partyarty

Don, I must have been doing that without realizing it and wondering how I got 2 sounds of the same instrument.. that is the easiest thing and I tried it tonight and of course it WORKS.. just hold the blue button down, hit the same instrument button and you have 2 of them.. love it! Also enjoying the beefing up the low gain on the organ.. covered whipping post, sounded fantastic.. if you are a gigging musician, care about decent gigging sounds, space you take up, the weight.. and the PRICE, you really can't beat it. One thing I would like is if I have a layered sound and change it, there is a way to lock in the EFFECT so the effect does not change with the sound you change to unless you unlock it.. I would think there is a button that could serve in that capacity with hopefully an update, if there is interest in it.

you finally went that deep B3? lol.. yeah, those all to me seem to need their own tweaking any way.. I don't think I would miss any of them, what I keep forgetting is when I want to layer 2 sounds from the same category, or even the same sound layered in 2 different octaves.. It seems it only happens by accident, can someone mention the step by step of layering the grand piano on itself? or any other particular sound from the same category?

thanks for the heads up on the losing knob possibility. though Ive lost knobs on korgs and yamahas, not cheap to replace either. I did enjoy the B3 ideas of using the low gain on the organ! great idea.. I noticed in solos that the organ was losing a little during solos in the higher registers.. now its quite the difference! Love it! Please keep the ideas for settings coming! Since this keyboard has more of a common purpose than most workstations, tips like these are likely more helpful to everyone! I don't have to wade through sequencer issues! yeah!!

by the way, I was using one of the new pads, changed the release to full sustain, in layer mode.. when I brought the release down, changed the sounds, no matter what, the pad was still playing! I will see if I can repeat it but there was no shutting the sound down without restarting the machine, as if the sustain pedal was stuck, and I had no pedal attached to the machine. I otherwise enjoy playing it quite a bit.. I only raised the release all the way because I was playing with sustaining lots of notes, not something you would normally use in playing within a band setting... as for arpeggiators.. I about never used them at a gig, of course the slicer and tempo slicer has its uses that an arpeggiator might have had something to do with on another machine. I had a Baba Oriley one on a Karma. But, for live playing purposes, unnecessary to where I don't miss them at all.

yes, I gigged with the update Friday the 19th and used some of the new pianos and pads and it was definitely an improvement! One other question, are the cover band sounds useful from the axial website? I haven't bothered with it yet.. or are they so song specific, they don't have much use otherwise.. http://axial.roland.com/articles/the-cover-band-collection/

was having trouble.. helps to have the usb stick seated properly! now updating.. since my board came with 1.02.. this is the first time I am upgrading.. looking forward to it!

well ok anyway, back to what I thought was the roland vr-09 forum, I did learn that the sounds do stay as selected in the various categories where you left them.. And as Craig, who was definitely the most helpful person on this forum said, if you change the key, it stays in the key in the same registration. I am glad the update finally worked, I did check the version and have 1.02.. Looking forward to 1.03.. the vr-09 is a great little keyboard if your interest is in GIGGING.. if its in working in cubase then find something else.. if you like yamaha organs (good luck with that), find those yamaha forums! I did try an XF before getting the vr09.. The XF has many bells and whistles that will never come into a gigging situation. That made the decision on the vr-09 actually easy, and having used it now less than a week, its obvious to me that for what I need it for, it fits the bill.

is there somewhere on the keyboard that tells you what version is installed.. usually it would be on opening screen I imagine, but all I see is the word roland. When I download the update, I would have to use a flash drive to install the update I assume. Also, there is a page that was with the manual that says "new function added to the vr-09" and it mentions individually loading registrations which I thought WAS something in an update.. Ok I checked out 1.02 update.. I looked at the PDF on the download, it has exactly the same page that is printed out that came with the manual about individually loading registrations, so it DOES have the update.. I can only assume the PLONK was much worse, it was still quite noticeable on a organ to piano change.. I will just have to be aware on changes to give it a beat. And I did see holding the EXIT key while turning on will tell you the version, so I think I know where it's at.. I saw they almost had 1.03, but from what I see I am assuming they felt they addressed this issue as much as they are going to.

ok so 3 notes from me in a row.. First gig tonight, one day after getting the instrument, I spent maybe a little over an hour finding a good organ sound, piano, and then a string/pad mix that I would use to intro the show.. I also had to make sure all sounds were tuned down 1, and the sounds worked great. Admittedly I just needed a decent rock piano, but actually the rock piano did not sound as good as the grand even for the rock parts. I figured out the whole registration thing without cracking the manual, so its pretty easy to manipulate and control the instrument.. My one criticism, and this has been mentioned before, when you change one sound to the next mid-song and you are playing.. there is that over loud sound of one of the voices and I noticed this when setting up the sounds, so I tried to make sure on the changes I stopped playing for a second.. But one time I did not and it made this noise and the bass player looked over and laughed because he thought it a playing mistake.. They need to fix that. The machine is meant to play live, then it shouldn't do something like that whilst live playing.. Otherwise, they loved the difference of the better sounding organ (and I had picked up organimation for the m50) and this one did great. Overall the keyboard was easy to play, I don't really understand all the talk about the feel of the keyboard.. I could play solos, chords, glissando, arpeggios, just as easily on this keyboard as any other. That's the story so far, and the best part was grasping the keyboard with one hand in the middle and picking it up and putting it away. Try THAT with that 27 pound Casio! loved it!

It has arrived.. brought it to a practice after just being home making sure it powered up.. It took a few minutes to find the volume control for the organ! LOL.. but its clear the organ needs tweaking and I was able to find some good ones but no clue yet on saving and recalling from registration.. the piano sounded great in a blues-rock kinda thing.. I noticed I liked bringing it down an octave.. beat any korg piano thats for sure, (karma and m50). though I am sure the kronos pianos are probably pretty good.. The organ is going to be a lot more involved, that I can see.. some sounds cut through well, others screech in one register and disappear in another.. Looking forward to tweaking it up!

The machine shall arrive Friday.. I will probably have to update it 1.02. Is that only done through flash drive or can you direct usb to the keyboard.. Looking forward to it! As for adding a controller, I can understand since this board is so light, adding things keeps things light, but for now, I am trying to get away with one keyboard. If Casio had come up with a weighted 61 (why doesnt anyone do that?) and did something about the organ, it would have been interesting, there are already sliders on the thing. Practiced with the old 20 pound korg karma tonight.. make way for the new lightweight in town!

Also I noticed Sweetwater will send a drive with additional sounds programmed by Daniel Fisher, anyone tried those out?

I think getting used to it will help, also can I assume if you have splits, you can use the lower split sound and up an octave the lower sound only, so you don't have to play the low sounds of one voice you might want to use as a main voice along and switch to the other main voice on top without changing any other settings. I think split organ does this for the organ sound anyway correct? the lower board is the other "manual" in split mode?

Hi Craig, Yes that is what I was looking to understand, and it was one reason that when I first saw this board I wanted it immediately, but then calling up sounds needed at a gig were described as a PITA made me look around a little more.. Even checked out the Casio which was interesting but had 2 big reasons to forget it, organ and simply the size of it. Gigging is what the vr-09 is focused on and that is why it comes out ahead. I hope they find an easier way to deal with registrations, its the one area that board truly lets the purpose for which its made down as a practical matter when you go through the trouble of having lots of realtime knobs to change sounds immediately without having to dig into menus.. I am sure I will set up a few generic setups for a goto organ and piano and Ep.. and then for a song where its a couple of different sounds I will either look to set up 2 sounds as you described or possibly split keyboard.. I know you've run into other issues you hope for fixes on, and I am sure I will hit those places too the more I play with it. I was curious as to what you had the keyboard controlling externally..

Well, you know, people who play a song in G and you know it in A means you have to tune it to Bb .. I find -2 a bit more intuitive.. But, its not a dealbreaker by any stretch, one of the small gripes even in the raving reviews of music tech and keyboard mag (less so) mention that registrations are a bit cumbersome.. and I am not really sure in what way.. I am totally used to the Korg structure of combis and programs.. but the ease in how to create splits and layers on the fly is something I look forward to..