial membership some days ago and as far as i can say, there is no issue until now - except from the point that @David-san already mentioned: You’ll have to be connected to the internet every now and then, so that the plugins can refresh their activation.
If that’s not a problem for you, i don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t at least try it.
I really like their sounds!

Unfortunately, me too! :confused:

I confirm the nuisance to check online every now and then. I have no Roland hardware.
I bought pro subscription: thin means Zenology with editing features.
Sounds are really nice, editing is complete.
Some JD800 patch are really powerful.
I have some racks with those. Top quality.
I will probably pay subscription for one more year.
I chose D50 lifetime license (one VST is included in pro subscription). I chose that way because other Roland synths are well emulated by other brands.

Yes, but even for lifetime keys, you have to be at least once per month online. Other synth brands like Korg made it possible to use their plugins without this constraint. It is potentially a random time bomb that can cause chaos on stage. Because, no! The only concern of a stage musician is not to remember to reactivate the Roland licenses before going on stage.

You are right. I totally agree with you.
I have the full Korg collection and it’s much better from this point of view

OK - so downloaded and am running the “trial” for 30 days. Very happy so far. It gets me all the Fantom sounds I know, love, and had been using which will make my cut-over much easier. As far as having to log-on every 30 days - no biggie - I got this thing on the internet all the time doing something (audio vst related - other computer for general work). Sounds are great - wish I had done this before shelling out for the Triton Extreme plugs, which have been a disappointment so far. I’m sure I can find a few sounds in there to use … sigh …

Only downside so far? No Reverb LOL! Oh well - I’ve got multiple good reverbs to use. Also - if it has a multi-mode - I haven’t found it yet. May have to use multiple instances. It seems light on CPU so far.

I think I’m a few weeks further down the track you are on, Ken, and I’m finding Zenology very versatile to replace my Fantom for live work and also covering many bases the Kronos (which seems even heavier than the Fantom!) was covering too. I was initially concerned about needing to be online often to authenticate the plugins but was just one of the group of people who asked Roland to make some changes, which they did, extending the interval period to monthly. For me personally, it turns into a non-issue as we rehearse in my studio most weeks meaning the kit will be regularly switched on when connect to the internet.

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Hi Dave … I know this isn’t the zenology Forum LOL, but do you have any idea how to set the midi Channel that the instrument receives on?

I’m not entirely sure you can or need to. If you need to route a specific midi channel from your controller to it, you can probably just use the “Channel mappings” section of the “MIDI In” block that feeds midi to Zenology Pro.

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I usually ensure my stage laptop is online at least once a month for necessary updates anyway and I use the time to undertake housekeeping tasks (like backup!). A little bit of a pain, but saves a world of pain getting on stage and finding out you need a wifi connection and then to find lovely Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates coming down (though you can turn them off).

Ok, I know this is a very old thread, but I didnt think it worth starting a new one just to have a moan.
Obviously this is nothing to do with GP directly.

Ive been really happy with the Roland stuff. Ive seen posts about the horrible activation process but until recently it wasnt an issue for me.
I had wrongly assumed that as my Mac is online 99.99% of the time at home, and only goes off line when I gig or rehearse, that activation wasn’t an issue. And it never was when I was just using it at home in Logic or cubase.
Since I started taking the Mac out of the house last year when I got GP it’s also been fine, other than a few crashes which were repeatable so I avoid them, but over the past 4 weeks its needed be activated twice, but ive done it a few times between these two incidents as well.
Not only embarrassing, but I had to miss out on a few songs while I sorted this out.

The solution for me right now, is probably something I shouldn’t talk about here :sunglasses:

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Yeah. I will restate for the upteenth time my love-hate thing with Roland cloud and zenology. It’s got some of the best, widest variety, largest volume of, and best organized sounds out there … but has absolutely the worst licensing, activation and cloud service system ever in existence!

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Couldn’t agree more. If I could only ever have one VST it would be Zenology, but I try not to use it too much in case I have to stop using it.

I think, to an extent, there is no motivation for Roland to change this either. If they provided permanent device authorization, the issue for them would not be the worry of software piracy, but rather the cheaper option of a controller plus computer with Zenology Pro eating into their hardware sales and producing less profit.

Obviously I wish they would anyway!