niacin
-
Posts
1,968 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Store
Everything posted by niacin
-
If the Midi Solutions unit is powered by the midi out from the VR-09, you're also getting note on messages sent out? So you're sending a note on message direct to the intenal sound engine AND out the midi out, via the Midi Soultions pedal unit, and back in to the VR-09, which means the note will double trigger, no?
-
lol, yeh, but I did write "thin" not "shrill". Shrill I can tame, but if it's weak sauce I'm seeing maybe compression in the effects block but that's about it to get it beefed up, but if you've got it screaming ok I'm pretty hopeful. The expression pedal: if you have a split, the 2 parts are on different channels, yeh? So you set the Midi Solutions (or Anatek) box to send CC#7 or #11 on one of the channels and you're sorted, though you will need to have an external power supply for the midi box because you won't have anything coming in the midi input which also supplies it with power. No wonder you found the top drawbars shrill. Niacin, as Joe points out.. your shrillness may be a result of you having 2 higher drawbars than the rest of us... Seriously, with respect to the shrillness.. the VR-09 has several ways to control this.. upper and lower gain, a tone control, two different leslie types (one emphasizing the low to mids) and of course the drawbars themselves.. I don't find the VR-09 to be too shrill, and yet it does scream in the upper octave. To me this is always a balance and it's something that was typical of the Korg CX3.. it didn't scream in the upper octave it skrieked..!! Hence they came out with the Version 2, and all of us CX3 owners still ended up buying tube preamps. I don't see the need for this with the VR-09. Between the internal leslie sim and the tone/gain controls, you can create a very mellow sound, or a very bright sound, and store both as registrations. Being a classic rock guy, I haven't explored the jazz organ yet so I can't say what the difference is between the jazz and the rock organs.. but there may the Jazz organ may be quite a bit mellower (or not) we'll see. So I don't think you need to worry about shrillness on the VR-09.
-
Thanks Craig. My concern about the sound isn't the leslie, it's the top drawbars. I had a VK7 for some years, I never warmed to it but I couldn't afford a CX-3, Hammond-Suzuki has never had a presence here, and the Electro hadn't hit the shelves, so I put up with it. I thought the bottom drawbars are fine, the top drawbars however sounded thin. I'm playing mostly funk, alot of 800000006 and 86000000008, and it didn't really cut it, so that worries me. I guess they'll start showing up in retail stores here shortly, but I'd be interested in your impressions in the meantime. The rest of it sounds very promising.
-
PM sent Craig
-
I sent Roland US an email last week regarding the midi spec and asked about the drawbars. So, FYI: "the drawbars are assigned to System Exclusive data addresses". They kindly sent me the midi spec sheet, which is not in the manuals and which they have only just received from Japan, so if you have any specific midi data questions feel free to ask.
-
The manual is online, there's a link earlier in this thread, it includes neither midi message nor sysex information, so unless someone contacts Roland we'll just have wait until it shows up in the stores.
-
The effects chain is fixed as follows: Compressor - Overdrive - MFX (Multi-effect) - Rotary - Tone - Delay - Reverb The split point isn't saved with the registration/performance if that matters to you, like the damper pedal it's a global setting. But you don't need me to tell you this. Read the manual.
-
Thanks. From the manual: "If youre playing two sounds (split or dual) (p. 27), the settings will determine which sound is affected. When using Dual: The same effects will apply to both sounds. When using Split: The effects will be applied only to the upper part (except for reverb). However if youve assigned organ sound to the lower part, the same effects will apply to all parts." So if you wondered what was cut, given the price point, there it is. Phased Rhodes and Hammond? No. RH piano LH Hammond? Not unless you like your piano Leslified. Wah Clav and Hammond. Sorry, no can do. And the manual has no MIDI spec. So I have no idea what the drawbars transmit in the way of CC#s/HEX.
-
Lol, yeh, 10 minutes he wouldn't get back. Hell if they'd just send one to me I'd do my best impression. It just bemuses me that you get guys like Joey D and Dr Lonnie Smith and other jazz greats doing organ demos for Studiologic and Hammond-Suzuki, but of course their style of playing doesn't involve constantly tweaking drawbars the way Medeski does, it's generally just set and forget, so it demonstrates little about the sound of the board and lots about how they can blow, but buying the board isn't going to get me Joey's chops, so what's the point?
-
Wish they'd just get John Medeski in and let him put it through it's paces, it'd take all of about 10 minutes and we'd know where it can go soundwise.
-
Thanks Craig, appreciate the info, I did download the brochure and am keeping an eye on Roland's site for the manual to be posted. I'm pretty much ready to preorder one, but there's a few issues like this that will be deal-breakers if they're not implemented properly. Thanks for the quick response.
-
Can anyone who has downloaded the iPad app tell me about the effects routing? Say I set up a synth bass/organ split can I route the organ through Overdrive and into the Rotary effect, and route the synth bass through the Compressor? Or are the effects 'global' in the sense that every sound is routed through all the effects from left to right? Or how does the routing work?
-
WTF is it with these demos where they just pull out the first 4 drawbars. I can get that sound with a f#^*ing rompler. He did get rid of some of the fast leslie beating by tweaking the speed slightly, so that's promising. But honestly, can't someone do 860000000 and 800000008 and 008500000 and maybe mess with the top 3 drawbars a la Caravanserai, and just hold a chord and switch the leslie speed and the chorus settings and the drive and give us some idea of how the thing is really going to sound on an organ gig.
-
Thanks guys, I don't own an iPad but can borrow one for editing the VR-09, but I'm really liking the possibility of just having to bring the VR-09 and the EV. Good to know the options though, samples are increasingly a part of what the funk trio does.
-
Ok, so I played a Juno Di yesterday, and the key action isn't horrible, much better than the original Juno G, not even semi-weighted, but the key travel is shallow and doesn't bottom out hard. Fine for organ. I've never been hung up on waterfall keys - the first Hammond I played was an L-100. So this is now on my shopping list as a perfect rehearsal board for what I do (funk trio and disco-dance-pop-trash covers bands), and maybe I can finally go to jams and sit in, VR-09 under one arm, EV ZxA1 under the other. Played a trio gig last night, lug in up a flight of stairs with a few U-turns, would have been so much easier with this thing and I reckon I probably could have gotten away with it vis-a-vis my current set-up, which is alot more complicated and time-consumung to set up and pack down (controller keyboard that doesn't have an expression pedal input - B4d drawbars - Anatek midi pedal input - Midi Solutions midi merge - 3u rack: V-Machine running VB-3, Fantom Xr for Rhodes, vibes, bass and samples). The few samples I use are just single shot and I think I might even be able to use the VR-09 usb audio facility to play them, fingers crossed. I'm not expecting it to sound as good as VB-3, but now I've just gotta hope the organ has been improved enough from the VK-7 to keep me happy.
-
I don't need aftertouch, but it would mean that you don't feel like you're playing a table. The Juno G felt like playing a table, to me anyway. Is the Juno Di action any different from the original Juno G?
-
Thanks for pointing that out, I'm actually pretty hopeful this thing will sound fine, and all the real-time effects tweaking is a real plus, it's really the key action that concerns me: Juno-D/G no aftertouch = plays like a table. Maybe those who played it at NAMM could comment on whether this is the case or not. If it plays ok I'm probably sold. Drawbars sending regular CC#s would be a bonus (I have VB3 running on a V-Machine), but the manual isn't up on Roland's website yet.
-
The Stage has, imo, a really nice keybed. It also has the SRX-12 Pure Rhodes in its soundset, which with a few tweaks sounds really good. The VR-09 has the crap keys from the Juno-D/G series and I think the Rhodes is 'supernatural', and former 'supernatural' Rhodes have never done it for me. YMMV. If the VR-09 had 73 C-C Juno Stage keys I'd have pre-ordered one already, as it is I'll wait to play it before I decide. On paper it looks great, but the top drawbars of the VK organs never sounded terribly good to me and the keys of the Juno-G were some of the worst I've ever come across.
-
I'm looking at the drawbar sliders and there are buttons in front of them where my wrist would be resting when I'm tweaking them. Otherwise this looks like a nice board given the price point, perfect as a rehearsal board. I had a Juno stage for a while, the keys were good, but the DACs were not top tier (the same patches sounded much clearer on my FantomX rack). I suspect the keys on this will be a step down, probably same as Juno G/D. If this gets young players with less cash into playing drawbars then I hope they sell a ton of them.
-
anybody know the book"total keyboard wizardry" from jordan dudess
niacin replied to kindnis's topic in The Keyboard Corner
It is perfectly legal to copy for educational or research purposes 10 per cent or one chapter, whichever is the lesser, of a book. And he is trying to teach himself keyboard, which comes under "educational". So if someone has Jordan's book you could certainly scan the first chapter and send it to our friend China if you felt so inclined. -
Hey, I've been checking in on a few forums over the last coupla months and was initially prompted to sign up and post when I saw a guy on harmony central's forum being seriously overquoted for a digital piano by a local dealer. Too many OT:pol posts to wade through there though. So now find myself mainly returning here. My name is Peter. I live on Tasmania's north island (aka Australia). Started out on organ then got interested in jazz in high school. Covered alot of the theory ground during my years at uni but am only now beginning to find the time to get my chops together. First paying gig was with a jazz outfit doing Nat Cole material in 1988, have since played my way through too many pubs, and paid my way through university subbing for the wallpaper in numerous restaurants and hotels. Presently cut back to doing the weekend-warrior thang gigging with a 10-piece old-school funk band. Very welcome change. Rediscovered Herbie's Headhunters stuff and now George Duke. So I picked up a KX-5 in fine condition off ebay a month or so ago and in the next few weeks will be programming my newish Evolver to work with an EMU proteus 2k providing Hammond, rhodes, wurly and clav. Looking forward to lugging what I reckon has gotta be close to the smallest keyboard rig I've ever come across. Otherwise I have a Kawai MP9500 for jazz gigs. Hoping Hammond-Suzuki release an XK-3 rack soon please. In my spare spare time I am trying to finish a PhD in an unrelated field. I have just posted re wireless midi so if any of you have any experience with the units available comments would be much appreciated. Cheers, Peter
