Isn't it the other way around? Google took a hint from Roland perhaps? Strange thing to say either way. Roland has been around for decades making synthesizers, arrangers as well as sophisticated software. Moreover, Blob Opera has very little to do with Roland 50 besides "they both make sounds".
I love this, and also its predecessor https://808303.studio which was this but without the SH101 and with a less celebratory tone. The audio quality is absolutely splendid.
However, I really wonder why they don't have any URL auto-sharing mechanism. Given that there are no patterns, no sequences whatsoever, it's just one single 16 position loop per "device", an entire song could easily fit on the URL. Eg the TypeScript playground live-updates the url as you type: https://www.typescriptlang.org/play?#code/FAYw9gdgzmA2CmA6WY...
That "record" feature is neat, but it'd be way neater if I can just share an URL with my composition with a friend and they can remix it.
In celebration of 50 years, Roland have collaborated with sound designer Yuri Suzuki to create Roland50 Studio, a digital reworking of some of their most famous and influential devices.
Wonder how it compares to "Rebirth", an earlier Steinberg (later
Propellerhead) take on the classic analogue production deck? Surely
the Roland version is the most accurate to date?
Long time 808/606/303 owner and the Roland emulations are ok. The best 303 emulation I’ve used is the Audiorealism bassline. https://www.audiorealism.se/
Keep in mind I’m not a huge 303 fan personally.
I’ve got a Roland cloud subscription and I definitely think it’s useful and way more convenient than vintage gear approaching 50 years of age. I also have the arturia v-collection and think this last update made the Roland synths (Jupiter and Juno’s) sound way more alive and better imho than the Roland versions. They are both pretty good though. You can get the same dsp emulation in the Roland boutiques/Aira as well if you want hardware knobs to twiddle.
Iirc the 808 and 909 in rebirth were sample based. The 303 was nice and squelchy but not quite a perfect emulation. Lots of fun to play with though. I remember spending hours in college playing with rebirth.
I had been eyeing that Arturia V collection. The cost isn't too bad at all! I had a demo a few years ago and I really only messed with the grand piano and the DX-7. I'd love to do some nice warm pads on a Juno-106!
I picked it up on Splice starting around Christmas. Great low-cost way to try it, seems fairly catch-free. (The only real downside I could tell, was if you stop subscribing, and they no longer offer it, then you could lose out on your "investment" vs completing the purchase. Perhaps licensing across computers or running their software, but it doesn't seem worse/more invasive than any typical audio DRM.)
The Vocoder is so fun to play with! A lot of great sounds in there, I gotta spend some more time with it!
I can't speak to the accuracy, I only have a few bits of hardware, but V collection sounds really good on its own. As for the DX-7, Dexed is really popular.
If you have an iOS device, KQ Dixie is a pretty good DX7 emulation. It’s an audio unit, so you can load it into a host (“DAW”) and add an effects chain, even though it’s on a mobile device
I've owned a couple DX-7s. I just can't get into the original. The DX7 mk2 was a really cool instrument and I'm glad the V has some of those sounds. I messed with FM7 a bit too. I've seen mention of Dexed for years but haven't tried it out.
Sometimes accurate is good, but my vst favourite 808 clone of recent times was this one: https://rc-808.com/ which is similar but more with a focus on a more flexible drum synthesis engine than the original.
I think the joy of the roland 50 is how approachable the sequencing is though, with the sounds everyone is familiar with
Yea those are the expected devices. I think that pretty mimics their botique line which are adorable little synth replicas of the original. They're so cute I had to collect them and have them displayed on shelves in my living room.
Damn, I really wish they would have given these away as VSTs instead. I'd love to bring an official Roland 303 software synth into my setup without paying their ridiculous subscription fees.
That's probably why they aren't free VSTs, this is just for tinkering and nostalgic normies. All the artists making music for public distribution knows its faster and easier to do it all in their DAW
But! FLStudio has Transistor Bass. I don't know if it's available as a VST but IL has posted comparison videos online and I can't really hear any difference through my studio monitors.
DAW are indeed technically superior but the biggest problem is that they thwart creativity. They’re not good for exploring but they’re excellent for executing once you know what you want to do.
Super fun. I use a 303 clone in some of my stuff. The physical interface is just a big gumption trap for composing, and this web interface is actually 100x better. I will likely use this to compose and hack around, and then plug it into my physcal 303 for its part. The extra fun is modulating with the knobs.
I use analog synths to get away from screens. Fun thing I've discovered that is specifically useful for the 303 is that loops and melodies with a prime number length against composite number beats are a source of free constant movement in otherwise repetitive loops. A 4 on the floor beat vs a 7, 11, or 13 step melody only cycles every 4 x n bars. I've been mulling one of the an 808 re-issues, or even investing in a collectors item, and playing this in my browser is removing my excuses for putting it off. Thank you!
Reminds me - of course - of ReBirth, from 'back in the day'...when the iPad first came out I was incredibly pleased to find ReBirth had a port to it. (Edit: I'm sad to see it's since been removed. Damn.)
I wanna say I first played with ReBirth in 2002/3(?) - I was 12/13 - and that was my introduction to - at least - the 303/808/909.
What's great about these pieces of software, is that just by playing around of them, they are great tools to learn about the fundamentals of synthesis.
The Roland JD-XI is a more recent multi-layered synth that features a whole drum machine, an analog monophonic bass synth, and two polyphonic synths, all attached to a fantastic sequencer. I highly recommend checking that out if anyone is interested in a nice modern hardware equivalent to something like this.
Really, really well done!!! Was up and running with some cool music in just a few minutes. And being in the browser meant that I could do some unconventional things, such as playback a song in multiple tabs for some neat syncopation/polyphony effects. Fun.
Looks like they partnered with the Counterpoint team on this (https://ctpt.co/)
For those that prefer something with buttons, Roland has issued desktop module versions of some of their iconic machines under the name Roland Boutique. The equivalents of the devices they have in this online tool would be the SH-01a, TB-03 and TR-08.
Yeah. I've got both the boutiques and Behringers. And if you can live with the behringer ethics and cheap plastic feel, the sound is definitely just as good if not better
> Or that, but I thought that advertising the products of a competitor with dubious ethical standards would be poor form.
Show me where are Roland's analogue TR808,TR909 or TB303 in retail? That's right, there are none.
The patents on all these circuit designs have expired long ago. Behringer is just offering a cheap analogue alternative to unaffordable used gear.
The boutique devices you listed are not analogue so they aren't more authentic to the original than Behringer devices. If anything, it's no less of dubious marketing.
Out of the 4 instruments that are still locked I'd reckon three would definitely be Jupiter 8, Juno, and TR-909. I can't confidently guess the last one though.
I'll try them later at home. Do you think they'll sound as good as the analog counterparts? Hahahaa
Looks like they also have countdowns to add 4 more units to the interface - check out the lock tabs on top or the Countdown link in the hamburger menu. Looks to be they will have new interfaces in about 1, 3, 4, and 6 months. Guesses as to what will be added?
Their picks for the boutique treatment are likely good guesses - TR909 for sure, maybe TR606. On the synth side, Jupiter 8, Juno 106 & D50 seem like good candidates.
Happy birthday, Roland!
Coincidentally, the whole winter I was striving to get one of their synths. With no luck, sadly (thanks, politicians! >:( )
The one thing I noted throughout Roland's history - is that their products suffer from underappreciation for some time until they stop being produced :D And shortly after some jump right to being legendary. ))
Side question, what are some good free VSt or LMMS resources?
It has been a while since I last did music production, but I'm currently so bored of the web development process and it's the year of the tiger so might as well pick up my teen and early 20s love again. My soul demands it
I've learned piano using my dear Roland FP-30, but now looking for an upgrade. Probably a kawai or Yamaha with warmer, more natural sound and more high end action.
Anyone have recommendations? P515? CA59? Other? Clp 745?
You're not going to get a "natural sound" out of pretty much all of the digital pianos out on the market. Even the pretty pricey ones.
What you can do however, is try hooking up Roland FP-30 to a computer and using the computer to generate sounds (so called VST).
I'm visiting relatives for a few weeks, and they happen to have FP-30X (same action), the built in sounds are absolutely god horrid (they are so bad I consider them useless, outside of maybe the rhodes sound), but I'm hooking it to my laptop which has Garritan CFX Concert Grand (full version), Ivory II grand pianos and Pianoteq.
Garritan CFX being the overall most realistic. But you can't go wrong with Ivory II either as it will be a massive upgrade compared to any built in digital piano sounds.
So the full stack would be:
1. The best action you can get (the built in DP sounds don't matter since they are all going to be some gradient of suck anyway)
2. PC with audio interface with very low latency drivers
I don't disagree with you for the low-mid end of the market, but I don't think this question can be answered without a price range, haha.
I have a YDP-184 [1] that includes the CFX you mentioned. I actually think the weak point in its sound is the acoustics of my room, coupled with the inboard speaker placement.
Then of course there are the Hybrids [2], which I haven't tried myself (and are considerably more than I'm looking to spend as a hobbyist.)
I can guarantee you that the sampled Yamaha CFX grand which is in YDP-184 is
but a small fraction in size compared to model of Yamaha CFX sampled by Garritan at Abbey Road Studios. And sounds like shit in comparison.
The Garritan CFX full version (with near and far mics) is 132gigs in size, and even if you take only one set of near/far microphones, it would still be ~40-41gigs in size.
Obviously bigger isn't always better, and there's a diminshing returns point... however, digitial piano sample sizes don't come even remotely near it.
I would be surprised... VERY surprised if the sample size in YDP-184 would reach even a single gigabyte.
More realistically, the piano sounds in YDP-184 is in megabytes. It has been like this with digital pianos - with very few exception models - for decades, with little to no progress.
If a digital piano manifacturer doesn't specify sample size in megabytes/gigabytes, it is most likely because the samples are embarrassingly small, short, looped and stretched.
Disklavier you linked is not a hybrid or a digital piano. It's a real acoustic piano with playback system.
The hybrids - Yamaha N-1X Avant Grand, 7k euros, Kawai Novus NV-10S 9k euros - have great piano action, but the sound is still pretty embarrassing for the price you pay for it.
If I had Kawai Novus-10, I would still hook it up to Garritan CFX, because built in sounds in it are pathetic (for the price)
Kind of the opposite. I have plenty of digital piano experience to know that the built in sounds in pretty much all of them are severely lacking. And has been like that for decades, to this day unfortunately.
I've never been WOW-ed by a built in DP sound, they always sound like DPs.
And I have listened to a lot of acoustic grand piano records, thus I'm very well aware of how they should sound like. And that's the sound I'm aiming for.
The only way to get WOW-ed and to approach the realism / sound quality of recording of a real accoustic grand is by using large sampled VSTs (like Garritan CFX).
Pianoteq (which is a synthesized piano VST) has it's pro's too - more life-like string/soundboard resonance, and just overall playability.
But in terms of pure, record-like sound quality, nothing comes close to a large sampled VST.
Unfortunately there are very few - if any DPs - with built in sample size big enough to
capture the sheer beauty of those high end concert grands.
The next best thing - of course - is a real instrument.
I see. For laymen it's hard to understand: there are many price levels of DPs and even the most expensive ones don't have big enough samples.
My recent trip to a big piano store probably resonates with you. They had all the DPs I wanted to try out, fantastic.
Before I went there: convinced the most expensive are the best but trying to find my compromise point.
When I was there, it was hard to differentiate between all the DPs. I'll need more time. At the end, the store people encouraged me to look at their multiple storeys of acoustics before I'd leave. I'm not used to acoustics and the ones I encounter are sometimes sluggish or hard to play for me, but now I found a Kawai K300 Aures which was amazing, a whole other beast.
My conclusion was that no DP is close to the acoustics, and this is probably going to lower the price point I'm willing to pay. Why pay for a CA99 when it's digital, going obsolete at some point, and still not even halfway there? :)
I'll find a compromise DP for convenience I think. The plan is to get access to acoustics maybe through a music school or friends, and look forward to an acoustic if/when I move to a house.
> I see. For laymen it's hard to understand: there are many price levels of DPs and even the most expensive ones don't have big enough samples.
Yes, most of the time.
There are some rare exceptions to this, like Korg Kronos 1/2 (more like a music workstation), which has a built in Intel Atom x86 processor and an 30 GB/62 GB internal SSD.
It has full length grand piano samples (with 8/12 velocity layers) without looping, and the piano samples themselves in this rare occasion is in gigabytes :) (~3-4 gigs per piano sample if I recall, which is very rare in DPs)
So it should sound pretty good for a sample based piano. However the piano action on it is... somewhat basic.
Then there's Korg Grandstage (has ~19gig total sample size, I believe it uses the same piano samples as Korg Kronos (Kronos just has a whole lot of other instruments too)).
That taken into account I just focus on getting great action, and then hook it up to PC with low latency audio drivers.
Honestly that Kawai K-300 Aures sounds like a good deal, an actual acoustic piano, as well as optical sensors to read velocity of hammers and get MIDI output.
I'd probably try to get the Kawai K-500 Aures, the slightly taller model if possible.
Yamaha u3/u5 uprights, properly tuned and well looked after, with front and top panels wooden panels removed can sound fantastic.
>I'm not used to acoustics and the ones I encounter are sometimes sluggish or hard to play for me
Usually long-time DP players struggle with pedaling once they hop on a real acoustic.
This is because DPs are generally speaking very forgiving in terms of sustain pedal use - you can kind of be pretty sloppy
with it and just kind of hold it down for extended periods of time with it rarely if ever getting muddy.
That's enabled by most DPs having a very short decay sound, plus each note is kind of thin/narrowband and isolated, with minimal string resonance (compared to a real instrument).
On a real instrument you kind of get audibly punished for being sloppy with pedalling. :)
And it takes takes a bit of time to re-learn proper sustain pedal use on a real acoustic.
I have a Yamaha MOX-8 that I like for the most part. I find the interface generally overcomplicated and confusing. I think it sounds pretty good as a piano, but there are probably synthesizers out there that do piano better. The weighted keys feel good. I don't know how it compares to the FP-30.
Wonder how good the emulation is compared to some of the other commercial solutions out there. Usually software implementations of this hardware don't sound right
I just played around with it and the emulation isn't bad. What's really missing is any way to mute/solo instruments. Without that, you can't even do an ad-hoc performance. The instruments have been stripped down to their bare capabilities and are not even close to a full recreation, UI changes aside. And of course there is no way to save/load sequences or settings. And I found several bugs where certain parameters didn't seem to work or toggling one thing changed the parameters of something completely unrelated.
So for anyone who dabbles in these instruments, it's a fun toy for about 5 minutes and that's it. I suspect you can't expect anything more out of a promotional piece.
The TR-808 and TB-303 sound pretty good to me. I was in an electronic rock/pop/avant garde trio throughout the 80s and we used those two devices (and a Sequential Circuits Pro One) a lot. I still have pattern notes I could use to reproduce our old patterns with these emulations. They sound pretty close to me, though you have to allow for the unreliability of memory.
I always look for how the filters sounds with Res set really high. Good analog filters have a sort of fuzzy quality to them, which I suspect (not an EE here, just guessing) is extra harmonics from how that circuit behaves under those conditions. A lot of software emulations just sound thin, this included.
I'm not an authority on the 303, though. I just like to play around with analog gear sometimes.
I did SO much with Rebirth-338 back in the day. Its emulation wasn't so bad.
I've tried getting it to run on Windows 10, but even after all the hacks I could find online, it just doesn't run quite right. It was made in the era of 800x600 resolutions. And even though there's a pixel-doubling patch available, it looks like hot garbage.
Even still, this was a huge part of my music experimentation phase of life. (My youth)
I played with Rebirth on and off pretty much since it's been around and my opinion is that its sound is an homage to the real 303, at best. The spirit is certainly there but it's hard to make Rebirth sound exactly like a real 303 or hardware clones. I haven't played with any of the newer (as in, made in the last 15 years or so) 303 software implementations but I would suspect most of them are more faithful recreations.
The original 16-bit version will run in Wine without any additional patching, but I'm not sure what options that would give you for resolution problems.
