Providing a wealth of emulations of their classic synths and drum machines - both algorithmic and sample-based - for a competitive monthly fee, Roland’s Roland Cloud service has successfully established itself as part of the music technology landscape over the last couple of years. And now, alongside the legendary likes of the SH-101, TR-808, Juno-106 and System 100, subscribers can get their hands on a plugin version of the company’s recently unveiled ZEN-Core Synthesis System.
It might not look like there’s much going on in its simple interface, but Zenology’s power lies in the ZEN-Core engine under the hood…
Called Zenology, the new instrument “embodies nearly 50 years of synthesizer research and development”, and uses analogue emulation, PCM-based and analogue/digital hybrid technologies for sound generation, with “Analog Behavior Modelling” due to be added at a later date. Importantly, it allows for transfer of patches between it and Roland‘s ZEN-Corecompatible hardware synths - such as the Jupiter-X, Fantom and MC-707 - meaning you can program a sound on one, then open it in another for further editing or use as is.