Roland Zenbeats - Piano Universe Expansion Pack Demo - Some Great Pianos

thesoundtestroom

Zenbeats Piano Universe pack has some very nice pianos.
I subscribe to the 2.99 a month option because I’m only going to use this on iOS and that option gives me everything, and there is a lot to had for that low price, definitely the best value sub model there is.
Anyway, the pianos have that
Roland vide all over the place, some nice layered pianos in there too.

abf

Doug, the Roland cloud stuff has me very confused. If I were to install ZenBeats on iPad, then for $2.99 per month I would get access to all the Roland Zenology sounds, is that right? Or does iPad Zenbeats have its own library?

I'd just like access to some Roland sounds but in true Roland fashion they make the process very difficult. I've not heard good things about the Roland Cloud on desktop (difficult to use, calls home, high CPU), so I'm avoiding that.

bluegroove

I used these exclusively when I was on Android a couple years ago and they are serviceable, but I never really looked back once I moved to iOS as there are much better pianos available elsewhere that also aren't restricted to Zenbeats (it's too buggy for me compared to other DAWs).

Roland also has some higher quality pianos on desktop, but sadly they haven't bothered to port them to iOS and I doubt they ever (one of the devs told me the iOS version of Zenbeats doesn't support the type of files the higher quality pianos use).

abf

Ok, so iPad Zenbeats is not ABM or (especially) ACB I guess? Just some Rolandy sounds for iPad? Are they the same sounds as in the Jupiter X and Xm?

DMfan

@abf said:
Ok, so iPad Zenbeats is not ABM or (especially) ACB I guess? Just some Rolandy sounds for iPad? Are they the same sounds as in the Jupiter X and Xm?

The internal synth of Zenbeats, ZC1, is a Zencore based rompler with limited synth capabilities, but you can sculpt a lot using filter, resonance, attack and sustain which are the four included major controls. It’s a Roland bread ’n butter sound source, pretty capable actually if you just want sounds quickly to make music with and like presets and the Roland
”sound” itself. With iOS Unlock V3 you get the below, and there is no subscription involved:

Access all features on iPad or iPhone with Zenbeats iOS Unlock V3! Unleash your creativity with ten full instruments and over 1200 Roland sounds, including ZR1 Drum Sampler, ZC1 ZEN-Core Synthesizer, SampleVerse, and our ElectroSeries. iOS Unlock V3 also includes 17 native effects, 90 MFX for ZC1, AUv3 plugin support, group tracks, sub-tracks, stem exporting, unlimited track sends, additional track effect slots, and more.

There are also quite a lot of soundpacks to download as an IAP. But, if you’re into sound design from scratch there are much better other options available as AUv3 to use in Zenbeats on iOS, since Zenology is desktop only. IMO, I get the best of both worlds: access to the Roland sound universe AND access to AUv3 synths on iOS.

I would guess using the same engine, that some presets are likely to be found in most Roland Zencore synths.

/DMfan🇸🇪

yellow_eyez

If you don’t have Cubasis and you use midi controller knobs and faders to map for Audio Units zb3 is my second favorite pick. It has completely amazing stock sounds and can be self contained and is a universal daw, for $40 you can get daw on all platform on sale and $75 gets all unlocked . Best value daw wise
(Cubasis still #1 tied up with logic, but this is great third option )

Thanks for demo doug

abf

Thanks @DMfan and @yellow_eyez
I appreciate the information! I understand now. I'm going to listen to more videos.

Sorry for hijacking the thread. Thanks, @thesoundtestroom for the excellent piano universe video, it's what got me started wanting to hear more zenbeats.