ZENOLOGY GX Synthesizer by Roland Corporation (Released on iOS)

purpan2

@cyberheater said:

@purpan2 said:

@pigdog237 said:
Is it possible to transfer Zenology patches onto MC101 / MC707 etc? And if so, is there a simple tutorial anywhere?

You should be able to, I think, in theory, but it didn’t work for me with the MC101.

That's not good.

True enough, although maybe I was doing something wrong.

Edit: I was indeed doing something wrong - I put the file in the wrong sub-folder on the MC101 card. It works very well now.

Telstar5

@MatthewAtZenbeats : Good to see you back on here, Matt..This copied from Google ai
“Over 4000 (expandable to 11,000+) expertly crafted tones in a wide range of genres”—-
So this free version for iPad comes with 4,000 sounds , right ? Once we buy it how do we add the rest? Additional expansion packs ? Are they available now?

MatthewAtZenbeats

@Gavinski said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats don't think you answered my question earlier regarding the app's absense from the China store. Is that intentional? If so, mind if I ask why?

Hi @Gavinski,

Sorry I missed this earlier. I'm looking into it and will get back to you.

drewinnit

probably not a realistic expectation, but it would be great to have some of these classic Roland FX individually as effect AUv3s

having lots of fun flashbacks to my jams on the SP-404 as I play with the Zenology FX

MatthewAtZenbeats

@cyberheater said:

@purpan2 said:

@pigdog237 said:
Is it possible to transfer Zenology patches onto MC101 / MC707 etc? And if so, is there a simple tutorial anywhere?

You should be able to, I think, in theory, but it didn’t work for me with the MC101.

That's not good.

There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@maschinelf said:
I believe the low volume level on some patches may be at least partly due to velocity settings. I noticed some patches were significantly louder with the seq/arp turned on and set to fixed velocity.

I then adjusted velocity sensitivity for the envelopes per partial until it was more in line with the output I was getting with the arp on fixed velocity. There appears to be no global fixed velocity button for patches like in the arp section, so it has to be adjusted per partial when playing the keyboard.

I only tried with the on-screen keyboard, but I pretty sure it would be the same with a midi controller.

EDIT: you can link the 4 partials to quickly adjust/remove the velocity setting for all the partials at once.

Yep that is what we are seeing as well. > @MadGav said:

Has anyone else noticed strange behaviour from the onscreen keyboard? It seems like vertical position controls velocity (top quiet, bottom loud), but, tapping right near the bottom sounds a blip not a held note?

Yes the on-screen keys is velocity controlled on the vertical axis. Playing lower on the keys will result in a higher velocity.

I agree the issue with some presets is in how the velocity curve is being applied but in general Zenology Pro and Zenology GX all much lower preset levels in general. We're looking into solutions though👍

MatthewAtZenbeats

@garden said:
It is really, really unfortunate that more of the JD800 sounds, like Fantasia 90s and Bruiser Tines, aren't in there. I would have to hope that they'd be in future packs.

Many more sounds are coming!

jwmmakerofmusic

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@garden said:
It is really, really unfortunate that more of the JD800 sounds, like Fantasia 90s and Bruiser Tines, aren't in there. I would have to hope that they'd be in future packs.

Many more sounds are coming!

You didn't answer my question. Will sounds from the JV 1080 be added in the future? Like the infamous Pizzi sound heard on many 90s Eurodance records?

purpan2

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@cyberheater said:

@purpan2 said:

@pigdog237 said:
Is it possible to transfer Zenology patches onto MC101 / MC707 etc? And if so, is there a simple tutorial anywhere?

You should be able to, I think, in theory, but it didn’t work for me with the MC101.

That's not good.

There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

In fact, that's what I tried, having read the relevant post. The file opened fine in Zenbeats, but not in the MC101.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@Samu said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats It's going to be really interesting to follow how this translates to AUv3 with scalable UIs as not many AUv3 hosts provide full-screen or windowed views for plug-ins.

Things are pretty small as they are already so scaling down the UI to squeeze it into a viewport dictated by the host would mean it's time to pick up the magnifying glass (ie. if possible increasing the font-sizes in the settings one notch could be handy, I'm on a 11" M1 iPadPro).

One option is naturally to keep the AUv3 as a 'Preset Browser' with the 'Macro Knobs' and do the editing in the stand-alone app?

Also squeezing a bit more vertical space the Global panel could be toggled on/off in a similar way as the piano-keys can already be toggled on/off.

Another option ifor the AUv3 s to alway maximize the plug-in for horizontal width and if it doesn't fit vertically allow pan/scroll?

Getting the balance right here is precisely why we're taking extra time with the plugin version. We could have just made a simple preset player, but we want to deliver better experience by still enabling a lot of powerful editing controls.

Even though I don't have 'Fat Fingers' the Apple Pencil is almost a must-have which leads me to one 'issues' that could be corrected.

When browsing/scrolling the presets the preset under the finger/pencil-tip is NOT auto-selected making scrolling easier...
...on the other hand when scrolling the PCM waveforms list the waveform under the finger IS ALWAYS selected making it close to impossible to scroll the waveform list without changing the waveform used by the preset unless the scrollbar is used?!

The handle in the PCM waveform browser could be made a bit wider as it's a hit/miss when trying to grab'n'move it.

I get Rolands way of defining parameter-ranges as 0-1024 but for time-related parameters ms, Hz etc would make more sense?
(What value should I pick if I want a 2 second fade-in for the LFO or if I would need a 6Hz LFO? Sure I can approximate this by ear but still).

I'll keep an eye on the upadates and I do hope some of the UI refinements find their way into ZenBeats as well

Cheers!

Thanks for all the above @Samu! Good feedback!

MatthewAtZenbeats

@purpan2 said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@cyberheater said:

@purpan2 said:

@pigdog237 said:
Is it possible to transfer Zenology patches onto MC101 / MC707 etc? And if so, is there a simple tutorial anywhere?

You should be able to, I think, in theory, but it didn’t work for me with the MC101.

That's not good.

There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

In fact, that's what I tried, having read the relevant post. The file opened fine in Zenbeats, but not in the MC101.

@purpan2 said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@cyberheater said:

@purpan2 said:

@pigdog237 said:
Is it possible to transfer Zenology patches onto MC101 / MC707 etc? And if so, is there a simple tutorial anywhere?

You should be able to, I think, in theory, but it didn’t work for me with the MC101.

That's not good.

There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

In fact, that's what I tried, having read the relevant post. The file opened fine in Zenbeats, but not in the MC101.

Noted. Will get that looked at.

cyberheater

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:
Getting the balance right here is precisely why we're taking extra time with the plugin version. We could have just made a simple preset player, but we want to deliver better experience by still enabling a lot of powerful editing controls.

Need to able to tweak and save sounds in AUv3 mode.

Samu

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

Thanks for all the above @Samu! Good feedback!

Glad You like it
...I do have some issues with 'Roland Math' especially when using the LFO in 'Step' mode to do some classic 'Chip Arpeggios' (ie. just change the pitch rapidly in semitone intervals without re-triggering the envelopes or LFOs etc.).

The step editor has a value range of -/+72 so what should I set the LFO pitch-modulation depth to in order to have the step values correspond to semitones? (ie. a value of 0 would have no change, +4 should be 4 semitones up, +7 would be 7 semitones up and +12 would be one octave up etc.).

To make this confusion even bigger the modulation depths have a +/-100 range but there's no info on how many semitones the +/-100 range covers?! (So I could do som math to 'map' the semitone values to the -/+72 range in the Step modulator).

Ideally pitch-modulation depths should be set in semitones and the step modulator could have its x-axis quantized to a user-assignable range with set number of gird-lines? (This goes for pitch-envelope depth as well if I want to do an octave dive).

I know there's bound to be some value quantizing error (ex. squeezing a 0-1024 range into +/-100 range as one example).

As for LFOs in general being able to set the start-phase of the LFO is very handy as is a direct bi/uni-polar switch, the current 'offset thing' just makes things wonky as both the parameter and it's modulation depth have to be adjusted when the offset is adjusted. For the LFO STEP mod a 'one-shot' and 'repeat x times' options could also be used creatively to create a loop-able envelop etc.

But as this is based on ZenCore and that engine doesn't provide these functions I guess this won't happen?!
(This is the back-side of supporting legacy stuff instead of creating something truly fresh from scratch!).

For 'fine adjustment' of values I've not yet found any way to do that (ex. when adjusting the LFO depths the values jump from one value to another no matter how small movements I make with the finger or pencil-tip).

I get that on the hardware Roland stuff has 'Jog Dials' and 'Sliders' with higher resolution/acceleration but that doesn't not directly translate to Touch Objects.

Suggestion here would be that when tapping on a 'Parameter Label' a pop-up jog-dial could be summoned for precise value adjustment or even numerical entry?

Another area that could be 'Touch Optimized' is modulation assignment, instead of constant jumping to the MOD tab the add an 'assign' button to LFOs, once enabled tap the target parameter to set the modulation depth for the chosen parameter (could work similarly to when editing the 16 performance knobs).

Considering the overall of the UI design of Zenology GX I do hope it will ripple down to ZenBeats in due time as it's a way more fluid experience than what ZenBeats currently is? (At this point I would also not be surprised if Zenolog GX gets natively included in ZenBeats instead of only being available as an AUV3).

As mentioned I'll keep an eye on the updates and when I feel I've got something to share I'll do these 'brain farts'

Cheers!

garden

Roland Math is hilarious. Translating the known values of, for example, an old JX8P patch to the completely differently-scaled parameters in their model (the one built into the Jupiter X) is absurdly cumbersome.

garden

@MatthewAtZenbeats Thank your team, though, for not just implementing AU as a simple player. That would be... ungood.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@cyberheater said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:
Getting the balance right here is precisely why we're taking extra time with the plugin version. We could have just made a simple preset player, but we want to deliver better experience by still enabling a lot of powerful editing controls.

Need to able to tweak and save sounds in AUv3 mode.

Exactly!

maschinelf

@MadGav said:

Has anyone else noticed strange behaviour from the onscreen keyboard? It seems like vertical position controls velocity (top quiet, bottom loud), but, tapping right near the bottom sounds a blip not a held note?

Yes the on-screen keys is velocity controlled on the vertical axis. Playing lower on the keys will result in a higher velocity.

I agree the issue with some presets is in how the velocity curve is being applied but in general Zenology Pro and Zenology GX all much lower preset levels in general. We're looking into solutions though👍

Imho the simple solution is to implement a global fixed velocity function.

@purpan2 said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:
There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

In fact, that's what I tried, having read the relevant post. The file opened fine in Zenbeats, but not in the MC101.

Wait, this doesn't work? Well that's a bummer because that's a major reason for me to get this. I'll pull out my mc101 tomorrow and report back my findings as well.

Matthew, can you confirm that export to the mc101 does work fine with Zenology Pro on pc/mac, correct? Because I'm strongly considering grabbing that during the sale this month.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@maschinelf said:
@MadGav said:

Has anyone else noticed strange behaviour from the onscreen keyboard? It seems like vertical position controls velocity (top quiet, bottom loud), but, tapping right near the bottom sounds a blip not a held note?

Yes the on-screen keys is velocity controlled on the vertical axis. Playing lower on the keys will result in a higher velocity.

I agree the issue with some presets is in how the velocity curve is being applied but in general Zenology Pro and Zenology GX all much lower preset levels in general. We're looking into solutions though👍

Imho the simple solution is to implement a global fixed velocity function.

@purpan2 said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:
There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

In fact, that's what I tried, having read the relevant post. The file opened fine in Zenbeats, but not in the MC101.

Wait, this doesn't work? Well that's a bummer because that's a major reason for me to get this. I'll pull out my mc101 tomorrow and report back my findings as well.

Matthew, can you confirm that export to the mc101 does work fine with Zenology Pro on pc/mac, correct? Because I'm strongly considering grabbing that during the sale this month.

@maschinelf said:
@MadGav said:

Has anyone else noticed strange behaviour from the onscreen keyboard? It seems like vertical position controls velocity (top quiet, bottom loud), but, tapping right near the bottom sounds a blip not a held note?

Yes the on-screen keys is velocity controlled on the vertical axis. Playing lower on the keys will result in a higher velocity.

I agree the issue with some presets is in how the velocity curve is being applied but in general Zenology Pro and Zenology GX all much lower preset levels in general. We're looking into solutions though👍

Imho the simple solution is to implement a global fixed velocity function.

@purpan2 said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:
There is one issue we found with SVZ export on iPad that may be the fault here. Currently if you save the SVZ file outside of the ZENOLOGY GX folder in the On My Ipad directory, the file creation gets corrupted. The workaround for now is to make sure you save the SVZ to the On My IPad/ZENOLOGY GX directory so it gets created properly. Try that again and see if that works.

In fact, that's what I tried, having read the relevant post. The file opened fine in Zenbeats, but not in the MC101.

Wait, this doesn't work? Well that's a bummer because that's a major reason for me to get this. I'll pull out my mc101 tomorrow and report back my findings as well.

Matthew, can you confirm that export to the mc101 does work fine with Zenology Pro on pc/mac, correct? Because I'm strongly considering grabbing that during the sale this month.

I've assigned someone to look at it this week. Standby.

anickt

I just compared random Zenology drums to SynthMaster drums with iPad set to 100% output. SynthMaster drums are significantly louder and at an expected level compared to Zenology. Also iM1 Drums #1 compared to Zenology. iM1 drums much louder and at expected level compared to Zenology. 😎✌🏼

Telstar5

@MatthewAtZenbeats ;

“ GX brings Roland's iconic sound to iPad, delivering over 4,000 genre-defining presets, expandable to more than 11,000-all in one powerful instrument. “—-

    Does the current free edition contain all 11,000 sounds??

MatthewAtZenbeats

@jwmmakerofmusic said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@garden said:
It is really, really unfortunate that more of the JD800 sounds, like Fantasia 90s and Bruiser Tines, aren't in there. I would have to hope that they'd be in future packs.

Many more sounds are coming!

You didn't answer my question. Will sounds from the JV 1080 be added in the future? Like the infamous Pizzi sound heard on many 90s Eurodance records?

Hi there. I'm not sure what new sounds are being working on currently but will ask. ZenologyGX currently does not support the model bank expansions like the JD-800, SH1-1 and Juno at this time.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@Telstar5 said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats ;

“ GX brings Roland's iconic sound to iPad, delivering over 4,000 genre-defining presets, expandable to more than 11,000-all in one powerful instrument. “—-

Does the current free edition contain all 11,000 sounds??

We have not enabled all 11k plus sounds in this release but well be releasing more throughout the free period.

jwmmakerofmusic

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@jwmmakerofmusic said:

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@garden said:
It is really, really unfortunate that more of the JD800 sounds, like Fantasia 90s and Bruiser Tines, aren't in there. I would have to hope that they'd be in future packs.

Many more sounds are coming!

You didn't answer my question. Will sounds from the JV 1080 be added in the future? Like the infamous Pizzi sound heard on many 90s Eurodance records?

Hi there. I'm not sure what new sounds are being working on currently but will ask. ZenologyGX currently does not support the model bank expansions like the JD-800, SH1-1 and Juno at this time.

Ah okay mate. Well, what's there sounds great. I suspect a lot of the PCM sounds are from the infamous Sound Canvas series, which I'm thankful for. I honestly missed those sounds when iOS Sound Canvas was discontinued. If you weren't aware, a lot of Nintendo videogames make use of Sound Canvas sounds, and I love making that type of "videogame OST" music.

maschinelf

Thanks Matthew, can you confirm that export to mc101 works with Zenology Pro? I haven't read anything to indicate otherwise, so my guess is it does.

MatthewAtZenbeats

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@Gavinski said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats don't think you answered my question earlier regarding the app's absense from the China store. Is that intentional? If so, mind if I ask why?

Hi @Gavinski,

Sorry I missed this earlier. I'm looking into it and will get back to you.

Unfortunately, Roland Cloud products are not available in China.

cyberheater

@MatthewAtZenbeats said:

@Telstar5 said:
@MatthewAtZenbeats ;

“ GX brings Roland's iconic sound to iPad, delivering over 4,000 genre-defining presets, expandable to more than 11,000-all in one powerful instrument. “—-

Does the current free edition contain all 11,000 sounds??

We have not enabled all 11k plus sounds in this release but well be releasing more throughout the free period.

Fantastic stuff.

Telstar5

Ok , thanks @MatthewAtZenbeats

Fantastic

Hi @MatthewAtZenbeats , would you be able to offer any insight as to what internally is the thoughts or directions with MPE over there? It's interesting that the few big and most historical Japanese names, Roland, Yamaha and Korg are completely absent from the expressive synths pool. Moog as the really old name being the exception being all in on MPE in their software, and the slightly younger but nowadays massively established Arturia, U-He, Serum, Vital, Surge XT etc are also really good on this, as are Ableton and Bitwig. Waldorf are sort of half way there. And of course plenty of smaller and boutique offerings.. Virsyn, Bleass, 4Pockets, Audio Damage, Imaginando, the Mod Osc remake of the Buchla ID700, Tal's Uno LX which is an MPE Juno 60, the Synclavier Go etc etc etc. Myself I don't buy any synth that isn't MPE capable, which rules out Roland, Yamaha and Korg for now. So just wondering, what are the thoughts there? Given MPE is absorbed in to the far broader set of possibilities of Midi 2.0 we might have thought there'd be some Midi 2.0 movement over there with Zenology? But from the outside it seems like the old big 3 Japanese names are just going to stay out of expressive synthesis, until it's impossible to ignore?

Gavinski

@Fantastic said:
Hi @MatthewAtZenbeats , would you be able to offer any insight as to what internally is the thoughts or directions with MPE over there? It's interesting that the few big and most historical Japanese names, Roland, Yamaha and Korg are completely absent from the expressive synths pool. Moog as the really old name being the exception being all in on MPE in their software, and the slightly younger but nowadays massively established Arturia, U-He, Serum, Vital, Surge XT etc are also really good on this, as are Ableton and Bitwig. Waldorf are sort of half way there. And of course plenty of smaller and boutique offerings.. Virsyn, Bleass, 4Pockets, Audio Damage, Imaginando, the Mod Osc remake of the Buchla ID700, Tal's Uno LX which is an MPE Juno 60, the Synclavier Go etc etc etc. Myself I don't buy any synth that isn't MPE capable, which rules out Roland, Yamaha and Korg for now. So just wondering, what are the thoughts there? Given MPE is absorbed in to the far broader set of possibilities of Midi 2.0 we might have thought there'd be some Midi 2.0 movement over there with Zenology? But from the outside it seems like the old big 3 Japanese names are just going to stay out of expressive synthesis, until it's impossible to ignore?

Exactly. Tbh this not being mpe means I have very little interest in it.

deadpoetlive

@Gavinski said:

@Fantastic said:
Hi @MatthewAtZenbeats , would you be able to offer any insight as to what internally is the thoughts or directions with MPE over there? It's interesting that the few big and most historical Japanese names, Roland, Yamaha and Korg are completely absent from the expressive synths pool. Moog as the really old name being the exception being all in on MPE in their software, and the slightly younger but nowadays massively established Arturia, U-He, Serum, Vital, Surge XT etc are also really good on this, as are Ableton and Bitwig. Waldorf are sort of half way there. And of course plenty of smaller and boutique offerings.. Virsyn, Bleass, 4Pockets, Audio Damage, Imaginando, the Mod Osc remake of the Buchla ID700, Tal's Uno LX which is an MPE Juno 60, the Synclavier Go etc etc etc. Myself I don't buy any synth that isn't MPE capable, which rules out Roland, Yamaha and Korg for now. So just wondering, what are the thoughts there? Given MPE is absorbed in to the far broader set of possibilities of Midi 2.0 we might have thought there'd be some Midi 2.0 movement over there with Zenology? But from the outside it seems like the old big 3 Japanese names are just going to stay out of expressive synthesis, until it's impossible to ignore?

Exactly. Tbh this not being mpe means I have very little interest in it.

Got to agree here, after snagging a cheap Roli seaboard with included equator synth, going through the MPE presets was a revelation. Unfortunately it does mean moving more towards MacBook instead of iPad but Idam means I will still be able to use my favourite AUM alongside. One of the biggest advantages of the seaboard/MPE is that it allows very rudimentary keyboard players like myself to have some of the emotional expressivity that a proper keyboard player has through being able to actually play. ;-)