tgeorges

Seems like it's been FOREVER since I've visited this forum, but I had to share something I discovered by accident on my VR-09. During rehearsal for Roll with the Changes (REO), while using a split patch (upper=organ, lower=piano), I wanted to give the organ more guts, so I started sliding the drawbars - but they didn't affect the sound. I noticed that the UPPER/LOWER switch below the drawbars was not illuminated, meaning that the drawbars would affect the LOWER rather than UPPER sound. That explained why I didn't hear a difference in the organ (assigned to UPPER). But then when I played the piano side of the split (the LOWER), I heard organ! So what I get is the organ across the entire keyboard, with the drawbars affecting either the LOWER or UPPER side of the split (governed by the UPPER/LOWER switch), but the lower sound (piano) only on the left side of the split. I don't know if this is a feature (maybe I've got Atelier mode set just right or something) or a bug or what - but it was surprising and could actually come in quite useful.

Just a note - I had a tune where I needed to layer a Piano and "gospel" organ. I found, of course, that the Leslie effect is routed to both sounds. So I didn't use my VR-09 for the song (used a Jupiter 50). Then on the Yahoo forum, someone suggested setting the keyboard to Atelier mode, and that worked - Leslie effect applied ONLY to the organ! The downside, though: ALL effects were applied ONLY to the organ - except reverb. Add to that that the Atelier mode is NOT stored with a registration (it's a global setting), and you get a mixed bag: The setup I wanted, but I can't just dial it in fast - I need to set the Atelier mode for it, then set it back to OFF for the rest of my sounds.

Just as an FYI on the iPad app if you don't already have an iPad - I purchased a 1st generation iPad, running iOS 5, and it runs the VR-09 software like a champ. You can get them from eBay for around $100 or perhaps less.

Yes - and I'm assuming you mean, for example, move registration 18-1 to 20-4. Navigate to registration 18-1. Then press and hold one of the four registration button, and then use the arrow buttons to select the bank/registration value, and change it to 20-4, then press the ENTER button or the MODE [sYNTH] (Write) button.

borntohang, Thanks for the review. Spending some time tweaking the organ to sound less flat would be a good idea. I've played with the treble and bass gain, and that seems to help quite a bit. Also the TONE can give you some additional control over that. The looper is indeed not for live performance, at least not how I would use it. But I could see it being used to set up an inpromptu jam session if you don't have a drummer. For piano, in the bands I've played with, Rock Piano seems to cut through well in the horn band. The EPs sound great with headphones, but don't have as much punch, it seems, when playing in a group through the PA, although they're decent enough and still sound good. As I've used the VR-09, I've come to really like the keys. The short travel and solid feel at the bottom of travel are great for me. I'm a piano player (not organ) so I don't miss waterfall keys. And I don't really care about weighed action, since I've been playing synth-style keys so long that I can adapt to almost any keyboard feel, and the VR-09 feels great to me. Things that make me happy with the VR-09 include the price and portability, as well as the ease of use - especially for organ. I recently had to use a Nord Electro 2 (I think that's what it was) during a rehearsal, and was AMAZED it didn't have a rotary switch where you'd expect (although its placement does make sense), and I couldn't get the hang of the drawbar buttons. The newer Electos have real drawbars, but you could buy three VR-09s for the same price. For my needs, though, with some time spent setting up registrations, I can use my VR-09 in almost any setting as my only keyboard - so one trip does it, which I love. -Tom

Sounds like you know more than most. I've used the looper a couple times - it's kind of fun, but I've never tried to save anything to USB drive.

For the organ, that's the way to do it. For the other blocks, there are volume up/down buttons.

I just tried this - and it's a great tip. Even lowering the organ level down allows you to crank the overdrive knob for a finer control. THANK YOU!

Piattica - Other than the Roland-sponsored registration set, I don't know of a user site where these are available. Most of my registrations are for specific songs with specific bands. If I ever get any general-purpose ones, I will share them here.

Great tips about the program sound volume and the twin rotary effect - I will try those. Thanks!

I agree - the overdrive could have been SO much more useful. And you're right anything past about 1/4 turn is awful. How hard could it be to have a really decent overdrive simulation?

True but since you have an iPad, the Korg M1 app ($19.99) has 3300 sounds. I'm guessing there is a sitar in there somewhere. If only that app worked with my iPad

Yes - I'd forgotten to list that in the WK's list of pros. I've never had an occasion to use the sitar sound, but I'm sure the first time I will need it, I won't have the WK with me

I've recently started using the VR-09 instead of my Casio WK-7500, which I used extensively for all kinds of gigs (believe it or not!) for the last several years - church worship services, weddings, classic rock bands, and small combos. For the most part, the VR-09 has done the job very well. I haven't tried it at church yet, but have used it for small combos and a classic rock band I play with occasionally. However there are a few things I do miss about the WK-7500: WK-7500 Pros (what I wish the VR-09 had that the WK-7500 has) - 76 keys - with splits I miss the extra keys - Simultaneous split/layer (three voices at once) - very powerful - User voices in addition to registration banks (VR-09 only allows registration capability) - Quick access to 2nd/3rd harmonic (must menu-dive to choose 2nd or 3rd from the one button on VR-09) - On-board speakers (VR-09 runs on batteries, but you need headphones to hear it when away from power) Of course the VR-09 has many advantages - otherwise I wouldn't have gotten it: VR-09 Pros (better than the WK-7500) - in order of importance to me as I was deciding to buy: - Superb combo organ simulation - realistic rotary, chorus selection, etc. - Excellent real-time control over tone (filter cutoff, resonance, effects like reverb, delay, MFX, etc) - Great electric pianos with classic effects (such as phaser and tremolo) - Real MIDI In/Out ports, separate expression pedal input - Easy volume control for splits/layers (although sliders for Piano and Synth would have been nice) - Joystick and D-beam (WK-7500 has a pitch wheel and modulation button) - Lightweight and very portable

I had a gig Saturday (filling in on keyboard for a wedding) and decided to use the VR-09 all by itself - rather than bring along both it and the Yamaha MOX8 that the band owns. I used mostly organ and piano, with a couple wurly and clavs, and ran stereo through a stereo DI. A couple layers and splits, but mostly single voiced. I used shelf pads to keep the thing steady on the stand, and the Yamaha FC7 expression pedal for volume and a couple lower voice fade-in/out. Overall I'm pleased with how the VR-09 performed. They keyboard feels great to me - I've been playing synth style keys for YEARS so I'm not really used to a weighed key controller. I used a sweetwater registration for the clavinet (basically a layer of two clav sounds to make it big and phasey) and it sounded great in the mix, as did the organs (both rock and jazz settings) and wurly (used the Pure Wurly with tremolo 2). I like the accessibility of the multi effects knob, as well as the volume slider for the organ (with organ layers it's very handy). The only disappointment for me was that I couldn't quite get a decent piano sound. I used Rock Piano for most songs, as it cut through well when everyone was playing, but we also did "The Way You Look Tonight" - the Tony Bennett version - and that called for a real nice piano pretty much by itself (with the bass playing along), and I couldn't quite get it to sound good enough. It may have been my monitor but I just don't know. Also when the sound guy turned me up for solos, it sounded like crap in my monitor - like somebody turned the mids WAY up or something - and to be honest it hurt my ears. We had precious little time for a sound check, so that didn't help. I am hoping some tweaking on the tone control could help, and EQ on the board. Through the headphones the sound is great, but isn't that always the case. Bottom line is that the VR-09 and its broad all-purpose design has proved itself quite capable, in general, of going it solo - at least with this band (www.facebook.com/120East) and the tunes it does. And because it's so light, it was GREEAT not having to worry about two keyboards, the extra tier, extra pedal, power supply, cables, channels, etc. etc. associated with a bigger rig. Hoo-ray for that!