Appmuse

My person wrote this review, to help everyone. The developers and users. Roland as a corporate entity has Enuff on their plate with all past equipment gear to be relevant during this “gen z age.” Come on there r consider old by those youth standards. Soooooo Zenbeats is really the best integration as a platform product. As well content provider. From sample loops to sounds gen z would use in their ideas of music. Now something may not work. Or their maybe a crash. Just saying. This app is worth the purchase. Idk about yearly subscription. Or even monthly. But don’t fall asleep on Roland Zenbeats. Show more

When the app first came out it was ok. Great sounds but limited but Roland has been updating and committing to this app. I love it. Over the last year I find myself reaching for Zenbeats first. I get more done faster. I Love that Roland keeps adding integration with hardware like the MC-101 and the Verselab MV-1. I bought the MV1 just because of the BYOS integration. I’m thrilled. Also love being able to use Zenology. Overall as Long as Roland keeps integrating and updating this is a no brained. Amazing Roland sounds. Works well. Slightly learning curve but it does so much. I use Zenbeats as much as Ableton Live. Keep it up Roland. Solid professional music making app. Easy 5 stars ⭐️ Show more

This app is pretty fun. has a bit of a learning curve but if you’re used to apps like NanoStudio 2, BeatHawk, BeatMaker, Drambo, or even Gadget 2 you will like this app. I would suggest watching a tutorial or two before you jump right into it as I found myself going in circles for a minute. I own (also have beta tested) hundreds of apps between ten iOS devices over ten years. So, I would like to think I know a bit or two about apps. I am not a fan of subscription models but the monthly fee is not that expensive. I will give Roland credit for that. I have owned many apps that I have paid for and then they have turned them into subscription-based and you cannot access your previous purchases. This app is not like that. if you have purchased it you can still use it. My major gripe is the “point “way of purchasing in-apps. Why they just can’t give you a price instead of points is beyond me. It is reminiscent of going to a festival or a street fair where you have to purchase tickets for everything and by the time the day is almost over you either have to purchase more tickets (because you don’t have enough for one last drink or one last ride) or you end up giving your tickets to someone else because who needs that extra ticket(s) when you can’t get anything with it. Or like a lot of jukeboxes nowadays where you pay and you get so many credits. All of the songs you played were two credits and you only have one credit left so you are basically screwed out of that last credit-lol. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone-I might just be old. I will say that they have finally gotten their customer service up to par. I certainly hope they keep up with their customer service because it used to be awful and I have to say they are on top of things now and that makes a big difference to me. I will never go on a review page and just leave a bad review unless I have tried to contact the developer a few times without any response. That was the case with this app for some time, but they finally started responding which made me bump up my review. Show more

I would like to have the original vintage Roland d50 in this app we have iPad Pro now with m2 chip please bring the Roland d50 original sounds inside this app or ZENOLOGY for iPad Pro Show more

I was a beta tester for Stagelight (yes very long time ago)before Roland acquired it, so best believe I see ALL the love they have put into this. Five stars simply because the transformation and maintenance has been top notch. Show more

Wish I could program the main synth more. Wish the drum machine had velocity from top to bottom of pad like nanostudio. I find the interface takes some getting used to Sampleverse needs to be more powerful like the Roland vsynth All in all this app has great potential, hope it keeps developing into a monster! Show more

Zencore is a great ecosystem. The newest Zenbeats is a great daw for beginners and professionals alike. It’s just easy to lay down ideas and record them. It’s cross platform cloud integration is unlike anything else. I can sketch out ideas on my iPad and continue them in my studio without hassle. Zenbeats for iOS is not a stripped down version or a lite version to the desktop version. It’s the same exact program. Other ecosystems don’t make it as easy, but this one does. What’s great is if you’re a windows user, you can get the same touchscreen experience on a bigger screen which allows you to not rely on shortcuts and mouse clicking. I think people need to understand what they are buying here. It’s a steal. For as little as 2.99 you’re getting thousands of synth and drum sounds and presets that are found in hardware synths for thousands and they sound great. Zenology and concerto are great plugins in house. So why four stars? Roland cloud management can be a hassle. Support is very good though. They answer right away. Third party plugins can play a little nicer but that’s not entirely Roland’s fault. I also would like to see more native midi support. Mapping a controller wasn’t the easiest thing but it was manageable. Also on desktop versions I’d like to see multi screen capability. Plugins all in one window can be a little overwhelming it’s nice to use a second, third, even fourth screen to spread the racks out a bit. So a relatively new ecosystem in the game, I understand it will take time and users do their part and find the bugs and provide feedback, it’s how this will get better. So great job Roland and thanks for having a responsive support team. Keep it up and I’d like to see this thing get even better. Show more

As a PT user of 18 years, I was able to open this app up and get going almost right away. The sequencers are fast and easy to use, the sounds on Max are pretty good (although sound design is not very flexible in the ZC1 synth, you have to start with a preset to get your oscillators). It has potential to be a great songwriting/composition DAW, but there are a few issues 1) If I set a loop to 3/4 it gets very robotic and it’s difficult to set the swing. when I perform with swing, the quantization takes over and removes any sense of groove. it sounds more like a bar of 4/4 that gets cut off inappropriately. there may be features to disable this, but i’m unsure where to go 2) the MIDI settings on the mirrored desktop app are confusing. when I disable midi CCs, the record button on my sequencers still activates the record function in the DAW making it frustrating to program a lot of my hardware. record on midi start doesn’t seem to do anything either, so when I try to play a pre-programmed sequence in loop view, it’s difficult to sync with the first beat. 3) the mirrored desktop app has no hotkeys, so it’s frustrating when I have to menu dive for any mid-session midi adjustment 4) Clock synch always registers a different BPM than either my Beatstep Pro, Beatstep, or Drumbrute — 3 modern industry standard tools 5) in the plugin windows, you can set MIDI CC learn, but I haven’t found many instances where it works (or even registers) on any actual parameters within the plugins. even my midi controllers with specific factory maps specifically for some of my soft synths/instruments do not communicate, even if the plugin’s settings are correct. this means no live sound design adjustments except for maybe modwheel/pitch bend. no live filter moves, etc though 6) Plugin menu is only organized by brand, I’ve found no way to separate Dynamic, EQ, Harmonic, Modulation, Spacial/Time Based, etc effects. This is frustrating when operating in a professional studio that has a lot of software. 7) the drag control in the sequencers to adjust velocity is way too touchy, even a slight downward adjustment can push sounds into inaudibility. the only way to quickly program the use of the roller is to first occupy every note in the sequence, in which the roller will also apply to all notes, meaning you have to use automation menu diving if you want to add roll to a single note value. very inefficient when a system has already been created that could make this go much more quickly. the app will still retain a higher than middle rating due to the workflow potential as a great songwriting app, and the interface provided can also allow for opening up the potential of a sequencer by triggering loops within the loop viewer mode. It would also be nice to have *some* more of the flagship virtual instruments in iOS form as to be able to depend on more than just the samples and synth presets with minimal sound design capabilities within the daw Show more

I am a desktop daw based musician with about 20 years of making music (I’m 30 now). Primarily I play guitar and write music where guitar is the focus such as modern Prog or Metal based genres. In my switch to iOS music making, which has so much potential btw, I’ve been painstakingly searching for the daw that is going to meet my needs. Things like audio editing and flexible bus routing for mixing are things that are important to me, in addition to the intuitive midi sequencing capabilities and a smooth stable workflow. In my search I’ve pretty much tried them all, from Auria pro, Cubasis, nano-studio 2, bm3, and the list goes on… then comes along this app and to my surprise, this one is so far the closest to what I am after! I have been thoroughly impressed with how smooth this app behaves relative to others. Bm3 was the previous king for me, but this one edges it out…. Because this app has what all the others don’t: a fast and intuitive way to slice and edit the timing of my guitar DI tracks (it even has a poor man’s “slip edit” feature using the green play head thing). With ONE MAJOR CAVEAT… Audio cross-fades. Seriously. I for the life of me do not understand how such basic audio editing features are neglected across SO MANY of these mobile DAWs. I guess everybody only makes music with MIDI these days but yeesh has this been frustrating. Anyways I digress. Roland, PLEASE give us cross-fades, and this daw will be the king for years to come. Cheers Show more

Hello developers of roland Zenbeats ( : have there been any updates or news on AUM / Audiobus 3 compatibility?

Highly recommended!

Would love to use the drum sampler as a plug-in in another app

Too many issues, Work flow not intuitive imo *Roland developers hint , Ableton / Bitwig for ios , Feature request - live looper that sets tempo , Nobody like subscription based apps esp musicians *Updated 2 stars..if this becomes awesome someday i will update my review again. Show more

I like the new features in Zenbeats 3, but it will not properly use the iFretless plug-ins that worked great in Zenbeats 2. Don’t make the mistake I did and upgrade in the middle of a project.. hope Roland Support fixes this soon. Update: The most recent versions indeed fixed the problem, and it works great now. The ability to quickly swap projects between different devices is terrific. Zenbeats is now my #1 DAW, couldn’t be happier. Thanks Roland! Show more

Some crashing issues on my iPad. A couple graphic issues. Difficult to select notes in the piano roll. Not super impressed. Akai iMPC works better for me, wish I stuck with the free version instead of the unlock for $14. Show more

UPDATE: VERSION 3.0 AND 3.1 destroy MIDI FX capabilities. They are completely GONE! Does no one at Roland ever use or try a MIDI effect? All my projects are unusable. If there is some new secret handshake to make them appear and be useable, please share it. As to the previous review below; MIDI FX allowed me to use a full featured MIDI editor like Atom or Helium (along with Rozeta plug ins) THAT NO LONGER WORKS. ---------------------------------------------- Why this would not be important is unfathomable. I keep waiting and meanwhile I stay with BeatMaker 3. BM3 has great MIDI editing AND a multilayer sampler. Bring those things to ZenBeats and you’ll have a serious contender. Show more

Not happy with the new update and the bait and switch….I’ve owned the full version of this app for a couple years and used it pretty extensively. Paid for the full unlock and now being told I have to pay an additional charge for features I already paid for??? I dont care about the additional new content, you shouldn’t be charging me twice to use features I already own, that’s called a subscription and that is not what you claim to be selling. Show more

The sign up process was frustrating. The UI is not good. “Refreshing UI”, in window scrolling, just needs refinement. Does not feel like a premium product.

I love this app Except. It crashes way to often about once every 25 minutes. When the app crashes you loose all your work. I have noticed certain things trigger it to crash but even if you avoid those it will crash on it’s own. I am using a free version, I would be more than happy to purchase this app if it didn’t crash so much. Read the reviews this is a very common problem. I would avoid purchasing it is my recommendation see what you can do with the free version before it crashes. Show more

I don’t understand how users can give a negative review for a newly updated product that has some issues. This has been true of just about any software since Adam! This update is awesome and Roland is known for support and getting issues fixed. The UI is greatly improved, there’s a great new drum machine with slicer, ZC1 synth is awesome, there are a zillion loops and presets available for not much money. The Core unlock at $30/yr. is cheap and the way to go if you’re primarily using mobile. If you have an issue contact support through the app and they will get back to you. Show more