garnermike

I owned a VR-760 @ 38 lbs. and 76 keys. In its hardcase it weighed 57 lbs, and was 55 inches long ---- just too damn big when playing 120 gigs a year, when one is 62 years old, and when needs to fit 2/3's of the bands gig in a fuel efficient vehicle. So I didn't give the $2000 VR-700 a thought, especially since it was not much of an improvement over the VR-760, and would cost twice what the VR-09 does.

Wow! 39 pages of posts. This product is polarizing. Say what you will re: how the VR-09 is for the "utes" (yoothes) due to its synth and high-tech abilities, the main reason I'm keeping the thing is because of its great organ tones and adjustable rotary sim @ 12 lbs. and @ <$1000 (actually bought it for $938 via zzounds.com). The pianos or synths, as good as they are, weren't that important, nor was percussion, nor were a lot of the other bells and whistles the unit offers. In trying to work around what I felt was a cringingly bad fast rotary sim in my SK1 (MY opinion and MY ear at work here), I explored all the other organs out there. They were all pretty much $1800 - $3000. Even getting a Roland VK8M would have been at least $1300, and would have provided only a module (w/o rotary fast/slow pedal-switching capability, me thinx), and no back-up keyboard.

What about the Casio WK series? Drawbars. Single trigger percussion. Not a half bad rotary sim. You have to admit it's as much of a clone as the VR09 is. (I mean raw features, not sound quality) If the new AC and EP sounds from the PX5s work thier way into the Casio work stations I think all of these products (electros, SKs, Vr09s) will have a real run for thier money. For me, the Casio WK series, which I've owned and sold, doesn't offer a patch or tweekable rotary sim that's any good.

So, pricewise, you have to compare a new product with warranty and possible upgrades in the offing with a not-know-what-you're-getting" used XP30? Really?

Believe it or not, I hardly ever use percussion, so I didn't notice this until this morning when it was mentioned. I did notice last night at the gig that when playing DUAL with organ/piano, the rotary effect is applied to both sounds, not just the organ sounds---and the result does not sound good at all. Funny, because on the VR-760 (and even the SK1) this isn't an issue, so maybe it's editable or fixable on the quick by Roland. But back to my first gig with it, and I'll get to the point. THIS IS A KEEPER, GIGGABLE KEYBOARD. Most important to me, it was the best organ sound/rotary control I've had---ever. Even my band mates said "wow" noticing the improved difference over the SK1 immediately. The synth patches that I chose were also terrific. One of my DUALs (rock organ + classic piano at -1 octave) was great for reggae upbeats. After 1 minute of playing, the keybed's different feel from the SK1 wasn't even noticed. Found I could back off on the lows/bass on my amps (I play stereo via a Groove Tubes/Fender SFX Mark IV with the sub/lows connection to a Traynor K1) quite a bit and the TONE dial alone would give me lotsa lows/control whenever I wanted. Again, so far, I'm in the VR-09 camp. For half the price of other tonewheel sim/drawbar equipt products out there, the VR-09 is a player and alone in the market.

Hmmm... Let me see... Hammond: Great keybed, top notch B3 sound, decent EP's and AP's... Great customer service Roland: Crappy keybed (I know... my opinion... I played it at NAMM), inferior leslie sim, inferior Hammond sound, poor customer service (again, my experience with many Roland synths that I own) That's why some of us would pay more... You usually do get what you pay for. You're a Hammond guy, Dave. Always was, always will be.... I find the rotary sim on the VR-09 to be superior to the SK1; personally taste, I guess. I am not married, as you are, to the notion that "that Hammond sound" has to come from a Hammond; the VR-09 offers a very nice "Hammond" sound---good enough to my ears, and to most ears in a typical audience. The keybed is OK. My experience with customer service at Hammond and Roland has been about equal.

Yes, I did not earlier mention the external power supply hook-up in my long review, but it is a very solid connection and world's more reassuring that the SK1's input plug. With every plugging in of the SK1, I find myself thinking "this plug-in is gonna fail some day soon." The Roland's is tight-fitting and firmly implanted.

Buy a Yamaha FC7 ($38) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-FC7-Volume-Pedal-/190836634584?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2c6ebff3d8 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!

For about half the price of other clones, it is really remarkable, and no way awful. I'll know more in a few weeks. But the easy dial-in organ sounds ---especially getting the rotary sim just the way I like it--- make it special to me. I suppose those who haven't played a lot with a SK1 and are using older, bigger clone models/brands may find jumping to this little unit to be an unpleasant prospect and paradigm shift. But I jumped from a big/heavy (relatively speaking, nowadays) VR-760 to an light SK1 to this even lighter VR-09, so I am over the size/lightweight/plastic body shock. These factors, plus the fact that I cut my teeth on Rolands, are making me like this thing -- a lot -- so far.

I need to play a few gigs with the VR-09 to really answer from a position of experience. I promise I will. But right now, the keys (and touch and feel of them) are much better on the SK1.

The VR-09 came yesterday, and I've been hard at it since. Overall, it's pretty damn easy to get to know/use. I think the organ tones are terrific (and I'm an SK1 owner), as is the rotary sim and its full range of speed control. Rotary doesn't have the mic angle/distance adjustment, but the Roland folk gave the sim a pretty nice compromised effect. The piano and synth voices are really well done. Did not come with its sound data list (good thing I found it on-line). Wish it had more sample organ patches that could be tailored or used right out of the box. The chorus offerings sound really sweet. It is sooo light weight, lighter than my SK1, but has a nice fit & finished, professional look to it; one needn't be embarrassed to have it in view on stage. The dual (layering) sound function works well and the resulting sounds are really fun to explore and unique. Don't know how they combined the typical 4-dial EQ bank (gain, freq, bass and treble) into a single Tone dial, but I found it easy to figure out and use. I also like the Delay and MultiFXs dials so handy for tweeking. Two downsides in my book are: (1) the really poor response of either the Roland EV5 or FV500L when used as one-plug-in volume pedals. These pedals don't have enough throw to allow for good foot control of volume; they produce volumes tha are mostly too soft or too loud. I contacted Roland to ask if there was a workaround on this, but they claimed the unit was tested on both pedals and that's the way it is. (I had the same issue with the VR760 8 years ago; I was able to overcome it by buying the Roland EV7. But the EV7 didn't last very long (pretty shoddy build) and at $200+, I'm not gonna buy another. Roland clearly knows that these pedals don't offer enough throw to give good volume control, but continues to offer only these poor pedals for its clones). I'll have to use the FV500L as an in-line stereo volume pedal---for whatever reason, the pedal gives good control when set up with the extra cabling this in-line way.) 2) When moving between sound program registrations, any transposing of key is lost (switch to a different saved tailored registration during a song, and the key reverts back to standard C). For those who can play in any key and/or don't transpose when playing, this isn't a big deal. I do a lot of transposing, so it is limiting. Overall, at this point, I'm keeping it and likely will play with it at a gig tomorrow night. It's not the last word in tonewheel organ-sim'ed keyboards, but so far, it sounds very good and seems gig-worthy to me.

I think I will like it, Dglavko, because I've now taken to playing my SK1 using the Roland RT-20 rotary pedal (not using the SK1's internal rotory sim). With that pedal, I can slow that fast rotary down to 0 if I wanted to. The VR-09 manual shows the adjustable range/scale of the fast rotary running from 0 to 127. On the SK1, the fast rotary bottoms out at 375 on its scale and I find that too fast.

My VR-09 arrives Wednesday. Can't wait. Have been using an SK1 for 18 months; before that, I used a Roland VR-760. Have always hated the fast rotary sim on the SK1; not adjustable enough to slow it down to my taste. I see by the VR-09 manual and hear from early users of the VR-09 that this won't be an issue with the VR-09. The VR-760 had very decent piano and synth sections, and I expect they will be matched if not exceeded by the VR-09. And going from the VR-760's 49 lbs (plus 20 lb case) to the VR-09's 12 lbs (and 5 lb bag) will be heaven.

I UNDERSTAND THAT MUSICIANSFRIEND.COM AND AMERICAN MUSICAL.COM ARE SHIPPING OUT VR-09S TOMORROW.

Strange! The VR-760 and VR-700 had decel, mic angle and distance, and treble/rotor balance adjustability.

Craig M. -- Leslie sim speed adjustability? Comments?

Another manual relevation: like Roland's E-09, any transposed keying is carried over (after one shuts the keyboard down) to any saved registration sound. This is unlike the VR-760, the VR-700, and the Hammond SK1, where transposed keying is a total systemic change that doesn't carry over. So if you are playing a song in a saved sound in a transposed key, and then shift to a different sound registration during a song, that new sound will go back to default "C" keying. I've owned all the models mentioned in this post, and I hate that about the E-09.......

Got the answer to my question re: Ipad tweaking-- directly from Roland. See below: Question: Am considering buying a vr-09 when it's available. I see that the rotary effect is tweakable via an Ipad. Two questions: -Is that rotary effect ONLY tweakable with use of an Ipad? That is, will the rotary effect be tweakable WITHOUT an Ipad? -If it is only tweakable with an IPad, can the Ipad tweeking be saved to the VR-09's memory, such that one doesn't necessarily have to own an Ipad but can borrow one, thern tweek the rotary effect sound, then save that tweeked sound within the VR-09, and then return the borrowed Ipad to its owner? Answer: Roger H. Roland Corporation U.S. Hello Michael, Yes, you can change the settings for the rotary effect directly on the VR-09. There is no need to use the iPad editor if you do not want to. Sincerely, Roland US Product Support

If the Ipad is needed to tweek the leslie speed/sound, I'd need to know if that tweeked rotary sound can then be permanently saved within the keyboard. If it can be saved, then borrowing an Ipad -- not buying one -- to tweek it is an option, thus making a purchase of the VR-09 justifiable.

Being a VR-760 and SK1 owner, I cannot wait to get my hands on the manual, so as to determine how tweekable the leslie sim speeds are (even with having to invest in an iPad), and how layerable extra sounds are. The VR-760 does everything I need, but I cannot deal with its size and weight, while the SK1 does everything I need but its leslie fast speed is not tweekable enough for my taste or music. The VR-09 might be the answer---it's small and light, and may give me a compromised sound that is toterable.