Roland Cloud vs Vintage Roland Hardware

In this video, synthesist Alex Ball compares four Roland Cloud software synthesizers against the vintage hardware synthesizers that they emulate.

Ball looks at software versions of four classic Roland synths: SH-2 (1979), TB-303 (1981), SH-101 (1982) and JX-3P (1983) and argues that, in terms of sound, the emulations are ‘remarkably close’. And in the case of the 303, ‘stunning’.

Here’s what he has to say about the individual soft synths:

  • SH-2: I deliberately only used parameters available on the hardware to try to make it comparable. There’s some differences, particularly when setting up bass sounds, but there are times in the demo where it’s very difficult to hear the switches from the virtual and the real.
  • TB-303: Pretty stunning. In a blind test I would struggle to tell you which was which. It responded exactly as you’d expect to parameter changes.
  • SH-101: The one I found a little different. There’s two envelopes and (unlike the other Cloud instruments) you can’t switch the second off and used a shared one. Combined with the positive/negative modulation setup, it was a little harder to get it to match my hardware 101. But in a straight out of the box test, the raw sound is pretty spot-on. It’s merely about how it behaved and how that had a knock-on effect when I was trying to match sounds.
  • JX-3P: It’s actually better than the hardware because they overcome everything that’s weak about the original whilst getting the sound pretty much bang on. Two envelopes, proper control of all of the parameters over midi, a bunch of additional modes/functions and the hardware looks a bit tired by comparison.

Check out the comparison and share your thoughts on them in the comments!

4 thoughts on “Roland Cloud vs Vintage Roland Hardware

  1. Where are the mandatory “digital can never sound as good as compressed analog in a youtube video” comments? Am I on the wrong blog? 😉

    1. This collection would be really fantastic to own, but since it’s a monthly subscription you’re stuck paying forever.

      1. It if you load it to hardware!

        The Roland Cloud/Hardware platform is really the best of both worlds. People are too nostalgic about ancient synthesis circuits, Non of these were sophisticated synth to begin with, just well-designed ones.

  2. The JX-3P is really standing out the crowd, whilst the others loose dynamics, space and timbre. On other synths like Jupiter, Juno and especially Promars its even more obvious. What else to say? Many other manufacturers (not only B) are doing a good job on clones or new “similar” synths like UDO. But…., why should VST-technology limit itself by old technology? Spire, Serum and even old Sylenth show what “sound” means using software.

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