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Roland today introduced Zenology FX plugin, a new member of the Roland Cloud software family that brings more than 90 of the company’s effects to your DAW.

The collection includes the famous Juno chorus and much-loved tape echo, and are lifted from products such as the CE-1 stompbox and JD-800 synth, delays, modulation effects, distortions and more, along with more unexpected offerings such as the DJFX looper and lo-fi effects from the SP-404.

It’s very much a greatest hits package, and we are promised a simple control set for ease of use.

What they have said about them:

“Roland has delivered memorable, genre-defining sounds for nearly fifty years, and a big part of that sonic footprint is its unique approach to effects processing. The legendary swirling JUNO chorus, feedback-drenched tape echo, and other sounds that have left their mark on countless tracks over the decades–can now be added to any keyboard sound or instrument track to make music come alive.

While many of the processors in ZENOLOGY FX have vintage inspiration from legendary products like the JUNO chorus, CE-1 stompbox and JD-800 synthesizer, use of them today through ZENOLOGY FX is thoroughly modern with a contemporary interface and simple controls for free- flowing creativity.”

The Zenology FX plugin can be tried for free via Roland Cloud by anyone with a Roland account – this ‘test drive’ period runs until 31 December 2021. After that it’ll be included in all Roland Cloud membership levels starting from the Core tier, which costs $2.99 a month. Find out more on the Roland Cloud website.

Behringer has shown an early prototype of a clone of a classic analogue synth, the Pro-16.

The Behringer Pro-16 appears to be closely based on the classic Sequential Prophet-5 synthesizer.

This is an early prototype, but the illustration that Behringer has shared bears all the hallmarks of the Jupiter-8, and the fact that it has been captioned with the words “The space journey has started…” all but gives the game away.

Facetiousness aside, the synth appears to be Roland Jupiter-8, which was Roland rival to the Prophet-5, and offered eight dual-oscillator voices and sounds that could be split and layered across the keyboard. The oscillators offered triangle, pulse, square and sawtooth waveforms (and noise for oscillator 2), and there was also an LFO, a resonant low-pass filter and a pair of four-stage envelope generators. Roland threw a non-resonant high-pass filter into the mix for good measure.

Behringer says, “Not only did we employ the original circuitries of all 3 revisions, we also added many features such as 16 voices, multi-timbrality, LCD display and a lot more. We started the ideation of this project around 5 years ago and it has since grown into an incredibly powerful flagship synth.”

When Behringer version remains to be seen, but if the Behringer Pro-16 can get similar to the sound of the Jupiter-8 then the synth will be in the highest demand.