What’s left to model for Roland Cloud? The JC-120 Jazz Chorus amp, for one – now available in Early Access for Ultimate subscribers. Here’s a first look.
Ultimate Early Access is part of Roland’s subscriptions, providing advance availability of certain software. It doesn’t seem that this is prerelease software, as much as Roland is devising this as an extra perk. Regardless, the JC-120’s space-y cousin, the RE-201 Space Echo, got the same treatment, as did (with less fanfare) EARTH Piano.
If you hate subscriptions, Roland offers what they call “lifetime” keys as an option, though presumably on the Jazz Chorus that’ll be out some time in February.
This is the one people have been asking for. Sure, you could just use a standard amp emulation and a bucket-brigade chorus. But what made the original JC special was the full package.
And the JC-120 is one of the products that defined Roland. Founder Mr. Kakehashi had a history in amps all the way back to his 1959 “Hawaiian” amplifier and the 1975 JC-120/JC-60 is one of Roland’s most influential, longest-running products of all time. One problem I have with a lot of software guitar amp modeling is that it’s tough to get a good clean model like the JC, so I’ll be curious to check this one.
There’s a lot in the software:
- Mic type / position / room ambience
- Stereo chorus effect, capable of vibrato and phaser-style effects, too. (That’s the bucket brigade style chip also found on the BOSS CE-1 – and I’m guessing in this case we may have a new BBD chorus model from Roland.)
- Unique distortion from the JC-120, too
- Spring-tank modeled reverb (assuming that’s just copied over from what’s in the RE-201 plug-in)
I’m giving this a try now. Roland has tough competition for some of its soft synths, but there’s not much out there in software that’ll behave like a JC-120, so I’m interested.
Oh, of course – this being Roland, after you find it. It’s not listed under Legendary. Update Roland Cloud Manager, then look at Software Instruments > Software Effects:
And this does sound really, really good. Roland went a little wild with the skeuomorphism again – the push-button toggles for the two channels are a little ridiculous. (You can see Roland knows it’s a problem, as they flash “ON” when you hit them. Can’t you just reinterpret this, please?)
But you can fortunately hide that enormous speaker grill once you realize you don’t need it. (Menu top right > Control Panel View.)
There’s a lot to like here – especially as this is, like the original, a stereo amp, which makes it useful as a line effect for stereo sources and not just guitar-ish things. I plugged AAS’ String Studio VS-3 into it, and they both immediately sounded amazing. Quick demo:
As on the original, there’s a vibrato/chorus switch for the titular chorus circuit, with rate and depth controls, plus separate distortion and per-channel EQ settings. There are also HIGH and LOW gain options for each channel when you click the corresponding jacks.
Click the upward-facing arrow at the bottom of the grill, and you open up an editor mode, as on the recent Space Echo. That includes a block diagram – there just as a reference, as it only switches if you toggle single (mono) and dual (stereo) modes. But you have some detail settings for mic type and distance on the speaker simulator itself, plus ambience and even a tempo sync option for vibrato. The mic settings are pretty subtle, but useful for some tweaking – and you can use the distance setting to determine how much you’re making this a speaker simulator and how much you’re emphasizing the effects.
The JC-120 is a no-brainer after the Space Echo. I’ll say this: the RE-201 is terrific, just when you think you don’t need another Space Echo plug-in. It’s more balanced sonically than many other entries out there – some of which go a little too far in emulating the noisy quirks of the original, if that’s possible. And oddly, I’ve found the Roland Cloud take has the most usable software interface take on the original.
More information:
Introducing: JC-120 Jazz Chorus
As for other Roland Cloud stuff –
Last fall, our friend Nadia Striuwigh took the Galaxias and RE-201 Space Echo software, along with the sleeper-hit SH-4d synth, out for a trippy, dubby spin. This is what I want the evening act in the space station lounge to be like.
Galaxias is cool (after an incomplete initial launch), but personally, I’ve found I just use the individual plug-ins separately and layer/chain in the host. They did update Galaxias recently, though, so I’ll see if I’ve changed my mind.
Now, hey, bring back Nadia to do more with JC-120; I’m curious what she’d do with it.
Nadia adds some Zenology FX, too. This one may be one of the more leftfield entries in Roland Cloud, but after designing effects presets for it, I’ve made it a kind of unexpected special sauce. You can check out my tutorial on how to use it, plus download those free presets:
Mastering the Roland Cloud ZENOLOGY FX Plug-in
Urian Hackney did a nice job showing how you can use the software as a workable stand-in for the hardware in a dub echo recording. I’ve loved every moment I had on the original hardware, but of course I don’t own my own Space Echo, so I say bring on the plug-in.
