All the classic Roland synth sounds and beyond

Zen-Core is the foundation of most of Roland's recent synths. I'll explain and let you hear what it is all about and how it enables a hybrid work flow. Doing sound design on the Zenology Pro software and exporting patches to be used on the Jupiter Xm hardware synthesizer.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:15 Music demos with the Jupiter Xm and Zenology Pro
6:21 Sound design using Zenology Pro
8:31 Exporting patches to the Jupiter Xm
11:21 Conclusions
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[@marcelscholz6358]

Danke für diese Präsentation. Sehr Interessant👍🏼👍🏼

[@spacecat-official]

Thanks for this excellent video! Very interesting!

[@johntammaro]

Why are sorry for the classic hardcore demo. Best bit. Long live the Alpha Juno

[@Estuera]

hardcore to the bone 😁

[@robertbmxpa]

Roland with the hook-up! Congrats, and nice review!

[@lairdtomfrenchelectromusic2545]

Retour dans le passé et le présent ! Again and again a perfect explanatory video !!! Merci Jonas pour ce partage. :)

[@Estuera]

Merci :) And have a nice weekend.

[@lairdtomfrenchelectromusic2545]

@@Estuera Merci, bon week-end à vous aussi. 😉

[@Matt-zp1jn]

This video lays out the reason why Roland is not putting out new polyphonic Analog Synthesizers anymore really, despite what the Analog Synth purists desire. The online Digital internet “Multiverse” of all the Music Clouds need that seemless transition between Analog to Analog Modelling to Digital online where the future of the majority of music production and collaborations will take place. Even if a physical studio is used after for mixing or mastering etc. Roland already has 2 of the best Analog Modelling & Digital synth engines with ACB - Analog Circuit Behaviour and ZENcore, and Zencore being their new Roland Cloud Zenology Digital Synth will bridge the gap from Hardware, Keyboards, DAC, DAW, online into the coming web universe. That is the priority for the future obviously, even if they still do some more Analog Synth stuff in the future. Hence why Behringer put out their clones of Rolands classic drum machines etc. Although there are kinks to be worked out with Roland Cloud, Zenology, VST’s, etc, the coming together of ALL of Rolands stuff to eventually seemlessly interact online back & forth together may be a hit to getting many of the coming beginners, intermediate piano, keyboard, and basement DJ producers to use Roland Cloud services online!

[@nichttuntun3364]

Great concept. Seems to be worth the money :)

[@egemenkurbetli]

Support !

[@neuronmind]

In a few years we'll have Audiopilz doing a "bad gear" review on it. He'll be making fun on the HUGE display.

[@Estuera]

Maybe, in the end almost all of the gear he checks out is secretly good :D

[@henrikfisch]

That's exactly the reason we I do not support Audiopliz but I DO support - and LOVE - the videos of Estuera/Jonas.

[@Estuera]

I fully recommend you to support AudioPilz as well though. He makes great and very entertaining videos. The 'bad gear' thing is just an original and clever way to get people to watch the videos. It's always very clear he spends a lot of time getting some actual good music out of the gear and most videos end with me actually being charmed by the device in question.

[@neuronmind]

@@EstueraYou hit the spot but You can be proud of your own channel to, i like the laid back approach ,your choice off sounds and equipment and the overall quality. Good stuff ! Keep 'm coming !

[@beesting6135]

​@@Estueranot bad meaning bad but bad meaning good

[@laurentb.2064]

Hello Jonas. Thank you for this very interesting video! Does Zenology Pro software come with the Jupiter Xm or does it need to be purchased in addition? Have you tried to create a sound "from scratch" with the Z-Core model with the Jupiter (not the computer). Can you show us? Now that you have a Jupiter Xm, could you do without your Yamaha Reface CS or the Reface CS makes sounds that Jupiter Xm (or Zenology Pro) cannot ? Thank you again. Regards.

[@Estuera]

The Zenology Pro is a separate product. I comes with Roland Cloud. Creating a sound from scratch using only the Jupiter Xm will give the same results but it takes some working through the menus to access some specific sections. I might show it in a later video. The sound of the Zen-core engine is typical Roland, another color in the palette. It can certainly stand on its own though.

[@oldunclemick]

Good video. 👍 I'm wondering if Zenology patches can be exchanged with the Aerophone AE-30.

[@Estuera]

As far as I know this won't work with the AE-30.

[@oldunclemick]

@@Estuera that's a pity, hopefully they will address that. Roland seem to have a very self-limiting idea of the market for the AE-30 with bizarre restrictions like the drumsets only responding to MIDI channel 5 yet not mentioning it clearly in the documentation (I'm not sure it's even mentioned in the MIDI implementation chart). It's as if they never thought people would use the AE-30 as a module.

[@Estuera]

I said as far as I know though. If you want to be really sure it's best to check with Roland. I couldn't find any evidence online (in a limited search) that this is possible. I'm not sure which is their target demographic for the AE-30, maybe it's more 'player' oriented and less 'programmer'. It would still be cool though if you could import Zenology patches to it. Let me know if it turns out this is possible after all.

[@oldunclemick]

@@Estuera I'll let you know if they do. They have just added the ability to export scenes as *.aezl files to USB drives. What format are those files you transferred?

[@Estuera]

I exported the tones as .svz files

[@bilonggrisimmeri]

This is just a thought. Is it possible these models of vintage Roland synths are like a preset that limits the available controls, features and settings to those of what ever synth you are modeling? You could achieve the same sound palete in the main Jupiter X engine if you knew Roland's recipe. Or at least make a fair approximation by knowing what features a Juno or Jupiter would have? I'm confident I could make all the sounds I hear in this video on various other synths I own. Great review, so thanks so much.

[@Estuera]

Under the hood its all the Zen-core engine. The models are expansions on that core (eg they add extra pcm samples or osc algorithms etc...)

[@bilonggrisimmeri]

@@Estuera Thanks for confirming what I had thought for some time.

[@KojiKamori]

I am curious if you can import patches to the Boutique line instruments in the same way that you did for the Jupiter XM.

[@Estuera]

As far as I know it doesn't work the same way. The boutique line doesn't use the Roland Zen core.

[@KojiKamori]

@@Estuera Well that is a bit sad. Regaurdless, it be fun to try and recreate these patches manually.

[@raelic3]

Can you use the alpha Juno style patch on the Jupiter XM?

[@Estuera]

Yes you can. You can transfer it the same way as I show with the bass patch in the video.

[@raelic3]

@@Estuera very cool. I didn't know the xm could do that ...very cool. I thought they were limited to Jupiter 8 etc for the models.

[@Estuera]

No you have all the options you can find in Zenology Pro. So really quite powerful and versatile.

[@oldunclemick]

0:23 the Aerophone AE-30 also has Zen-core (edit: but I'm not sure it works with these apps - it has its own)

[@losangulos]

Is it your opinion a Juno can do everything the Promars does? Ive heard the Promars has the same oscillator/filter mmm

[@Estuera]

The original Promars is monophonic so that's already quite a big difference to the Juno. If you're talking about the virtual versions, these are also quite different.

[@losangulos]

@@Estuera yes but no, the sound i make in promars is a very simple and easy to make just a sub bass, i tried other synths, and they all sound very different, this due to how the oscillator makes the wave and how the filter behaves, so in that aspect, are both synths equal? I know some people can name the parts used in the filter and or oscillator of certain synths etc, so when i discovered that not all square, triangle, pwm, etc oscillators sound the same (by brand) i was really interested to know which are made with equal parts or whatever in that super basic set up of a bassline

[@Estuera]

The Juno's have DCO's so they are different from the Promars. I think you can still make them sound similar in some cases but they are very different machines.

[@obscuresoundz]

nice i assume u can import more then one tone at a time tho; cos that would be time consuming to load multiple sounds

[@Estuera]

There's actually a more convenient way now (maybe I'll do an update video on it) --> www.roland.com/us/products/rc_jupiter-x_editor/

[@ajakz2561]

I have a Roland MC-707. I wanted to get the Zenology Pro software, but I don't want to pay a sizeable chunk of money & get attached to a service that Roland may pull the plug on down the track (stipulated in the ToS). I also don't like that the software has to phone home every once in a while to maintain authorization. If they released an offline, standalone package, I'd throw down for that in an instant. As it stands, a lifetime key is worthless when it is entirely dependent on a service Roland can squash the moment it becomes no longer financially viable to maintain.

[@Estuera]

It's a valid concern indeed. On the other hand that shouldn't hold you back to make music right now with the plugins that are available. Lots of my old releases I can never fully call back again because they used plugins that no longer work on modern systems but for me that's acceptable because I could get my money's worth out of it during the time they were supported. For the sounds I really am attached too I got hardware though. It's basically _the_ main reason I got a MS-20 and a M1 after using the plugins for 15+ years. (And why I'm currently on the lookout for an Alpha Juno 2)

[@oldunclemick]

AJAKZ! Very true! I'm the same, I have low expectations of corporations and I'm rarely surprised by the things they get up to. This is why I always "print" MIDI tracks to audio because stuff can be killed by an upgrade.

[@Estuera]

Bouncing everything to audio stems is a good idea indeed. I wish I would have done that with all my old productions as well.

[@oldunclemick]

@@Estuera I have a ton of early 90s Cubase stuff on my Atari. Still got the synths but I don't have the time! 😀

[@bilonggrisimmeri]

@AJAKZ! Thanks for pointing this out. Roland's much vaunted VariOS open platform is "abandonware". Similarly, V-Synth only got 2, albeit excellent, soft synth V-Cards.I believe they re-cycle computer code (and worse, PCM samples) between products. JD-XA and JupiterXm share an entire bank of PCMs, probably organ and other keyboard multi-samples too. I love re-cycling, of course, but isn't this a little naughty?

[@henrikfisch]

The »Jupiter-Xm« (and of course the »Jupiter-X«) is such a great machines. And that's coming from a guy who does feel Roland with all their brand-chaos and their clumsy software-internet-shop (you have to register BEFORE you see the prices) has no understanding of the internet and software-Synthesizers at all. Lucky (or bad, depends on how you see it) I have a good old trusty »JV-1080« at my hand which can still do a lot. ;) Thank you for this video anyways! :)

[@AmeyahOfficialTV]

Ohh i played with the SuperSAW in zenology pro, but could get a cool wide sound out of it, is there a way to turn off the retrigger or i am doing something wrong? Why is every of the Roland software emus so hard to program? also zenology has the same problem D50, JV1080, XV5080 (i love this one), you can do anything in the daw, when u want to select a preset in the browser? (super stupid?!) but i simply love them. ohhh and thanks for reminding on the KORG Legacy collection, im in Love with the M1, so many vintage VST options now. love your the demos you put together^^ keep the videos coming! ohhh one new one every friday?

[@AmeyahOfficialTV]

Still think zenology is very underrated! does the VST3 also load very slowly for u? it takes like 30secs here to open the VSt3, thats the longest i have on any Plugin.

[@Estuera]

To get the SuperSaw to sound the way it should you'll need to tweak the tuning a bit more, add some noise and use a proper reverb. At a certain point the JP-8000 emerges. It needs some tweaking though. It would be cool if Roland released the JP-8000 as an actual model. I do a new video every week usually. The actual day I release them depends a bit on how busy I am with other things in that week. I try to build in some buffer but until now these videos are mostly straight out of premiere and live within hours.

[@Estuera]

I didn't really notice any extreme loading times.

[@AmeyahOfficialTV]

@@Estuera yes an actual model would be awsome, i guess everybody has missed that the SuperSAW is already in there. yes i noticed, the detune is very sensitve and you need to have it very low, but wasnt the the original detuning curve something like an exponential curve? i will have a play with it.

[@AmeyahOfficialTV]

@@Estuera maybe my CPU us just very old then. might need to buy something new soon.

[@VladoT]

Thanks for this insight, however I still think that working on an actual hardware is an inspiration for itself if we ignore the subtle sound differences. And an idea for affordable and underrated synth to buy for your studio: Kurzweil K2000.

[@Estuera]

True. In this case you can do both and it will sound the same. The only difference is the interface. I personally love to program sounds on hardware synths like my MS-20 and PolyBrute and also on the Jupiter Xm it's quite a nice experience. This video is more to show both worlds. There will be people who will only use the Zenology plugin and people who will only use the hardware. It's great though (and quite unique) that these are compatible. The K2000 is quite interesting indeed. Haven't come across one yet but if I do it certainly might show up in a video.

[@patriksmusiclog9688]

My problem: this stuff doesn't sound like the real deal. It sounds good in its own way, but especially the Juno 106 does not sound like my Juno 106 at all...

[@Estuera]

If you really need a pure Juno 106 sound you should get the real deal indeed. It's the same reason why I got a MS-20 after using the plugins for years. According to me the interesting part of the Zen-core synths is combining all the sound options, using them for emulations is secondary. I must say that the emulations do sound very good though in their own way as you already mentioned

[@patrikknoerr9777]

@@fender4473 I toyed around with some Junos in 1987 in the stores as a kid, and they did not sound like that either back then. Did you know that the 106 were considered "Crap synths"? The king of crap was the Polysix. No one in his right mind wanted it...

[@Estuera]

Funny how those things change over time :D

[@patrikknoerr9777]

@@Estuera Lesson learned: if someone calls you stupid, chances are that he is stupid. Works for almost every time I was called names for having an opinion. Considering the Juno 106 to be my favorite analog synth is admittedly debatable.

[@uly1981]

I have the XM, i like the sound but it's by far the worst UX anyone ever has come up with. Sound design on the synth is cumbersome, every model is mapped differently. The scene/tone/model etc structure is too complicated. Zenology Pro needs to be a real time editor for the synth and as the hardware isnt cheap more software/models should be part of it, not just a free trial