New music creation App from Roland

Interesting. Played with it for a few minutes on my phone. It seems to have a lot of features, but the UI is a confusing, unpolished mess. The tap targets are all way too tiny. I'll have to give it another try on my iPad later.

I love Roland but the promo vid is terrible. I find the music in the vid absolutely uninspiring. I immediately lost interest in this app. Roland should spend their resources on something better than this toy app. Why not spend resources on creating a PC/Mac/iOS editor and librarian for the Fantom?

Zenbeats was originally "Stagelight" by Open Labs. It was bought by Roland a while back - I've not bothered with my free upgrade from Stagelight 4, as I never really got on that well with it.

I have been playing with this quite a bit. As someone mentioned the UI is horrible but I am getting a lil used to it kinda. Its very aggravating to play the synth part and then try to use the step sequencer, the way its layed out is not logical at all.

What is really nice is the filters, kicks but and is fun to play with. Hopefully they will see these complaints and do a rework, it does have potential

Some videos to help with this:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLirh7S2cI3fid5AujnuYYqrkssNQOQXKm

Tried this on the iPad recently. Even with the larger screen, the UI is such a mess I don't think it can be fixed without tearing it down and starting over from scratch. Deleted the app.

Stormchild wrote:

Tried this on the iPad recently. Even with the larger screen, the UI is such a mess I don't think it can be fixed without tearing it down and starting over from scratch. Deleted the app.

I Agee the UI could be improved - but as far as iOS Ableton like apps go it has most to offer - and unlike KORG Gadget - supports 3rd pty plugins.

Just want to call out that this thread is a bit out of date. Version 2 landed about 9 months ago and it was a huge step forward.

The workflow may not be what everyone wants but the interface is really nice these days. It still has a ways to go but they've been steadily releasing updates, 1-2 a month.

Also keep in mind they are developing an app that has to be consistent for desktop & mobile. I can tell you from personal experience that is not easy to do.. What works well on desktop can be a problem on mobile and vice versa, it's a tightwire walk.