Roland V-Combo VR-09

[xKnuckles]

Syn file? Do you mean synthesiser file?

 

Good point about the separate USB's Wes. I will do that. But I must say, it seems rather badly thought out that we have to go to these lengths to protect our sounds. I wish they would do an update and make it so that sounds can't mess each other up. It makes me feel very unconfident about attempting to doing much editing of the sounds at all....

[Giovanni]

I have to wonder having read this thread, and played the VR-09 quite a number of times, are the naysayers who have trouble with the hammond sound on it the type of players that are over-reliant on effects and they just don't have the chops?

 

Because I felt it sounded pretty ballsy whenever I played it?

[Dr88s]

I have to wonder having read this thread, and played the VR-09 quite a number of times, are the naysayers who have trouble with the hammond sound on it the type of players that are over-reliant on effects and they just don't have the chops?

 

Because I felt it sounded pretty ballsy whenever I played it?

 

That's a heckuva way to introduce yourself to the forum

[marczellm]

I have to wonder having read this thread, and played the VR-09 quite a number of times, are the naysayers who have trouble with the hammond sound on it the type of players that are over-reliant on effects and they just don't have the chops?

 

Because I felt it sounded pretty ballsy whenever I played it?

That's a heckuva way to introduce yourself to the forum

Yes, it's kind of insulting. Many people you'll find on this forum are the kind of people who have tons of experience with real Hammond organs, and chops too.

 

The VR-09 does sound good, but dedicated clones, or the Korg CX-3 organ engine, or the Nord organ simulation sounds even better and more authentic. Also reflecting the price difference.

 

Also are you a guitarist by any chance? It sounds to me like "effects" in your sentence refers not to post-processing but to the entire sound itself, which is guitarist terminology.

[Outkaster]

Comparing a VR-09 to a real console is like comparing a Ford Focus to a Rolls Royce.

[Ken Beaumont]

Comparing a VR-09 to a real console is like comparing a Ford Focus to a Rolls Royce

 

I wouldn't compare my VR-09 to a console, I consider mine as a virtual analog synth with PCM sounds and a halfway decent organ. Pretty much like an XW-P1 without the sequencer and a better organ. At the price I paid, it was a logical top board to my SV1-73 when I had it. With that rig nobody could complain I took up too much stage space.

[Outkaster]

I was referring to the posts above me.

[Doerfler]

That's a heckuva way to introduce yourself to the forum

It's a troll, don't bite. :steve:

[BerlinSchoolFan]

I'm looking to purchase my first real synth and the online demos of the VR-09 caught my eye because of the organ/synth/piano/e-piano variety. I spent the past few days (!!) reading this entire thread, so I'm aware of the unfortunate quirks regarding registrations and effects. Putting those aside, I'm really in need of some feedback from those of you with more experience as I have no hands-on experience with synths and combo-organs.

 

First things first: I'm not a gigging musician. I've never used a Hammond. And, (sacrilege, I know) I'm really not that interested in the leslie effect. What I am looking for is a keyboard that allows a fair amount of easy tweaking of the sounds/effects and that provides nice sounding organs, electric pianos, and some basic synth textures (decent acoustic pianos are a bonus). That's what really caught my eye with the VR-09. Sure, Nord has all this too, but it's almost 5 times the price (!!) and, for me, this will be an entry-level purchase (i.e., hobby, not profession).

 

The basic context is this: I'm finally in a position where I can dedicate time to learning music theory and building up my keyboard skills. I've been practicing on a crappy cheap Yamaha YPT300 and am tired of the awful sounding presets. The music that really inspires me is Berlin School, so my end goal is to combine mellotron/organ/synth sounds. I recently purchased a memotron m2d module (paired with a cheap Behringer midi controller) and now I'm looking for something to pair with that. The sound that I really adore is the 1974-1976 audience recordings of Tangerine Dream which means lots of mellotron, some electric piano, moog/oberheim/arp leads, and a foundation of textures/chords from a farfissa dual compact plugged into a VCS3 for ring modulation. As best I can tell, all the synths they were using at that point were mono synths, so the wonderful chords that I'm hearing are all farfissa run through ring modulators (?). Other Berlin school from that era (Michael Hoenig, Ashra, Klaus Schulze) all have a nice mixture of organ/synth and many of the newer incarnations (Airsculpture, Electric Orange, RMI, etc.) also make liberal use of organs paired with synths/mellotrons.

 

While there's been a lot of discussion on this list of the minutia of the Hammond sounds, percussion, and leslie effect; there's been comparatively little discussion of the transistor organ emulation. I'm not interested in a bright organ sound - I'm looking for mournful/melancholy/edgy textures. From what I gather, I can't send the organ sounds through the resonant filter - that only works for the synths, correct?. But I seem to recall one of the online demos assigning the MFX knob to ring modulation for an organ. The drawbars then give me simple additive synthesis to pair with the MFX and reverb, so I'm hoping that will get me some nice tweakable organ textures that aren't too "clean" or bright sounding.

 

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Can one get nice organ sounds on a subtractive synth? The entry level analog synths only seem to have 2 oscillators per voice and only 3 or 4 voice polyphony, so I'm having a hard time believing I can get the textures I want out of a minilogue, volca, or the roland boutique series. But, again, I have no hands-on experience with real synths...

 

I realize the synth section is more of an 80s sound, but it looks tweakable enough to keep me busy for a long time and the ability to layer sounds is very appealing.

 

 

Sorry for the long post and thanks for all the insight - I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the archive of this thread.

 

[stoken6]

Welcome to the forum BSF,

 

If I understand your core requirements, they're: transistor organ with effects, some (virtual) analogue and EP. Bonus AP.

 

I quite liked the VR09 when I tried it. The AP is adequate, there are some decent EPs in there, and as you say the drawbars control analogue parameters (just filter and envelope iirc).

 

I can't comment on the transistor organs, as I didn't really explore that area.

 

Another idea for you is Casio: PX5 or XWP1 (if you can find one used), or even the new MZ300. Weaker Hammond, and again pass on the transistor organs, but strong synth, some nice third-party EPs.

 

You really need to try these things out in person - you'll know if the connection is there. Good luck!

 

Cheers, Mike.

[WesG]

I've never owned a real transistor organ, but I have no problem making the VR09 sound like The Doors etc.

[xKnuckles]

Hi Berlinschool - welcome! So you have read the whole thread!! I am in shock - and also highly impressed. There should be some sort of special mention in your Name for that achievement similar to Hall of Fame etc..... Maybe "Crawl of Pain" member?.... I suspect that you probably know far more about the Vr now than me. I have read the thread but by bit, but forgotten most of it now....

 

I know absolutely nothing about transistor organs, but I use the VR ones quite a lot and they sound good to me. They are highly tweak able in any case.

 

The VR is a good and useful keyboard with lots of nice sounds. One thing I would mention though as you are thinking of having it as your only keyboard, is that it's real weakness is the keys - the way they feel when you play them. It is the only "clone" I have ever owned, so I have nothing to compare it to, but even so it doesn't feel that good to me. Extremely useful on gigs etc. and I count myself very fortunate to possess one, but I would strongly suggest that you try to get your hands on one before you buy it, if possible, just in case you don't like that feel..... If I could only have one keyboard, it would not be the Vr.

 

Of course that is just my opinion. You may be looking mainly for other things from your keyboard and feel completely differently about it.

[WesG]

In an interesting twist, I am going on vacation and am trying to decide which keyboard to take. It will likely be the VR-09, because it does everything. Maybe not well, but if you can name it, it does it.

 

Now I wonder where I can find a small amp...

[DenCV]

Well, I have a vr09, as well as a bunch of stuff TG, Schultz, etc used to use. I was a huge tangerine dream fan back in the day. I got hooked on them through rubycon, and ended up buying everything I could get by them. If I'm remembering right you're talking rybicon/ricochet/phaedra stuff. One thing that made that period so cool was their use of very mechanical sounding sequenced (analog) bass lines, and like you said they "effected" everything. We actually had a band that did this stuff live. I had an ms20 with an sq10 for the bass lines, and was actually getting by for organ/ep sounds with a korg lambda through a lot of pedals. As I see it, the vr is gonna cover everything except the bass sequence stuff, the looper isn't going to get that mechanical feel as far as I know. I think korg has a little sequencer out now cheap, and might even do midi, maybe it could be creatively used with the vro9?

One thing I do remember when we did that trio was I had a lot of sustain pedals so I could hold chords down and free up my hands. The VR09 could never cover all that, but it would be a good place to start, and add more later. You're bringing back some good memories, I can tell you back then I would have been in heaven with a vr added to my rig. Like someone else said you can find lots of keyboards that to some things better than the vr but none that do everything it does. But if I had to describe the vr with one word, it would be "fun"

[BerlinSchoolFan]

Thanks for the comments/replies. I agree that I need to try one in person - we only have one synth shop in the state and it's a good 1.5 hours away, so I'll have to bug them and see if they happen to have one in stock (there are some other synths I need to test out too). It's nice to hear that some users find them fun/enjoyable to play despite some of the drawbacks (keyboard quality, issues with patches/registrations).

[B3bluesman59]

 

All things considered....including the price....the VR-09 will work great for you. But as mentioned in some of the posts above you really should try to play one before buying. If you can't find one near you then buy one from one of big online retailers. If you don't like it you can always return it..you will probably have to pay return shipping but at least you won't end up with a board you don't like.

[brenner13]

Erg! The pitch paddle has been getting wonkier with every gig for the last couple of months. Switching the Lesley sim fast and slow never has worked all that well and the pitch bend on non organs sounds has required several sweeps right and left to seemingly calibrate. However, the last several gigs have had issues with the sound going horribly flat upon release of the paddle after a pitch bend and most noticeably after a dose of modulation. Last night was the last straw: the board is out of warranty so I decided to go ahead and open the thing up and see what there was to see.

 

The thing is pretty easy to access...twenty some-odd screws off the bottom, and the plastic base comes right off. Disconnect the one and only plastic two-prong connector for the battery compartment wire lead and presto...full access to the circuit boards, key springs and the wonky pitch paddle. Four screws and another solitary wire lead with a two-prong connector and it's out of there. I noticed ther was considerable play right and left and once removed, could see a slight indentation in part of the plastic where one of the horseshoe coil spring ends touched. Just plain wore out after 3 years of weekend warring.

 

The whole assembly peice looked very familiar and I recalled having different pitch paddle foibles with the Fantom. I dug through the old keyboard parts bin and behold, an exact match and identical part! It felt much more solid, so screwed it in place and put everything back together.

 

It works but with the same foible the Fantom had where a quick flick of the pitch causes more of an ugly hiccup than a string bend. At least there's no more wandering pitch after modulation. Perhaps this is part of the reason why so many people prefer wheels over paddles? I think every Roland I've ever owned has had paddle problems. A bad design that continues to be cheapened? Definitely not a "Joy"stick...more like a pain-in-the-patooty-stick.

 

I think I'll try to find a new replacement part. I've used Syntaur in the past. Are there any others you fine folks have dealt with?

[phatmann]

Believe it or not, I just read the entire thread! There is a lot of valuable information here, but also a lot of noise. Armed with all this knowledge, today I went to GC and tried the VR-09 out for myself. For those of you just joining this thread, I will try to do a quick summary, based on my limited hands-on experience and the collective vast experience of the forum. I will try to state the facts without bias or opinion the best that I can:

 

• It is very light at 12 lbs.
  
• It has gig-ready organ, EP and synth sounds.
  
• The acoustic piano patches are decent for rock, but not acceptable for a jazz or solo gig.
  
• It is a performance-oriented board with a well-thought out array of knobs and buttons. and you can create good sounds very quickly.
  
• It has a full set of drawbars. They are narrower than standard ones.
  
• Pitch-bending and modulation is done with a joystick.
  
• The keys are a little narrower than normal.
  
• The action and feel is well-suited for organ/synth playing, but poor for piano playing.
  
• The system for saving and recalling patches via registrations has limitations and may not work as one expects.
  
• Editing of most synth parameters requires an iPad connected via wifi or cable. Wifi requires a Wifi USB card.
  
• You can connect a weighted keyboard to it via MIDI, but if you play organ/synth on the VR-09 and piano on the weighted keyboard, the piano will not have any effects except reverb. This means no trem for EPs, etc. The damper pedal cannot be assigned to just control the piano. If you are playing the same patch on both keyboards, you wont have these limitations.
  
• The drawbars do not send standard MIDI controller messages, so you cannot use them to control a software-based organ like VB3.
  
• You cannot control the wah effect via an expression pedal.
  
• The last system update (1.03) was released almost two years ago (9/18/14).
  

I did not buy a VR-09 today, but I am strongly considering it, even though I can afford a more expensive board like a Nord Electro 5D 61 or Hammond SK-1. Something about VR-09s versatility, control layout and form factor appealed to me. We will see

[Piattica]

I really do not understand the Roland policy about these points that IMHO can be easily fixed with a new firmware:

 

• The system for saving and recalling patches via registrations has limitations and may not work as one expects.
  
• Editing of most synth parameters requires an iPad connected via wifi or cable.
  
• You can connect a weighted keyboard to it via MIDI, but if you play organ/synth on the VR-09 and piano on the weighted keyboard, the piano will not have any effects except reverb. This means no trem for EPs, etc. The damper pedal cannot be assigned to just control the piano. If you are playing the same patch on both keyboards, you wont have these limitations.
  
• The drawbars do not send standard MIDI controller messages, so you cannot use them to control a software-based organ like VB3.
  
• You cannot control the wah effect via an expression pedal.
  

 

Once fixed, VR09 would be a killer keyboard.

[WesG]

Editing the synth parameters via something other than iPad is not something you can fix in firmware. You need user interface elements. Unless you want to do it via menu-diving...................which IMO would make the DX7 seem user-friendly!!

 

Similarly, you cannot add another effects unit with software.

 

What they DO need to fix most urgently is the name of the SYN DAT file. It needs to follow the same number pattern as the UPG file so that you can have multiple synth data files on one USB stick.

[TomKittel]

The other day I bought a used VR09 since I wanted a lightweight backup keyboard and I couldn't resist a ridiculously cheap offer. During a first trial at home I found the sounds ok, yet not overly exciting. But yesterday night I played it for the first time in a band rehearsal. And this thing sounded just glorious through my CPS Space Station V3! All I ever needed was there: pianos cut trough, shimmering Rhodes sounds with a nice bark, a surprisingly good sounding organ/leslie sim plus lush Roland synth pads and leads in spades. And it's really easy to use. No endless menu diving. I had a lot of fun with this little keyboard! Don't let it fool you when you check it out in a music store. It's strenghts really seem to only jump up in a live setting.

 

JMTC

[richforman]

I agree completely with your view of the instrument Tom. Quirky but it has unique strengths that lead me to actually use it quite differently in a live setting than I do other 'boards. You're exactly right, the very usable, pleasing Rhodes, organ/leslie and synth leads (and strong entries for strings, harmonica, accordion, etc.) right at your fingertips right out of the box, and so easy to get to and switch between, plus the dedicated knobs for reverb, delay, effects amount, etc., encourage me to have a much more experimental, trial-and-error approach to selecting and playing with sounds on the fly, at a gig, than with my other more workstation-y instruments, where I am more reliant on having everything pre-configured and programmed before hitting the stage. It's fun for sure and many of the sounds have gotten me a lot of compliments from fellow musicians.

[roygBiv]

Richforman - well put summary - still love my VR09, don't understand the haters. Other than the weak key bed feel (which several of the same era Rolands now have) it is a great instrument - as you note, so much more of a liberating actual instrument compared to workstations.

 

Tomkittel - totally agree with you as well - the VR09 through the SpaceStation is really a killer combo, and really shines in a live band setting - no problem being heard! Also, the ability to "make it shine more" in the middle of a song is so easy, because of the easy access to most things. Plus the effects, etc.

 

One other comment - if I recall correctly, Tom you also have a Roland RD64? If so, try then together, the VR09 is so light you can set most of it on the back shelf of the RD64 - great dual manual set up. You just need something to prop up the back of the VR09, and you're good to go (check the recent "two tier stands" for some ideas".

 

Anyway, sorry to be a fanboi, just felt a need to chime in for some reason. Sadly/not Sadly the combo of the RD64 (for piano, clav,, etc) and the VR09 + SpaceStation have kinda dampened my Gear Lust, as I can't seem to find a better lighter/cheaper/better sounding combo. I'm left to drooling over stands....like the cool stuff in the two tier thread.

 

Roy

[TomKittel]

One other comment - if I recall correctly, Tom you also have a Roland RD64? If so, try then together, the VR09 is so light you can set most of it on the back shelf of the RD64 - great dual manual set up. You just need something to prop up the back of the VR09, and you're good to go (check the recent "two tier stands" for some ideas".

 

Anyway, sorry to be a fanboi, just felt a need to chime in for some reason. Sadly/not Sadly the combo of the RD64 (for piano, clav,, etc) and the VR09 + SpaceStation have kinda dampened my Gear Lust, as I can't seem to find a better lighter/cheaper/better sounding combo. I'm left to drooling over stands....like the cool stuff in the two tier thread.

 

Roy

 

Roy - RD64 and VR09 are a killer combo indeed: weighted hammer keybed for pianos plus light keys for synth/organ with a greatly reduced schlepp pain. BTW: against all odds I really like the VR09 keybed, especially for synth leads. It allows for lightning fast soloing.

 

[TomKittel]

Any recommendations for a VR09 keyboard bag? Most bags I could find are too big.

[roygBiv]

Hi Tom

I went with Roland's suggestion: (CB61RL) , mixed feelings, it's ok and light, but not a lot of padding, and weirdly long handle straps.

 

More discussion here:

Roland RD64 Bag Discussion

 

 

 

 

[WesG]

Tom - I use a Gator GK-61 with the original packing foam. It fits perfectly and offers EXCELLENT protection. The downside is that setup/teardown takes an extra 20s or so.

 

Wes

[David Emm]

Heh, more VR-09 chat! I finally got to play with one for an hour or so. I would have committed dark deeds to have this thing when I was 15. I saw a couple of its often-bemoaned flaws, but its flexibility outweighs them. What a broad sound set, too. I'm not at all keen on needing an iPad to program the synth, which is basically a Gaia and a great balance for the rest of the instrument, but its still a sensible option. I'm not looking for new keys, but the fun of things made this one tempting.

 

Its a shame that if Roland released a VR-09 Mk.II with a 25% better build and a few of its funky operating points smoothed out, it would seriously compete with several of their up-line offerings. I'm with the group who love it for being a Swiss-Army-knife combo. If that keybed had a better pivot point and you could split the engine into 3 zones and if this and if that and if my aunt had testicles, she'd be Uncle Sol and if their DJ-70 deserved a Mk. II, the VR-09 justifies one even more. In an odd way, the VR has done far better than the JP-80, which was publically skinned before it even hit the market. Darned humans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brenner13]

Well it took a couple of weeks, but I finally got the new pitch-paddle assembly purchased directly from Roland. Installed it last week before the weekend gigs and it now works better than new. Even the Leslie control works like it should. There still seems to be an ever-so-slight wobble before the spring makes contact...just not the build-quality of even a decade ago. I think I'll get another one to put in the Fantom to fix the hiccup it has developed.

[WesG]

What happened to yours? Mine's been flat and needed a flick a couple of times. Fine since, though...?