Roland V-Combo VR-09

[Craig MacDonald]

But.... the Roland designers didn't catch this?...it baffles me.

I guess they just thought..."oh well, good enough".

 

LX88, in these days of easy OS updates, these keyboards tend to "evolve", and they are seldom released working exactly as they will 2 years down the road (look at the evolution of the Hammond SK series). There are several design issues that we're questioning on this.. some issues may simply be decisions made for cost purposes (based on the low price point), perhaps the design team had different priorities that you have, or maybe they've simply made mistakes.

 

I have no problem with you pointing out the issue, I do think that all the CAPITAL letters and "I hope to God" this gets fixed, may be just a little over the top (I would honestly prefer that they fix the expression pedal issue, and I never even really noticed this issue), but different people have different taste and priorities.

 

Yes it's a problem but as they say, let's not make a mountain out of a mole hill.. The impression I got was that, despite the capital letters and payers to God, you thought the VR-09 was pretty good..

[mate stubb]

SIgh. Roland.

 

And they used to be so great. They just have never "got" hammond emulation.

[Craig MacDonald]

SIgh. Roland.

 

And they used to be so great. They just have never "got" hammond emulation.

I agree Moe, I've always disliked the VK engines but this is a really cool little keyboard, and I feel like I can overlook a few flaws and make a few compromises for something that delivers so much for $999 (and weighs 12 pounds). I'm still not sure how I'm going to use it (and if they don't fix the expression pedal it will only be for backup).. but I'm having a lot of fun with it!

[voxpops]

I wouldn't hold my breath for a fix to any of these issues. The VR-09 seems to have been designed to be a do-it-all keyboard at a lowish price. I really don't believe it was supposed to compete head-on with Roland's own VR-700 or the Nord Electro. To expect Roland to provide firmware that will turn it into a $2k board - but sold at half that price - is, to my mind, unrealistic. This really is a case of, "does it meet my needs and expectations as is?"

[LX88]

If they fixed this percussion glitsch it actually would be a hell of a value.

[mate stubb]

I don't expect them to fix these issues either.

 

And I agree it's unrealistic to ask for a bunch of extra sounds.

 

But it would have cost no more to make the percussion without vibrato. The details matter, and this isn't esoteric knowledge.

[voxpops]

...it would have cost no more to make the percussion without vibrato. The details matter, and this isn't esoteric knowledge.

I believe that Roland, after all these years in the business, know exactly what they're doing when they design a board to have specific features and effects. They would know that a 17-year-old with a vacation job is neither going to consider a $2k board nor worry about esoteric details. They also know that a died-in-the-wool Hammond aficionado is going to be turned off by this small inconsistency, and will have to stump up more cash for a better emulation.

[Craig MacDonald]

If they fixed this percussion glitsch it actually would be a hell of a value.

 

LX88, I think this is VR-09 is "a hell of a value" whether this is fixed or not.. I didn't even notice this issue.. YOU are, an always have been, very particular about the C/V on these new clones, I understand that, and this is a big issue for you based on how you use the instrument. For me it's not a big deal, but it's wrong and I agree it should be fixed.

[Craig MacDonald]

As far as OS updates.. the Roland Rep confirmed that it's easily done with a USB stick and a couple of button presses on power up.. Since it's easy to do, and I fully expect that Roland will gather input over a few months (from various sources) and when they're ready, we'll see an update. I don't think they're going to be like Hammond with it's "work in progress" approach to updating the SK series (with numerous updates), but I do think that we'll see an update from Roland within a few months (and don't post the when pigs fly picture again, I know I may be naive on this)..

 

 

 

 

[mate stubb]

I know I may be naive on this)..

 

 

Given Roland's history of non-updates, I and many others are skeptical. Hope I am wrong.

[RetroVintageOld]

Ive been skimming this thread and keep seeing things about the expression pedal. Am I correct in understanding that the VRo9 can not layer an organ and piano sound and have the expression pedal only control the organ?

YES this is correct, this is a very significant issue from my perspective, because I often want to split/layer an acoustic instrument with organ and I want only the organ to be controlled by the expression pedal. There is a work around using an external midi box, but it's a $149 solution.. I have reported this to my Roland rep, and others who have one should do the same. The more they hear about this, especially if they hear that people are NOT purchasing a VR-09 because of this, hopefully they'll fix it.. (no need for any "when pigs can fly" pictures..)..

 

Deal breaker for me. I want a way to fade organ in and out for quick stabs and horn lines while the piano stays constant. Even the Juno DI can do that.

[Craig MacDonald]

Deal breaker for me. I want a way to fade organ in and out for quick stabs and horn lines while the piano stays constant. Even the Juno DI can do that.

 

Initially, I felt it was a deal breaker for me as well, because I do the same thing in my classic rock band, but given it's drawbar organ AND it's other sounds (including a VA synth) I concluded that it could be a backup for either my Mojo organ OR my Kronos if I had problems with either... so at 12 pounds and $999 I decided to keep it.. IF they come out with a fix for the expression pedal then I may also use it as a single keyboard for small/tight gigs or rehearsal! I could also just by the Midi solutions pedal controller.. I may yet do that.

[Nicky]

I tried one of these out. In my opinion, with the exception of the B3 engine, a used XP30 (with keys of the 60's and 70's and vintage synth cards) is a WAY better "budget" keybd. An Xp30 sounds better, has a better action, has aftertouch, built in power supply, and much better midi control, and you can program the thing without an iPad. The rhodes are awful on the VR-09 (the 1st "vintage EP" is hideous), for me, most of the sound set sounds thin and super dated. I think the organ sounds ok but not convinced it sounds better than the VK7 I used to own...An XP30 triggering a laptop with ANY B3 plug in, using some sort of controller for drawbars, is a much better sounding rig.

I think Roland has gone backwards, even considering the price.

 

[garnermike]

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.

 

[garnermike]

I tried one of these out. In my opinion, with the exception of the B3 engine, a used XP30 (with keys of the 60's and 70's and vintage synth cards) is a WAY better "budget" keybd. An Xp30 sounds better, has a better action, has aftertouch, built in power supply, and much better midi control, and you can program the thing without an iPad. The rhodes are awful on the VR-09 (the 1st "vintage EP" is hideous), for me, most of the sound set sounds thin and super dated. I think the organ sounds ok but not convinced it sounds better than the VK7 I used to own...An XP30 triggering a laptop with ANY B3 plug in, using some sort of controller for drawbars, is a much better sounding rig.

I think Roland has gone backwards, even considering the price.

 

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?

[Nicky]

I think my point is more that Roland came out with an XP30 almost 15 yrs ago for $999, and in my opinion, it's a much better instrument, physically and sonically. I personally think this age of "budget" keyboards that all the companies are putting out there is not a good thing for us musicians. I also think the budget mentality is even creeping in to the more high end gear, in terms of construction.

But if the VR09 does it for you, then that's great for you, as you're not spending a ton of dough.

[AnotherScott]

But it would have cost no more to make the percussion without vibrato. .

We don't know that for a fact. The electronics to process the organ sound through the C/V effect while simultaneously generating the percussion sound without C/V before merging the two into the Leslie effect may have required a more sophisticated electronics design than what they went with.

 

Am I correct in understanding that the VRo9 can not layer an organ and piano sound and have the expression pedal only control the organ?

YES this is correct, this is a very significant issue from my perspective, because I often want to split/layer an acoustic instrument with organ and I want only the organ to be controlled by the expression pedal. There is a work around using an external midi box, but it's a $149 solution..

 

Deal breaker for me.

As long as there is a workaround, I don't see why it should be a deal breaker. The board is $999. If you can make it do what you want with a $149 additional purchase, just pretend the board came that way and cost $1148. Still a good deal!

 

I tried one of these out. In my opinion, with the exception of the B3 engine, a used XP30 (with keys of the 60's and 70's and vintage synth cards) is a WAY better "budget" keybd.

Well, used stuff can always provide high values. But the main thing to me is that you start with "with the exception of the B3 engine" which reminds me of the old joke, "but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" Like the SK1, the B3 function is the primary appeal of the board. In either case, if you didn't really care about B3 emulation, there are numerous boards you can get for the same money that are more capable (in other areas).

[Dana.]

The Rhodes on the '60s & '70s board are quite bad. Lose-lose. No one is (or should be) buying the VR for the EPs.

 

Quite astounding/ridiculous that this thread has 1,000+ posts. There is nothing about the VR that justifies that.

 

 

[Tobias Åslund]

Well, I have an old XP30 - the good thing about it is the build quality and the feel of the keyboard. The bad thing is how it sounds. I have the Keyboard of the '60s & '70s board and by today standards the Rhodes and the Hammond sounds are pretty bad - and I have spent a lot time tweaking them to be as good as possible. The filters in the XP30 are not good at all and there is aliasing - analog sounds don't sound very realistic.

I have not played a VR-09, but I cannot imagine that it would sound worse than an XP30. The video demos I've seen point in the opposite direction. They are also completely different type of keyboards, so I don't really se a point in this comparison.

I also think you're wrong about the two being in the same price range. At least in Sweden the price of the XP30 was almost twice as high (~14 000 SEK) as the new VR09 (~8 000 SEK), so then it's no surprise that the build quality and keyboard action of the XP30 was better.

[iluvchiclets]

It seems like on the surface it would be easy for Roland to fix the C/V order...what the keyboard needs is to have the C/V applied to the fundamental organ tone, but before the percussion tone.

 

We can understand that the Percussion tone is a separate sample, as it can be applied freely at any time. It sounds as if it would be as easy as changing the effect algorithm in an update.

 

...at least is seems easy to me...! Be interesting to see what happens.

[Craig MacDonald]

The Rhodes on the '60s & '70s board are quite bad. Lose-lose. No one is (or should be) buying the VR for the EPs.

 

Quite astounding/ridiculous that this thread has 1,000+ posts. There is nothing about the VR that justifies that.

 

The fact that there are 30+ pages speaks for itself.. there is a lot of interest in this 12 pound keyboard! First sub $1000 Hammond clone (which in itself completely justifies the interest) plus a VA Jupiter Synth, and a reasonably good set of acoustic and synth samples, along with a free iPad editor.. Seriously, if that doesn't explain the interest to you I don't know what will. If you don't like the EP samples.. fine, don't buy one. They are quite workable from my perspective.

[Craig MacDonald]

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.

 

Mike, I never use percussion on slow, and you seldom use percussion at all.. that was my point to LX88 that, while he sees this as a "fatal" flaw in the VR-09, I don't see it as huge issue (although I agree 100% that for the sake of getting an authentic sound it should be fixed!)..

 

Regarding the leslie sim on the acoustic piano.. I have the same issue.. if I layer piano and organ, I get the leslie sim on both and it doesn't matter whether the organ is on top or bottom of the layer. Also, the leslie controls are changed.. so I have the joystick no longer works for leslie speed changes.

 

I'll make sure that this is reported as well, you should do the same.

[Dglavko]

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.

Dare you to start a new VR09 vs SK post - gonna be few who take issue with that and start another clonewheel shootout I bet...

 

[Craig MacDonald]

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.

Dare you to start a new VR09 vs SK post - gonna be few who take issue with that and start another clonewheel shootout I bet...

I have to say that this post surprised me as well.. I'm not sure that I would go so far as to say that the VR-09 organ sounds better than the SK1.. However, it does sound good, and I suppose that depending on what kind of hammond sound you're looking for, some might think that the VR-09 sounds better.

 

I really don't want to start another clonewheel debate/shootout. There is no question in my mind that the VR-09 organ engine is improved.. I always hated the VK engine, and I quite like this.. It's not the most authentic sounding clone, but it sounds good and it's fun to play.

[Dglavko]

Deal breaker for me. I want a way to fade organ in and out for quick stabs and horn lines while the piano stays constant. Even the Juno DI can do that.

 

Initially, I felt it was a deal breaker for me as well, because I do the same thing in my classic rock band, but given it's drawbar organ AND it's other sounds (including a VA synth) I concluded that it could be a backup for either my Mojo organ OR my Kronos if I had problems with either... so at 12 pounds and $999 I decided to keep it.. IF they come out with a fix for the expression pedal then I may also use it as a single keyboard for small/tight gigs or rehearsal! I could also just by the Midi solutions pedal controller.. I may yet do that.

You could just buy two VR09's. The cost and weight will still be less than even the Kronos' resale value. PM me first if you decide to do that though... :-)

[LX88]

The big area of improvement to me on the VR 09 is the leslie sim. I did prefer the overdrive of the VK8m ( 4 amp types, at least 3 very useful). The chorus vibrato and drawbar tone seem actually quite similar from what I heard.

 

So if you like the organ with the sim on a lot of the time and don't care about this percussion business, the VR 09 can probably be a really fun organ to play. The 12 pound thing has to be convienient.

 

One other thing I liked was that the percussion wasn't obnxiously loud on the factory setting. So it's going to sound good through a lot of amps right out of the box.

 

There are plenty of good things going on with this. There is enough there to get you through a lot of gigs.

 

 

[Josh Paxton]

Last night I got around to firing up the editor in the iPad, and I ran into another unpleasant surprise -- something that, IMO, absolutely should have been made clear in the documentation, and was not. According to the manual...

 

VR-09 Editor is an iPad app that allows you to edit the Organ Tones and Synth Tones of the Roland VR-09.

You can use the large display of the iPad to control the Harmonic Bar of a Organ Tone and the parameters of a Synth Tone.

 

To me, this seems to be saying that it lets you edit all the Synth tones -- that is, all the tones that fall under the Synth section of the board (as opposed to the Piano, Organ and Drum sections). However, that is not the case at all. Some of the Synth tones can be edited, but some of them can't; if you try to load them into the editor, the windows are grayed out.

 

Apparently the deal is that when they say "Synth Tone," they mean "a tone that is meant to sound like a synth," rather than "a tone in the Synth section." Generally, the Synth tones that sound like synths can be edited, while the Synth tones that simulate acoustic instruments can't. So the synth brass sounds can be edited, but the acoustic brass and reed sounds can't. Ditto with synth strings versus orchestral strings, and with synth bass versus electric/acoustic bass. Some of the choir sounds can be edited -- specifically, all the ones until you get to the infamous Jazz Scat sound; from there out they can't be. And none of the "Others" sounds (i.e. the GM sounds) are editable.

 

This is especially disappointing to me because the one thing I was looking forward to editing was the brass sounds, to get them to match what I need for those few unfortunate but unavoidable moments when I have to cover brass parts in my cover band. In fact I bought the board under the specific assumption that I would be able to do that, rather than be stuck with their presets. And I made that assumption specifically because that is what the wording of the ads, the documentation, and the live demonstrations led me to believe.

 

In the absolute best case scenario, this is piss-poor, grossly unclear documentation. In the worst case. it was deliberately made vague and misleading to try to hide the limits of the editor and make the board seem more flexible than it actually is. I have my opinions about where along that spectrum the reality of the situation is likely to fall, but I'll keep them to myself for the time being.

 

I'm guessing I'll still be able to make this board work for me, but I am not at all a happy customer right now.

[AnotherScott]

I think the VR's front panel "synth" section is kind of an entry point into two separate types of tone generation... VA synth (which is editable) and rompler (which is not).

[Craig MacDonald]

I think the VR's front panel "synth" section is kind of an entry point into two separate types of tone generation... VA synth (which is editable) and rompler (which is not).

AnotherScott is right there seems to be two separate types of tones in the piano/synth area. Those that are created using sample playback and those that are created using the Virtual Analog Synth and only those created using the Virtual Analog Synth can be edited. I've only started to understand this myself in the last 48 hours because I just got my ipad editor working.

 

A couple things though.. you can take any of the sample sounds and even though you can't edit them in the editor, you can still modify the sounds using the drawbars (which double as controls for ADSR Cutoff/Resonance) and you can save a modified sound as a registration!

 

Furthermore, if you look at the various waveforms that are available in the VA synth (363 in total) you'll find that pretty much every sound that's covered in the sample playback area can be recreated using the waves available in the VA synth engine.

 

For example if you're interested in a Trumpet section but you don't like the "StakTp Sect" program, you can just create your own trumpet registration using the VA synth.. all you have to do is call up the PCM wave 288 "TP Section" and take it from there. I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same basic wave, and the VA synth is really easy to work with. The fact that the VA synth has traditional waves (sine, triangle, square, noise etc).. along with 363 additional PCM waves that are pretty much all acoustic samples, means that you have a hell of a lot of potential to create whatever sounds you want, including acoustic sounds that don't currently exist in the sample library.

 

For example there's no bagpipe sound in the sample section but there's a bagpipe wave and you can easily create a bagpipe registration using the VA synth.

 

I can see that there might have been some confusion on the architecture of the VR-09. However, even the sample sounds can be edited to some degree (ADSR cutoff/resonance) and saved into registrations. Furthermore, you can also create your own version of these sounds using the PCM waves in the VA engine and save those as registrations as well.. Last but not least you can save unlimited registration sets..

 

I anticipate creating a lot of different registrations and I just went out and purchased a 4 pack of 8GB USB Sticks to start building registration sets!!

 

Hope this helps.. FunkeyStuff, try modifying the sounds using the drawbars and then if you can't get it the way you like, try to recreate the sound you want using the PCM Waves in the VA synth.. I'm sure you'll easily get what you want!

 

 

[eric]

The Rhodes on the '60s & '70s board are quite bad. Lose-lose. No one is (or should be) buying the VR for the EPs.

 

Quite astounding/ridiculous that this thread has 1,000+ posts. There is nothing about the VR that justifies that.

 

 

+10

 

Though I remain intrigued by this keyboard to be the occasional cheapskate ultra lite sub rig, I may do better by keeping that $999 in the bank and just slogging it out with generations of elder gear that gets the same end result.