Roland V-Combo VR-09

[brenner13]

Got loads of work at the day job and music booked nearly every weekend through the fall, but want to send Wes some files...most of that techie stuff goes right over my head, but would love to see what he does.

[Joe Muscara]

I don't condone Craig's actions resulting with his ban on this forum

_________________________________________________________________When did this happen?

Can we maybe break the Craig BS out into a separate thread?

See this thread for the entire thing, most importantly the final post from our esteemed moderator. (IOW - don't start another thread!)

[Blisstr]

x

[WesG]

Has anybody figured out how to get monophonic behaviour out of the keyboard in synth mode?

[To B3]

By accident, I found a very good (to my ears) alternative to the stock tremolos on the VR09 that I always found to be very artifficial sounding: get your plain wurly, make the tone/overdrive/comressor adjustments that you like and select the tempo slicer as the MFX. Put the MFX knob in around 9 o'clock and now we're talking.

 

Cant tell if it's wurly-authentic, but sounds good to me.

 

By the way, talking about EPs, what about that OS Update huh? Got my flash drive ready and stuff. C'mon, Roland, you know you want it

 

 

[HAMEGZ]

 

Wes

 

The Netgear N150 WNA1100 works like a champ... now we just need someone to peruse this thread for all the great changes you muso's have made!!!!

 

Just to confirm, I purchased a Netgear1100 from Amazon and it works perfectly in my Jupiter 80, at 1/3 the price of the rebadged Roland.

[agitato]

On which Roland website is mentioned a (still newer than 12/2013)os update? What exactly is going to be updated and when will it be available and (hopefully) installed in new vr09s?

[Philip Clark]

While I haven't been able to fully put this board through its paces, I did take it out on a gig the other day. The organ is meaty as hell, and I was very happy with the way it worked live.

 

Just as far as ease of use and the quality of sounds in the thing, I have to say this is probably a better purchase than the Yamaha MX61 I picked up earlier in the year. I enjoy playing it much more. The keybed alone kills the MX. It's VERY easy to layer two sounds and get a huge sound.

 

I'm looking forward to studying the manual and really getting into the thick of it. And eventually getting an iPad so I can dig deeper into the architecture.

 

 

[To B3]

So... how do you use it live? I always used all my keyboards in mono... But I just cant make the damn VR09 sound good in mono, especially the organ and leslie sim. Sounds digital, plastic, one dimensional... and I tweaked as hell, even folowing Craigs tips, that sounded fine at home on headphones and playing with a mono active monitor... But on rehearsal with the band... nothing... Plastic. Am I doing anything wrong? The thing only workds in stereo? Does it need the dummy plug when playing in mono? Someone? I really want to like it and integrate to my rig, but it's getting hard.

[brenner13]

On which Roland website is mentioned a (still newer than 12/2013)os update? What exactly is going to be updated and when will it be available and (hopefully) installed in new vr09s?

It was prematurely released on the Roland Canada newsletter. The link is on page 85 of this thread. It must have had some bugs because Rokand yanked the link almost immediately with an apology-notice a short time later stating that the wait for the update will not be long. Maybe they want to release it at Winter NAMM?

[Philip Clark]

Well, there's a video. Where's the bloody update??

 

[video:youtube]

[xKnuckles]

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/06/aa/b5/06aab5666b05096c499552a137f6f342.jpg

[agitato]

Does the new 09 update include the organ percussion, NOT going through the vibrato/chorus?

[jmemcse517]

I'm thinking of buying a second VR-09 and just gigging with the 2 of them.

[xKnuckles]

Won't you miss having weighted keys for the piano sounds?

[stoken6]

I'm thinking of buying a second VR-09 and just gigging with the 2 of them.

 

Why? (Serious question)

 

Surely two different boards will give you much more versatility. Especially as the VR09 is (quite) good at offering up the lower half of a split to a controller board. I'd be thinking Casio PX5, or something with sampling capability.

 

And as xKnuckles said, weighted action to complement the VR09's.

 

Cheers, Mike

[Mike Kent]

Well, there's a video. Where's the bloody update??

 

There a few videos online. The 1.03 update will be released on September 18. I'm mostly looking forward to new electric pianos, hopefully with improved velocity switching control for more expressive playing than the Rhodes sound in prior versions.

 

Another video, shows a bit of electric piano and lots of synth pads:

[brenner13]

I'm thinking of buying a second VR-09 and just gigging with the 2 of them.

 

Why? (Serious question)

 

Surely two different boards will give you much more versatility. Especially as the VR09 is (quite) good at offering up the lower half of a split to a controller board. I'd be thinking Casio PX5, or something with sampling capability.

 

And as xKnuckles said, weighted action to complement the VR09's.

 

Cheers, Mike

 

I have also contemplated a second VR09: a dual manual organ setup with separate drawbars, plus doubling up all the other goodies for less than two grand proves a very decent value. However, my keyboard realm is without an 88-note weighted playing surface right now, so this is what is needed. Ext for me.

 

BTW, Japan seems to have the latest update:

 

[Philip Clark]

Well, there's a video. Where's the bloody update??

 

There a few videos online. The 1.03 update will be released on September 18. I'm mostly looking forward to new electric pianos, hopefully with improved velocity switching control for more expressive playing than the Rhodes sound in prior versions.

 

Another video, shows a bit of electric piano and lots of synth pads:

 

Thanks for the info!

[SK]

I'll post this in classifieds soon: I'm going to be selling my "like new" VR-09, but I need to replace it first - so it could be a few weeks. Meanwhile, PM enquiries are welcome.

[stoken6]

I have also contemplated a second VR09: a dual manual organ setup with separate drawbars

 

Yeah, I'll accept the two sets of drawbars.

 

I finally tried a VR09 in a shop yesterday, and liked what I heard. The action is a bit light, but less "fragile" than I had feared. And nice AP and Leslie (not together)

 

Cheers, Mike.

[AnotherScott]

From Roland Canada's premature announcement of the 1.0.3 update:

 

The update adds 10 new electric piano sounds including SA and FM electric pianos which are based on waveforms from the RD-800 Digital Piano and the FA-series workstation.

 

The update also contains waveforms from the highly-acclaimed SRX-12 Classic EPs expansion board and the original V-Combo: the VR-760. You even get 15 synth sounds from the popular Synth Legends library for INTEGRA-7 on the Axial site!

[iluvchiclets]

This update is really good news.

 

The Pure Wurly looks promising - Wurli is my main issue with the VR as it is. I will have to wait to try it in person, but if it's good I don't think I'll be able to resist any longer. (VR has such bang for the budget conscious player)

[Josh Paxton]

Any word on whether this update will allow the rate and depth of time-based effects to be controlled independently of one another? That's one of my major gripes about the board. ("Oh, you want a deeper tremolo? So you must want it faster too then, huh?")

[AnotherScott]

As far as I've seen, there's no word on the update other than about the new sounds.

 

I'm assuming it must be more than just new sounds, though. They already use the axial site to make new sounds available. So they are presumably enhancing the OS in some way, and hopefully in ways beyond simply allowing the loading of these new sounds.

 

My own feature wishes would be (1) since it has no aux out like the FA, at least the ability to pan your two split/layer sounds left and right (even if it means disabling some or all effects), (2) allowing drawbars to send MIDI CCs (enabled/disabled per registration), (3) being able to assign the footswitch to either sustain or rotary effect per registration, (4) ability to include separate Program Change commands for each side of a split in a registration, so you could more easily split internal and external sounds in any combination you want, and (5) ability to change registrations via MIDI commands. I only recently found out that apparently you can't do that.

 

They're making a pretty big deal of it on the Japan site - http://www.roland.co.jp/lp/V-Combo_VR-09/ - It made me think that there was actually going to be a new version (i.e. new hardware), and that maybe the OS update would bring as much as possible--but not necessarily all-of the new functionality to the older boards. But looking at the video, at least from what you can tell visually, the board itself appears to be unchanged.

 

Hardware wise, what I'd like to see in a future VR-09 is 8 favorite buttons (so you could have 8 banks of 8 instead of 4 banks of 4, in terms of being able to recall favorites without using the scroll wheel), and what the heck, also a 73-key version with aftertouch. I think they could sell that at enough of a premium to make it worthwhile.

[Philip Clark]

and what the heck, also a 73-key version with aftertouch.

 

+1000

 

Manufacturers phasing out the 73/76 keyboard is the worse thing to happen to the industry this century.

[The_Star_Guy]

and what the heck, also a 73-key version with aftertouch.

 

+1000

 

Manufacturers phasing out the 73/76 keyboard is the worse thing to happen to the industry this century.

 

+1

 

That, and also phasing out aftertouch on sub-$2500 keyboards in general.

 

More back on topic, my dream "gig rig" set-up right now would be a VR-09 (with aftertouch & an Aux out, preferably) as top board over a 76 note Kawai stage piano/controller set-up. Please note that neither of these currently actually exists

[HAMEGZ]

So aftertouch is available on a Jupiter 80 <3K, none on anything under that unless you assign AT to a control(i did that on a J50 with a half damper pedal) along with sub outs, but its not an FA (loadable waves) or a VR (drawbars.. but you can add them )

 

I doubt they will alter their business model and put all those features on a sub 1k board that flops around when you play hard.. , yes add some weight with 76 keys and a substantial chassis ,, wait, isn't that kind of like a VR760? without loading sounds, and multi ..

 

oh the conundrum for Roland (well now that they divested of Cakewalk maybe they can get back to business)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DulceLabs.com]

It's crazy. I have channel aftertouch on a $70 controller and poly aftetouch on a $100 controller.

[WillNeverPost]

...and poly aftertouch on a $100 controller.

I assume you're talking about the CME Xkey. While I've never played one and I'm sure it's a nice product, 25 keys with limited key travel and somewhat difficult control of the AT (according to reviews) is not exactly what a lot of players want. (I understand a 37 key version is coming.). Something like this is closer. Notice how they say they are working on a lower cost version at a target price of $1200. (Of course, if it didn't fold I'm sure it would be a lot less expensive to make.)

 

Speaking of AT, this looks intriguing: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/instrumentslab/touchkeys-multi-touch-musical-keyboard/posts/566241

 

So does this although like the current Xkey it is 25 keys: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/07/expressive-ndvr-keyboard-new-hardware-polyphonic-aftertouch-done-right/

Unlike the Xkey AFAIK it's still vaporware. And I have no idea how much it will actually cost if it ever does see the light of day. Sure, they say $235 but I don't trust prices quoted from a startup for products that don't yet exist.