Roland and Virtual Sonics Form Joint Venture

Roland Corporation and Seattle-based Virtual Sonics have entered into a joint venture: Roland Virtual Sonics, a software, services, and media solutions provider.

Roland Virtual Sonics represents the next wave in the evolution of modern music creation and was developed to solve several challenges present in the current music creation landscape.  

Although Roland Virtual Sonics co-directors and brothers Jeremy and Julian Soule had created iconic music for projects ranging from video to video games to chart-topping singles, they felt constrained by the modern music creation and production landscape. The lack of fidelity in virtual instruments, the challenges musicians faced on the path to becoming professionals, and the less-than-modern collaborative community all made one thing clear: there was a huge opportunity to create an ecosystem that would benefit all musicians.  

“The timing was perfect,” Roland Corporation CEO & representative director Jun-ichi Miki states.  “Roland clearly recognized the melding worlds of physical musical instruments and virtual instruments. We also shared the same desire to connect musicians and to lower the barrier of entry for all to create music. Joining forces with Virtual Sonics in 2015 was a natural result.” Together, as Roland Virtual Sonics, the vision is most simply expressed in their mantra: “Change the world through music.”  

The first product release supporting this change will arrive during the Summer of 2016 in the form of Roland Cloud, a cloud-based suite of high-fidelity instruments, connected services and software for modern music creators and producers. Roland Cloud seeks to revolutionize the current musical ecosystem by leveraging the cloud to connect musical artists to their sounds, their workflow and most-importantly, each other.  

Flowing from the Roland Cloud are a myriad of new, high fidelity virtual instruments. From the revolutionary and cutting-edge way these instruments are captured to the way they are delivered to popular digital workstations, music and media creators can expect the ability to express their creative aspirations in intuitive ways never before imagined.

Another foundational solution provided by the Roland Cloud comes via its collaborative, connected community. Composers, producers, and musicians of every genre will have a voice in the largest connected community of artists in the world. “Roland Cloud is much more than just the sum of its components,” said Roland Virtual Sonics co-director Jeremy Soule. “It is also the name of the connected community that musicians will come to call home.”