Roland Cloud from £18.95/month

Roland Cloud features an ever-growing set of products that take in software synthesisers, analogue modelling tools and sample-based playback instruments. Although this subscription-based service has been running for over a year, it has started to gather wider interest since the addition of TR-808 and TR-909 plugins was announced back in January.

Setting those modelled instruments aside for now, we deciding on a break from the mainly Kontakt-based libraries we look at here in order to take Roland’s sample-based Anthology series for a test drive. These make use of Roland’s Concerto plugin to host a series of sound sets arranged by year. Each one uses 1-2GB of disk space and provides a standardised set of basic editing controls, including a simple reverb.

If you want immediate access to a range of Roland sounds that span the decades, the Anthology Series could be for you. However, when playing the ‘1986’ collection next to my JX-10, the sampled offering sounded somewhat lifeless in comparison. That being said, the Anthology packs are only part of an everexpanding range within Roland Cloud.