garnermike
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Posts posted by garnermike
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Mate Can't speak for this new CPS unit, but my Fender/GrooveTubes-made unit is unbelievably loud. I've never gone over midpoint on volume. The mid and high frequencies cut through things like no other kb amp I've ever played through with generally similar wattage rating (about a dozen different brands) Mine's rated at 100w.
Here's the specs on the older version that I have (scroll down on the page): http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SFXSSmkII
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Mate What Mike said. I've tried several set-ups with my SK1, including: 1. using two Traynor K1s set up in their so-called stereo linking arrangement; 2. two Motion Sound KT-80s, one for left out and the other for right out; and 3. the SpaceStation, with the subwoofer line out (for more bottom end) to either the Traynor K1, the MS KT-80, or a small bass amp.
My room-filling and rotary effect sound with the SpaceStation is vastly better.
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The background (my understanding only, and I apologize if y'all know this or if someone's already posted on it):
GrooveTubes developed their SFX technology for keyboard stereo amping, selling the SFX 100 and SpaceStation products. Then Fender bought out their technology, using it in their SFX acoustasonic guitar amps, but not doing anything keyboard amp-wise----except when, in a special deal with sweetwater.com back in 2010, they sold off a last supply of 100 SpaceStations.
I bought one of those, and it's been a great keyboard amp, especially loud and very effective in delivering rotary effects. Small, 35 pounds, and built to last (I have used it in over 350 gigs, and it's never had a single issue). If you do a search on the KBC, you'll see I'm not alone in liking it.
To the point: I opened my new sweetwater.com catalog, and low and behold, a new company called Center Point Stereo (centerpointstereo.com) is now selling a updated SpaceStation version through sweetwater.com. It looks identical to what I own, although it has a few more tweeking dials. I went to that company's website and the product's Fender pedigree is duly noted.
I called Sweetwater, and they do not have these amps in yet, nor have their staff received their tech briefing on it yet. There is no product ad on their website yet, just in the paper catalog.
The price is twice ($599) what I paid in 2010. I don't need another, but knowing what I now do about the amp (again if it's the same thing), I'd opine that it's well worth the price.
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Yes, the Hammond EXP 50 is a great pedal with the SK1 in terms of feel and sensitivity. And it is built well. One issue, however. The connecting cable is very lightweight and thin---not what you'd expect to be attached to such heavy-duty pedal. I noticed this shortcoming right away after purchase. My cable, despite great care, crapped out after 150 gigs (happened right near where the cable enters the pedal box. I gerry-rigged a fix while waiting months for Hammond to send a replacement cable. Ultimately, Hammond did right by me and, as they did not get any new supply of cables from Japan, Hammond sent me a whole new pedal. It had the same thin cable when I got it, however, so I immediately wrapped about a 1-inch section of it (immediate to the pedal box) with some of that self-fusing electrical tape). Just trying to reinforce it and apply a little preventive voodoo.
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Here are 4 tunes by my trio. That's me on the Hammond SK1 filling the middle, and also on bass, playing it lefthanded on a Roland E-09.
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12 pounds for the FA-06.
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Yes, SpaceStation MarkII (see at http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SFXSSmkII). I got one of the final hundred made, sold on clearance 3 years ago by Fender via sweetwater.com (after Fender bought out the GrooveTubes SFX technology).
At 32 lbs and at 18"x11"x11", very compact, and compared to so many other keys amps, not heavy at all in my book. And VERY loud, with a great stereo separation effect. The stereo difference between playing through it (with woofer support) vs. playing through 2 separate amps (even playing through my 2 Traynor K1s using their stereo link function) is all in favor of the SpaceStation. Fender is, IMO, making a big mistake not making/marketing these amps to keyboardists.
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Ya know, AnotherScott, I'm starting to believe you on that.
At this past week's 3 gigs, I tweaked, and got very comfy with, the new Strymon Lex that I bought 3 weeks ago to be my SK1's rotary sim. Went back to using my stereo Groove Tubes SpaceMaster SFX as the main amp, linking its low-end out to the Motion Sound with its 12" woofer. And I just got more and more content with each tune played.
I can do everything I need to do, and can get so very close to the quality and types of sound that I want to. Looking forward to getting back into it on Saturday!
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My bad, Craig; that wasn't your opinion re: transposing bass.
Ah, if only I was totally happy with the SK1! It's fast rotary sim doesn't cut it for me (too fast, and can;t slow it down enough. Have been through RT-20, then Vent. Now actually play it with the Strymon Lex and it's very good. And the SK1's layering of organ and harpsichord (w/o the harpsichord affected by rotary) is superb for reggae and for a stringy guitar effect on our rockabilly numbers.
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My situation is quite different, Craig. And it's specific to me.
I am 63, learned to play keys at age 52. No training; all by ear. Have no technique, can't play much of a solo. I learn a song's chords and a few flourishes around those and that's it. Need to be able to transpose liberally.
Yet, I play in one of the most popular bands in North Carolina. 125 gigs a year. Reggae, rockabilly, R&B. Hear us at www.reverbnation.com/mikemickxer.
It's a trio (guitar, drums, SK1 at my righthand and Roland E-09 at my left). I am holding down the middle and also the bass. Don't have enough hands or fingers to stop and make multi-button changes.
You are wrong about transposing up or down affecting bass tonality. Believe me, I have played numerous boards at bass, and Casios and now the E-09 have bass patches that sound incredibly authentic and are not skewed by transposing. Hardly a gig goes by when a bass player doesn't come up to me and compliment me on the bass tone and playing.
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So you're saying that, unless I learn to play a ton of songs in different keys, I'd have to program at length and remember program reggies for all of these tunes. As opposed to the SK1, Roland VR-760/700, and other boards, that very simply allow one to stay in a systemically-maintained key within a program reggie with a one-button push?
Sorry, but any advantages of the VR-09 don't make up for that huge inconvenience.
I'll stop whining about it here, but all I will say is that that attribute (and the rotary effect on layered sound) kept me away from keeping the VR-09 I bought.
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Thx for sharing that about the Nord. Was only going by my scanning the manual....
I HATE not being able to slow down the SK1's FAST rotor speed below its "375" parameter. To me, it sounds like a harsh, unaligned washing machine. I can slow the FAST rotor speed down on a Roland or by using the Lex. In short, the SK1 has/does everything I want/need---EXCEPT for an acceptable (to me) FAST rotor speed control.
Before going to the Lex, my workaround has been to use the SLOW rotor speed set at its highest (318) as my FAST rotor speed. Sounds pretty much just like I want it to, but doing that precludes me from using a foot pedal to switch back and forth between SLOW and FAST speeds.
I've been criticized on this board for wanting something that is not part of the classic Hammond/Leslie sound, and hence not built into the SK1. I can understand that criticism, as I am not a Hammond sound purist like some others. And as I said, I know what I like, and am weird that way.
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On ther downloadable manual, the "transpose button settings" are on the "settings that can be saved on registrations... on page 59 of the new OS manual...
Can't you save your transposed sounds all in one or two banks and use them from there? Looks like it might do the trick, no? Sorry if I misunderstood your issue...
PITA. 90 tune repertoire, 50 of them played transposed. No thanks.....
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Been a while since I've posted on this thread, and forgive me for recapping posts of many months ago. I was an early buyer of the VR-09. I had owned a VR-760 previously (loved it, but, loading-wise, could not deal with its size/weight), so although I have used an SK1 exclusively for two years now (238 gigs), I preferred the greater control I had with the rotary sim FAST speed on a Roland than I did with the SK1.
I loved the VR-09 organ tone, and loved its size/weight. Given what and how I play with my band, however, I needed to play in transposed keys and be able to switch personally-tailored voices mid-song and remain in that transposed key. VR-09 could not do that. Secondarily, I needed to be able to limit the rotary effect to the base organ layer (without its dual voice also being "rotaried"). VR-09 could not do that either. I'll guess that there may have been work-arounds to these problems, but it always came down to being able to make quick, one-handed, 1 or 2 button-pushes-at-most changes mid-song, and the workarounds that were suggested/tried weren't that simple. I returned the VR-09. Short of Roland addressing these two pet peeves in an update or next-gen VR-09 or (lighter) next-gen VR-700, am still waiting for my "ideal" organ/keyboard to come to market. Yes, it looks like the Nord Electro 4D might do the trick, but "ideal" in my eyes also does not mean another $2K purchase.
For what it's worth, I now used the Strymon Lex rotary pedal with the SK1. Found it more to my liking than the Ventilator, which I bought/tried/returned, and much better sounding at FAST rotary speed that the SK1's internal rotary sim.
Yes, yes, I know. My needs/druthers/personal tastes on the SK1 and Lex vs. Vent rotary effects, and also on global transposing may strike many readers as weird. But that's just me, and I gotta follow my ear, the limitations on my keyboard playing abilities, and my band's needs.
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Thanks TSG, those of us who have purchased a VR-09, or who are seriously thinking about one, can't seem to seem to have any kind of productive dicussion about VR-09 issues on the original thread without having to sift through way too much negative BS.
This transpose issue is a perfect example.. someone posts on the other thread that there is no global transpose.. and within a short period of time there will be a number of responses..."oh my God", "how could Roland do this", "another Roland design issue".. "what do you expect, it's a $999 product".. and so on and so forth all of which coming from people that don't own one, and really have no idea how the VR-09 works. However, they feel that based on the concept of "freedom of speech" they can say whatever the want..
On the other hand, within the same period of time us productive types over here have corrected and clarified the misunderstanding of how the different types of transpose works, and I think we all now realize that it is really quite a flexible and excellent design (my opinon of course)!! So, I'm just staying competely away from the original thread.
Ok I now know the VR can respond transpose from a master contoller bd
But only some. My casio cdp100 wont send transposed key info to the organ sect only.other sound are ok. My fantom fa76 sends trnsposed keys to all vr modes /sounds as expected. But of course I need to use the casio
Hey, not me. I bought a VR-09. Ran it thru its paces, played two gigs with it. The non-master transpose issue is real, and, while there are "work-arounds" described on this thread, I tried them and they were balky and didn't fit my gigging situation. So as much as I liked much about the VR-09, I returned it.
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Ahh yes. Thanks Craig for collecting the data pasting into this thread.
It is strange there is no global transpose but in my opinion a non issue by saving to registration.
Kevmo/HDA,
There is a global transpose, it's just not in the menus it's right on the keyboard, (transpose button and the -/+), and once you transpose the key using the transpose button, it will maintain this transposed key and you can change from piano, to organ to synth sounds and back and forth a dozen times and it does not lose the transpose. The issue is that if/when you select a registration the VR-09 takes on whatever key the registration was saved in AND when you exit the registration it returns to normal 0 transposition.
As far as I am concerned, this is working perfectly and it's exactly how I would design it myself. This is one of those design quandries for which there is no right answer...
We want this easy transpose button on the control panel so we can change tuning on the fly, live. We also want the registrations to save unique transpose (for that song you just can't play in Ab or C#), but the question is what to do when you exit a registration.. should the VR-09 return to normal tuning or maintain the tuning that's in the registration?
Personally, I like the way it works.. I could see myself creating a piano registration that's in a key I find difficult to play and then when I exit the registration I want to go right back to normal tuning, so I can carry on playing my other songs in normal tuning, and I think that's probably what most people want..
You really should be able to accomplish what you're trying to do with the transpose, either by NOT using the registrations and just using the stock sounds, or simply saving multiple registrations with the transpose you want.. and you have 100 available registrations.. that should get you through a gig!
Much easier said than done, Craig. In my case, I need to be able to change specialized registration sounds, mid-song, very quickly, and not have the key change on me. I don't have time mid-song to push more buttons (I'm holding down the "fill" sound of my trio with my right hand on the upper keyboard --this would be the VR-09-- while dedicating my left hand to a second lower keyboard playing bass). And I don't want to be forced to use the "stock" sounds of the keyboard, or to have a whole bank of registrations programmed for each song I play.
The VR-760 and VR-700 have master transpose, the SK1 has master transpose. The VR-09 does not, and, given my situation and needs, that was a deal-breaker.
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What brenner13 said re: no master transposing.......
And thanks, Craig, for starting this thread. The other 60+ page thread was getting too emotional, with too many subtexts to follow.
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I've been quiet for a while on this thread. I was one of the first posters to buy a VR-09 and report on it. I still find it to be a very good value for the money, a keyboard that would certainly be found "giggable" by many KB players more talented and skilled than I am, and a decidedly light and easily loadable/transportable KB---important when one is 63 years old and has recurring lower back issues. I think its organ tones and rotary sim is unmatched by any other KB on the market for less than $1700. I think its APs and EPs are very decent. Its keybed is perfectly acceptable TO ME.
But I admit here that I have returned it--not because it's inherently a bad product, but because it doesn't fit my skill set (which is admittedly pretty rudimentary) and my IMMEDIATE needs with my current band.
First, I play lots of songs with straight drawbar organ tones, which the VR09 handled really well. I also play lots of songs that need layering keyboard sounds over a rotaried organ, which the VR-09 couldn't deal with (as it leslied those KB sounds sounds too, producing an awful effect. Big issue for me).
Second, I play in transposed keys a lot, and I also switch registered personal sounds within individual songs. The VR-09's not allowing systemic transposing across registrations (it always returns to the key of C when switching user registrations) made life during the performance of a song an issue for me (I am playing left hand bass on a 2nd lower keyboard, and simply do not have time and/or enough hands to deal with more button pushing, mid-song).
I didn't want to wait to see if Roland would ever fix these two things with updates, so I returned the VR-09 while I could still get my money back.
All this said, I still say that Roland broke some important new ground with the VR-9 (a <$1000 KB with a great (IMO) drawbar'ed organ and leslie sim that weighed only 12 lbs.). I continue to use my SK1 as my main board, even though I truly hate its overly fast FAST rotary sound (so much so, that I use a Roland RT-20 rotary pedal with it).
So, today, I have no back-up board that can cover things if the SK1 fritzes. I wait for one of the major KB makers to produce something similar to the VR-09, in its price range or less, and without the rotaried layering and transposed key change issues. I'll bet on Casio to do that.
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Seems to me an 88key stage piano should have 1/4 inputs there certainly is enough space! That does sound like cost cutting or a serious oversight, if a stage piano was their intent. I also prefer XLR in addition to 1/4" on a stage piano. But on a piano that looks like its primary use is for apartment dwellers with small living space, I can see why maybe why they left it off.
I just don't think its all that important on a second board or synth. My XW-P1 has 1/4" in addition to 1/8" but it doesn't have an expression pedal input! I have never used the them, but I sure would have used an expression pedal!
Yes, have owned many Casio KBs over the last 12 years, WKs, CTKs, etc. I love the way the company is improving and competing in the KB market. But until they produce a unit that can have a simple input for a volume/expression pedal, and can produce a decent organ/rotary sim sound, it can't be in the clone discussion---IMHO.
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Last night I took the VR out into the trenches with my cover band for the first time. Quick conclusion: despite its undeniable limitations, it's a keeper for me.
Before I get to the actual gig report, I mentioned earlier that I discovered some other quirks while getting my patches together. The main one is this: I put together a nice fat polysynth brass sound, starting with one of the presets and tweaking it in the editor. I got it sounding like I wanted, and saved it as a registration. Then I took that registration and created a few different splits, with the polysynth on the top and other sounds on bottom. I saved all those splits as their own registrations. So far so good. Then for one of those splits, I decided I wanted the polysynth to sound in octaves. So I loaded that registration into the editor, raised one of the oscillators an octave, and saved it. That worked, but then came the surprise: when I then went back to the other registrations I had previously created with that sound, they ALL had one oscillator raised an octave. The original preset didn't have that change, but all the registrations did -- the splits and the solo version. So I went back and undid what I had just done, putting the oscillator back down on the registration I had just changed. All the other versions then went back to normal.
So I tried going back to the original preset, tweaking it again from there (including raising the oscillator pitch), and saving that as a registration. Same result: all the other registrations I had saved that started with that preset now had one oscillator up an octave. So I changed it back again, and then as a short-term solution, created a new registration starting from a different polysynth preset. That worked, but it really made me wonder if you can actually only have one variation of every preset saved in the registrations. I need to mess with it some more to see if that's really the case, but my experiences so far make it seem like it is. If so, that would be a weird handicap -- one that could be gotten around ("Hmm, I'll probably never need the Sound Effects #7 patch, so I guess I'll use it as the basis for my string patch"), but a serious PITA.
Playing it on the gig produced a few surprises -- some pleasant, some less so. The nicest and most unexpected surprise was how well the EPs worked live. I was disappointed when I first played them at home, but in the mix through the PA, they fared much better than I expected. They're still not Scarbee or SV-1 quality, of course. (Hell, they're not even Roland RD quality.) But they did the job just fine, and my fear that playing them would be a drag turned out to be unfounded.
I also got one of the Clavs sounding better than I initially would have guessed I could, and I was quite happy with it. All the other sounds performed pretty much as I expected, which ranged from "adequate" to "damn good." The organ had plenty of presence and balls, even when I cranked up the overdrive for the AC/DC tunes. The piano, while not the most authentic I've played, cut through the mix without sounding harsh, and was good for that kind of gig.
The shallowness of the keybed was more apparent while digging in "for real" on the gig than it had been at home. Of course I'm not digging in very hard at all on a board like this, but I definitely felt it bottoming out more than I had noticed before. Still, I found myself adapting to it quickly, and it didn't pose a problem.
However, in the course of getting used to the feel of the keys, I went in and adjusted the "touch" parameter. I found it worked much better for me when I backed it off from the default 10 down to 8. But I couldn't figure out how to keep it there. Whenever I changed patches it would go back to 10, and I never learned how to save it. However that's accomplished, it wasn't intuitive enough for me to figure it out mid-song onstage, so that's on the list of things to read up on.
But here's something that was intuitive enough to do on the fly: I thought I had programmed all the splits and layers I'd need, but it turned out there were a couple I missed, and I had to dial them up on the spot when the song was called. And I was able to, with no problem. I would get the basic sounds and split point in place within a few seconds, then tweak levels and effects and such as the tune went on. By the end of the first chorus I had the registration saved. That's something I often wished I could do on the Stage 2, but it was much more difficult.
This may vary from person to person, but I found I hardly used any unmodified presets at all, and the registrations are where I "lived" the vast majority of the time. This is because if you want to change anything at all about a preset -- the tone, the effects, etc. -- you have to save it as a registration, or else any changes you make are lost as soon as you call up another sound. In practice, that means the preset buttons are almost useless during a gig, and you're left scrolling through registrations -- which, frankly, is more of a pain than it needs to be. There's the dial, which scrolls you through the registrations one at a time; the Next button, which would be a lot more useful if it had a corresponding Previous button (which it doesn't); and the almost useless Bank button, which requires too many subsequent keystrokes to even be worth using. A simple pair of Bank+ and Bank- buttons would have been way more useful. As it was, I ended up navigating almost exclusively with the dial, which brought me back to the bad old days of '80s rack synths.
The issue with the effect parameters being non-negotiable is more of a drag than I would have guessed. For instance, the tremolo is either too slow or too much for my taste, and you can't change the rate without also changing the amount. So I live without tremolo on the EPs (or anything else).
On the flip side, a known issue that bothered me less than I was expecting was the pedals. There were very few instances where having the volume/expression affect both parts at once was really problematic, and in those cases I was able to find workarounds. (The worst was with piano/organ splits, but I found that in the parts where I'm really riding the pedal, I don't actually need the piano.) However, one thing on the "to do" list is to see if I can get my FC-7 pedal working better with the VR. I got the Ashby adaptor, and it does the job, but the issue is the curve. There are 4 selectable curves in the VR menu, and the best still isn't very good. All the action is in the lower half of the throw, and you hit full volume at about the halfway point. I remember there's some sort of physical adjustment you can do with the FC-7, so I'm gonna see if that helps.
The other pedal issue for me was the rotary switch. I've always been a footswitch guy, and I've been considering getting the MIDI Solutions box to let me use one with this board. I'll probably end up getting one, though I'll admit that being able to use the joystick as a quasi-half-moon switch is pretty cool (and probably old news to anyone who isn't addicted to footswitches). Unfortunately I found out the hard way that it doesn't work when you have the organ split with another sound. In that case, you have to use the fast/slow button, which is much smaller and trickier to land on if you're trying to do it in, say, the space of an eighth-note to get back and play another chord.
The board stayed in place on the stand the whole night. I was concerned that since it was so light, I might have to velcro it down, but that turned out not to be an issue. The only time it moved the whole night was during a cheesy moment when the bass player came over and was "rocking out" at me (as the kids no longer say). In response, I picked the board up with one arm and played it quasi-keytar style for a few bars. While that's not something I plan on doing regularly, it's nice to have the option, and it got a good laugh from the rest of the band and the audience.
After the gig I asked my bandmates and the sound guy what they thought of the board. Without exception they all said they dug it, and these are people who hold nothing back if they don't like something. In particular, they said there was nothing about it that made them miss my old board (Nord Stage 2). The strangest comment was that the bandleader said it looked like a DeLorean, and suggested I put a "1.21 gigawatts" sticker on the back. I said I'd do it if we add "Power of Love" to the setlist -- especially since this board nails the sound from that song better than any other I've owned.
Bottom line: while the VR is not a great board compared to many costlier options, it is exceptionally good at being capable and flexible enough to get you through a cover band gig while weighing very little and taking up fairly little stage space, which is exactly what I wanted from it. I plan to keep using it, and I will hold my head up high when I do -- which will be extra easy since my back won't be all jacked up from carrying it to the gig.
In the end, you sorta came out where I did after gigging with it the first time. It's a giggable KB that has some nice aspects/features, is easy to set up and is easy on one's back weight-wise, and both my band mates (and I) preferred its sound to that of the SK1. I'll just add that I found its organ sounds to be superior to those of the SK1's (mainly because its fast rotary sim is more controllable/adjustable). And, like you, I won't hesitate to gig with it --- once I have my tailored registrations worked out, and once I learn its buttonry better.
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Hate to keep ragging on Roland (actually, no I don't)... but Mike Martin just posted this on the Casio PX-5S thread... They are up to revision 10... and its also a $999 keyboard... released just about the same time as the VR-09.
You will notice that all of these updates are IMPROVEMENTS on the design (from perusing this list and listening to musicians)... not bug fixes... They dealt with the bugs much earlier.
This is the difference between a company that cares about its customers, and one that... well, you be the judge...
"The v1.10 Firmware Update has just been posted.
http://support.casio.com/download.php?cid=008&pid=340&rgn=1
It includes the following updates:
Improving the Key Follow function of Hex Layer.
Adding a portamento function to the Melody tones and the Hex Layer tones.
Adding a volume control to the Audio Recorder.
Adding a volume control to the Damper Noise.
Adding Toggle Mode to the Pedal Function.
Adding MIDI Rx message filters.
Expanding the frequency range of the Master Equalizer.
Expanding the frequency range of the DSP Equalizer.
Adding a Fine tune to the DSP Pitch Shifter.
Adding a Bypass to the System Effects and the Master Effects.
Adding a destination parameters to the controllers (Knobs, Sliders, Modulation and Pedals).
Adding a calibration function of the position of the Knobs.
Adding a sample waves to the Hex Layer.
We've also gone through and revised/improved a number of the Stage Settings.
Instructions on installing the update:
[video:youtube]
_________________________
-Mike Martin
Casio America, Inc."
I have owned several Casios, and it's clear to me that the company is making leaps and bounds improvements in their KB's compared to other KB makers. As an aside, I use a CTK-6000 (and before that used a CTK-5000) as my left-hand bass "ax" in my trio. Why? Because of a single factory pre-set bass patch that is phenomenal compared to every other KB makers'. I've had bass guitar players swoon about the deep low, smooth bass sounds that patch can produce.
That said, if Casio's drawbar'ed models (CTK-7000, XW's, WK's) had as good a clone organ sound and rotary sim as the VR-09, I would own one of them and not have invested in the VR-09. But Casio is not there yet.......
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That's interesting.... you have an SK1 and you prefer the C/V and the leslie sim of the VR 09 to that of the SK1?
I actually hate to get into comparing, because you always seem to offend someone. But from what I can tell this VR09 sim stacks up pretty well.
The VR09 sim didn't give me anything NOT not like, during the brief time that I heard it. It sounded good on both slow and fast. And the Roland C/V sounded good too. Right up there with some of the best that I have heard.
A few of the other issues have been discussed, we don't have to go there. I was actually hoping that this could be something I could use. I love the idea of the weight.
Garnermike - how do you like the EP's compared to the SK1? I didn't get enough time with them.
I can't really give an authoritative answer---I so rarely use EPs. But to my inexperienced ear, the SK1's EPs are a bit better, but not by that much.
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Buy a Yamaha FC7 ($38) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-FC7-Volume-Pedal-/190836634584?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2c6ebff3d8Good to know because I have that issue with the EV-5. I was contemplating getting the EV-7 but at $229 I would be highly miffed if it didn't work!with the Ashby adapter ($20) http://music.ashbysolutions.com/misc.htm
and you'll be good to go. It has that nice smooth, long throw you are looking for.
Hey, thanks so much for this lead! I'll give it a try!
Hey, thx again Delaware Dave for this suggestion. The Ashby adaptor and my Yamaha pedal came today. That Yamaha pedal is really well built, with very, very nice action and good gradation! Just a hair behind the control of my SK1 + EP-50 pedal set-up, but still really good. This is definitely the answer to the VR-09's (and VR-760's, VR-700's, I'll bet) volume pedal issue.
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Hammonddave...
Did they let you play the VR 09 at NAMM? They wouldn't let me play it. As far as I could tell they were just doing demos with it. They told me it wasn't finished or something like that.
It's possible that what was a NAMM isn't quite what is out now. I thought the organ sounded pretty good except for the percussion thing I mentioned. But Hammond Suzuki owners ( or past owners) generally don't like Rolands and vice versa.
Personally I prefer the leslie sim on this ( from what limited time I spent) to what I recall hearing from the SK1. Ditto for the chorus vibrato. Give me some basic drawbar tones with those two things and I can usually get what I want out of a clone ( as I do with a Numa).
Owning an SK1, I totally agree with you, LX88, when you write "Personally I prefer the leslie sim on this ( from what limited time I spent) to what I recall hearing from the SK1. Ditto for the chorus vibrato."
SK-1 and 2 Tips, Tricks and Other Cool Stuff.
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
I have played over 300 gigs since August 2011 with my SK1, packing it in this Gator bag:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GKB49/
Yes, I know it's a 49-key bag, but the SK1's 69-keys fits perfectly. And nary a scratch to date.