VR-09 Hints and Tips

[simchaleh]

im kinda new to the drawbar thing, and the fact that the organ splitted to the bottom or the keyboard cant be octave changed, threw me off a bit. till i remembered the octave can be changed with the drawbars. is that the only way or am i missing something?

[Craig MacDonald]

That's pretty much the only way to do it (at least on the VR-09).. use the fundamental drawbars (bottom two) to raise or lower the tone by an octave.

[simchaleh]

Ok. I have another question regarding using the organ. I'm sorry I know they're really beginners questions, but the only organs I've played till now, the only control options on the keyboard were tremolo and Leslie on/off.

I'm trying to find the correct standard rock organ, and I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to sound right.

Should the Leslie always be on and just switching between slow and fast?

What Bout the chorus and percussion buttons?

My issue is that when I switch on the Leslie, suddenly I have no pinch to the organ and it falls under the mix.

 

Also I'm having an issue getting the piano to cut through the mix. I'm finding weird volume balances between all the sounds. Some are really loud and cut through the mix, and some are subtle And quite.

 

Another thing that bothers me in live playing, is that if during the gig, I want to make a quick volume change to one of the parts of a sound, or something else, as soon as I leave that sound, the change goes back to the way it was before. Is there some way to save ese changes without going into the registration saving menu. And there was other parameters (I can't remember which ones) that would save to the sound, even though I was going into the registration menu and saving there, as soon as I left the sound, the change was lost again.

 

btw, a nice setting i found for the acoustic piano is setting the tone to about 2 oclock, compesser to about 12, reverb to about 8. gives the piano some more presence

 

[simchaleh]

heres another bug i found on the vr09 with registration saving. please correct me if its an error on my part.

first of all, to make sure i understand correctly, if i saved a registry list to my usb, after loading the registry list from the usb, it becomes the default registry list, right?

however if i make any changes and saves to those registries, it basically changes the new default registries, but if i reload the registry list from my usb, it overwrites any changes i had made, unless in adition to saving the registry change, i need to also go into media, and overwrite that particular registry change, is that correct?

 

now the problem im having with a registry save, is that, if lets say i want to save a registry with a piano/strings split , but i want only the piano to come up when i press the registry button, and that i should have the option of on the fly splitting it to strings, so i create the split with the wanted sound on the bottom, then unpress the split button so i have only piano, and then write the registry. now when i select that registry, it will load me only a piano sound, and when i press split, it will load the strings sound underneath that i had selected. this works well,

however the glitch im finding, is that when i try to do this, but with an organ sound on the bottom, i set the split, and can save the registry this way with the organ on the buttom. but as soon as i unpress split, when i repress split again, it puts as default a different sound underneath each time. even though i overwrote the registry and registry list with the organ split underneath, but as soon as depressing the split, when i repress it on that same registry, the organ sound is gone. can someone please report this to roland, or tell me how. thnks

sb

[Craig MacDonald]

Ok. I have another question regarding using the organ. I'm sorry I know they're really beginners questions, but the only organs I've played till now, the only control options on the keyboard were tremolo and Leslie on/off.

I'm trying to find the correct standard rock organ, and I'm not sure why it doesn't seem to sound right.

Should the Leslie always be on and just switching between slow and fast?

What Bout the chorus and percussion buttons?

 

There is really no correct rock organ! Every setting imaginable has been used over the years. If you have a particular sound that you want to get, post a link and perhaps some of us can make suggestions as to how to get that sound.

 

 

My issue is that when I switch on the Leslie, suddenly I have no pinch to the organ and it falls under the mix.

 

The leslie makes the organ sound mellower, so it naturally doesn't cut as well through the mix. Use your drawbars (to find the right sonic space), tone control, and compression to assist with this issue.. and/or simply crank up the volume.

 

 

Also I'm having an issue getting the piano to cut through the mix. I'm finding weird volume balances between all the sounds. Some are really loud and cut through the mix, and some are subtle And quite.

 

That's pretty normal with most keyboard instruments like this.. different sounds have different characteristics, depending on the mix. I set my programs (in this case registrations) up in my home studio, and inevitabely I have to edit some volumes on the fly during the live performance. I can generally refine them over a couple of performances. But this kind of tweaking is normal (at least for me).. playing a mellow sound at home by yourself isn't going to sound as clean and clear in a mix with a guitarist beside you on 11.

 

 

Another thing that bothers me in live playing, is that if during the gig, I want to make a quick volume change to one of the parts of a sound, or something else, as soon as I leave that sound, the change goes back to the way it was before. Is there some way to save ese changes without going into the registration saving menu. And there was other parameters (I can't remember which ones) that would save to the sound, even though I was going into the registration menu and saving there, as soon as I left the sound, the change was lost again.

 

Other than saving to a registration there is no other way to save an parameters on the VR-09.

 

btw, a nice setting i found for the acoustic piano is setting the tone to about 2 oclock, compesser to about 12, reverb to about 8. gives the piano some more presence

 

THANKS FOR THE TIP!

[Craig MacDonald]

heres another bug i found on the vr09 with registration saving. please correct me if its an error on my part.

first of all, to make sure i understand correctly, if i saved a registry list to my usb, after loading the registry list from the usb, it becomes the default registry list, right?

however if i make any changes and saves to those registries, it basically changes the new default registries, but if i reload the registry list from my usb, it overwrites any changes i had made, unless in adition to saving the registry change, i need to also go into media, and overwrite that particular registry change, is that correct?

 

Yes based on my understanding. What is saved on the USB stick is a complete registration "set".. so if you load a registration set from your usb stick into the VR-09 and you make some changes to it, you are making changes to the registration IN the VR-09, NOT the registrations on the USB stick, if you want to save those changes for future retrieval, you'll need to save the registration set to the UBS stick again, either as a separate set or overwrite the existing set.

 

now the problem im having with a registry save, is that, if lets say i want to save a registry with a piano/strings split , but i want only the piano to come up when i press the registry button, and that i should have the option of on the fly splitting it to strings, so i create the split with the wanted sound on the bottom, then unpress the split button so i have only piano, and then write the registry. now when i select that registry, it will load me only a piano sound, and when i press split, it will load the strings sound underneath that i had selected. this works well,

however the glitch im finding, is that when i try to do this, but with an organ sound on the bottom, i set the split, and can save the registry this way with the organ on the buttom. but as soon as i unpress split, when i repress split again, it puts as default a different sound underneath each time. even though i overwrote the registry and registry list with the organ split underneath, but as soon as depressing the split, when i repress it on that same registry, the organ sound is gone. can someone please report this to roland, or tell me how. thnks

sb

 

I'm not sure if this is or isn't a bug... if I understand you want to create an organ/piano split registration and you want to be able to use the split button to activate/deactivate the split and have the organ remain? I don't have my VR-09 set up beside me today, so I can't test this, but my first thought is to ask you why you wouldn't simply set up two registrations side by side in a bank, that have the split/non-split sounds that you want and toggle back and forth between two registrations? That seems a lot easier to me than the way you're going about this..

 

IF you want to report this as a bug you can do so yourself, using the Roland Blog, and the link for the Blog is on the first page of the thread.

[Craig MacDonald]

I have mine hooked up to an EV5 its very jumpy. Forget swells!

It was in my opinion a waste of money. I should have gotten the extended range EV-7 or an adapter and a Yamaha FC-7. I'm pretty satisfied with that on my MOX.

 

I have used the Boss FV500 with mine and I don't particularly like it.. It's a nice big substantial pedal, which I like, but I don't like the expression curve, and I'm not sure if it's the VR-09 or the FV500 (but I suspect it's the FV500), I have tried different expression curves in the VR-09 but there are none that feel quite right. One other thing that I noticed, now and then, is that when you quickly move the pedal from full to zero and then slowly increase the expression pedal the volume will start to increase as you would expect, and than it just drops off completely and then begins increasing again.. which is rather weird.. Again don't know if this is the VR-09 or the FV500.

[brenner13]

M-Audio EX-P is a cheapy, but works fairly well with the VR09. Not much happens for the first 1/4 from all the way down, but is fairly smooth after that...just wish there was more travel because it is pretty sensitive.

[niacin]

I have mine hooked up to an EV5 its very jumpy. Forget swells!

It was in my opinion a waste of money. I should have gotten the extended range EV-7 or an adapter and a Yamaha FC-7. I'm pretty satisfied with that on my MOX.

 

I have used the Boss FV500 with mine and I don't particularly like it.. It's a nice big substantial pedal, which I like, but I don't like the expression curve, and I'm not sure if it's the VR-09 or the FV500 (but I suspect it's the FV500), I have tried different expression curves in the VR-09 but there are none that feel quite right. One other thing that I noticed, now and then, is that when you quickly move the pedal from full to zero and then slowly increase the expression pedal the volume will start to increase as you would expect, and than it just drops off completely and then begins increasing again.. which is rather weird.. Again don't know if this is the VR-09 or the FV500.

 

If you look at the curves for the expression pedal in the manual they actually vary in how the volume of the rhythm section is effected compared to the volume of your keyboard sounds. The curves for the keyboard sounds don't vary much themselves. And there's neither a linear option nor a scooped out option, in fact the only variation on the main curve is the opposite of a scooped out curve, so that both available curves for the keyboard sounds give you a very small range to work with. Another head-scratcher of a design decision if you ask me.

[Craig MacDonald]

If you look at the curves for the expression pedal in the manual they actually vary in how the volume of the rhythm section is effected compared to the volume of your keyboard sounds. The curves for the keyboard sounds don't vary much themselves. And there's neither a linear option nor a scooped out option, in fact the only variation on the main curve is the opposite of a scooped out curve, so that both available curves for the keyboard sounds give you a very small range to work with. Another head-scratcher of a design decision if you ask me.

Niacin, I agree with you on this.. I expected to at least see a linear option and a scooped out option.. and in all 4 options there is very little change in the last 15-20% of the the curve.

 

During live performances I've found it a bit challenging to operate the expression pedal, however this last Saturday night it seemed a bit better for me.. I'm not exactly sure if it's because I'm getting used to it or it was adjusted differently.. I think that the low setting on the FV500 was set a little higher than normal, and this felt better.. I guess it took variable range and spread it out a bit more.. it left the organ sounding a tad loud when the the expression pedal was all the way off, but it made it easier to ride it during the songs. I think I'll probably do that from now on.

[Craig MacDonald]

I used the VR-09 on another gig Saturday night, and I noticed something a bit different. I keep saying that I am going to try using the VR-09 by itself, without the ventilator, but that said, I chickened out and used the Vent again on Saturday.. However, things sounded a bit different at this venue and the internal VR-09 overdrive actually sounded pretty good. I had the Vent OD at about 11:00 for a bit of grit, and when it came time for that Deep Purple stack of marshalls sound I turned the VR-09 up to 12:00 and the combination sounded really great. We were playing pretty loud and the organ sound that was cutting through was very nice.. and it had a real Jon Lord tone to it..

 

Once again the VR-09 worked flawlessly for me.. although I did the same dumb thing and got my banks confused, and selected the wrong registration. I got some feedback from my guitarist on the VR-09 (as compared to my normal Crumar Mojo organ) and he said was extremely impressed with the organ sound I was getting, but having paid a bit more attention to it on Saturday night he that that it just wasn't quite as "present" and "big" sounding as my Mojo. Of course I would agree 100% with him on this.. the Mojo is just more authentic sounding, and it's fuller sounding and it has the "body" of that real Hammond sound. However, he did say that the VR-09 sound was excellent, and it worked very well in the mix.

[Kevmo]

https://soundcloud.com/#stream

 

On my Kevmo soundcloud I have Louisiana( B3) & Memphis underground ( flute & Rhodes). Recorded on my first gig with new band via Zoom H1 on top of lower Casio keys. What do you all think?

[Craig MacDonald]

The link doesn't work or me....

[Kevmo]

??? Works here try the soundcloud site then search for Kevmo?

[To B3]

soundcloud.com/kevmo works

 

Sounds great to me, even the rhodes.

 

About the VR-09 and recording: can you use the looper function when a second keybpard is plugged on the instrument IN of the VR-09, with the sounds of the other keyboard or just the internal sounds are allowed?

[brenner13]

I think only the internal sounds are recordable to the VR09's internal memory. The 1/8" aux input seems to bypass everything and go strait to the stereo outs and headphone.

[niacin]

Fairly early on in the mega thread on the VR-09 it was speculated that if you wanted to control the voulme of one side of a split with a pedal you could get a MIDI Solutions pedal unit and have it send midi CC#7 to e.g. channel 4 if you just want the right hand of a split to respond to the pedal.

 

Well not quite. I set up my old Anatek midi pedal unit and then I sent the following email to Roland US:

 

I want to control the volume of the upper part only when I have a split set up with organ assigned to the upper part. If I plug a pedal straight into the VR-09 it sends volume messages to both upper and lower parts. So today I got around to hooking up my Anatek MIDI Pedal unit to see if I could send volume changes to the upper part only. So I set the VR-09 up with MIDI Mode #2 and set the Anatek unit to send volume changes (cc#7) on channel 4 as per the VR-09 manual. I had just turned on the VR-09 so the piano patch was up, and I got a nice linear sweep through the volume range with the pedal. Sweet. But then I switch to organ mode and the pedal has no effect on the sound. Back to the clav and were all good again. Try a synth sound and its fine. But I cant get the organ to respond to midi volume messages. It's the same in split mode, any of the piano or synth sounds set to the upper part respond to CC#7 on midi channel 4

except the organ, which is what I need to control. Help.

 

They confirmed this is indeed the case. The organ sounds will only respond to sysex. Shoot me.

 

I will say that, in contradiction to suggestions on the other thread, the Roland US support guys were really helpful: they replicated the problem and then sent off a query to Roland Japan and had an answer for me within 24 hours. Kudos to them. The Japanese designers however have really crippled this thing. I am hoping they implement a volume pedal menu the same as the damper pedal menu so that in split mode we can choose which part the pedal effects, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Craig MacDonald]

Fairly early on in the mega thread on the VR-09 it was speculated that if you wanted to control the voulme of one side of a split with a pedal you could get a MIDI Solutions pedal unit and have it send midi CC#7 to e.g. channel 4 if you just want the right hand of a split to respond to the pedal.

 

Well not quite. I set up my old Anatek midi pedal unit and then I sent the following email to Roland US:

 

I want to control the volume of the upper part only when I have a split set up with organ assigned to the upper part. If I plug a pedal straight into the VR-09 it sends volume messages to both upper and lower parts. So today I got around to hooking up my Anatek MIDI Pedal unit to see if I could send volume changes to the upper part only. So I set the VR-09 up with MIDI Mode #2 and set the Anatek unit to send volume changes (cc#7) on channel 4 as per the VR-09 manual. I had just turned on the VR-09 so the piano patch was up, and I got a nice linear sweep through the volume range with the pedal. Sweet. But then I switch to organ mode and the pedal has no effect on the sound. Back to the clav and were all good again. Try a synth sound and its fine. But I cant get the organ to respond to midi volume messages. It's the same in split mode, any of the piano or synth sounds set to the upper part respond to CC#7 on midi channel 4

except the organ, which is what I need to control. Help.

 

They confirmed this is indeed the case. The organ sounds will only respond to sysex. Shoot me.

 

I will say that, in contradiction to suggestions on the other thread, the Roland US support guys were really helpful: they replicated the problem and then sent off a query to Roland Japan and had an answer for me within 24 hours. Kudos to them. The Japanese designers however have really crippled this thing. I am hoping they implement a volume pedal menu the same as the damper pedal menu so that in split mode we can choose which part the pedal effects, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Niacin, I appreciate your post on this.!! One quick question.. when I read the Midi implementation document it looks like volume is on cc9 but expression is on cc11... did you try CC11 and if so were the results the same?

 

I'm just wondering if this makes any difference.. I suspect that the organ would be set up to respond to CC11 rather than CC9..

 

Is this something you could try?

[Craig MacDonald]

By the way, I agree with Niacin that it really looks like Roland have purposely designed in some limitations into the VR-09, but I don't think that "crippled" is the term I would use.. The VR-09 is a VERY capable Hammond organ clone for under $1000. I think of it more as a governor/limiter.. in that the VR-09 is capable of 140 mph but they've put a limitor on it so it can't exceed 120 mph. I can only think of 2 reasons why Roland would put these limitations on the VR-09:

 

1. The hardware is at, or close to, it's maximum performance (for example there may not be enough horse power in the VR-09 to process two separate sets of multi-effects on split or layered sounds), so limits are put on the features/functionality to ensure smooth performance.

 

2. They want to deliniate between product A (perhaps a low cost organ) and product B (a higher end product). In which case, if you want an inexpensive drawbar organ and don't mind certain limitations you choose the VR-09, but if you want waterfall keys, more controller functions, and better effects layering etc.. you choose the VK-9/99 (or whatever a higher end organ might be called).

 

I wonder if there is another drawbar organ sitting in the wings waiting to be announced.. with two sets of drawbars, waterfall keys, better controller functions etc.. at the $2000 price point? It would make some sense that they would test the waters with a low cost model, see how it sells and see how good the feedback is on the new organ emulation before they release the new flagship Roland organ.

 

It is encouraging that Niacin found the Roland tech support folks good to deal with.. that is my experience as well so far. I am a bit more optimistic that the VR-09 will see an update in the not to distant future.. there are a few things that definately need to be changed. The issues that strike me as things that MUST be fixed/changed are the expression pedal issue, percussion going through C/V, and the issue with layered sounds going through the leslie sim.. I also think that losing all effects on the lower part of a split is a problem too.. I can understand that the VR-09 may not be able to process complex MFX on both upper/lower parts, but it seems to me that you should be able to have ONE different effect on a lower part (like the phaser on a phased piano sound).

[Craig MacDonald]

KEVMO, I got your soundcloud clips working by simply changing the #stream to kevmo.. the organ sounds great on the Louisiana LGB tune!!! Very nice.. !! If you get a chance can you tell us what you were using for an amp/monitor system and how this was recorded.. I assume this was the internal sim?

 

I think that you have to admit that this is a pretty great hammond sound for $999..

[AnotherScott]

I can only think of 2 reasons why Roland would put these limitations on the VR-09:

 

1. The hardware is at, or close to, it's maximum performance (for example there may not be enough horse power in the VR-09 to process two separate sets of multi-effects on split or layered sounds), so limits are put on the features/functionality to ensure smooth performance.

 

2. They want to deliniate between product A (perhaps a low cost organ) and product B (a higher end product). In which case, if you want an inexpensive drawbar organ and don't mind certain limitations you choose the VR-09, but if you want waterfall keys, more controller functions, and better effects layering etc.. you choose the VK-9/99 (or whatever a higher end organ might be called).

 

3. There's always a balance between functionality and simplicity. They may have opted to leave some features out to make operation simpler.

 

4. There may have been a higher cost associated with being able to implement some feature.

 

5. A design decision made early in development could have created some limitations in what they were able to do later.

 

I can understand that the VR-09 may not be able to process complex MFX on both upper/lower parts, but it seems to me that you should be able to have ONE different effect on a lower part (like the phaser on a phased piano sound).

Architecturally, there's a bigger jump going from zero fx to one than from one to multi.

 

Also, getting back to the idea that a design goal for the piece is simplicity of operation, even assuming that the hardware electronics and the software design of the instrument could permit sound A to go through one effect and sound B to go through another (a huge assumption), you'd still have to deal with the interface issues. i.e., if you have different fx on the two split/layered sound, and you reach to turn a knob on the fx panel, how do you specify which of the two sounds you want affected?

[Craig MacDonald]

I can only think of 2 reasons why Roland would put these limitations on the VR-09:

 

1. The hardware is at, or close to, it's maximum performance (for example there may not be enough horse power in the VR-09 to process two separate sets of multi-effects on split or layered sounds), so limits are put on the features/functionality to ensure smooth performance.

 

2. They want to deliniate between product A (perhaps a low cost organ) and product B (a higher end product). In which case, if you want an inexpensive drawbar organ and don't mind certain limitations you choose the VR-09, but if you want waterfall keys, more controller functions, and better effects layering etc.. you choose the VK-9/99 (or whatever a higher end organ might be called).

 

3. There's always a balance between functionality and simplicity. They may have opted to leave some features out to make operation simpler.

 

4. There may have been a higher cost associated with being able to implement some feature.

 

5. A design decision made early in development could have created some limitations in what they were able to do later.

 

I can understand that the VR-09 may not be able to process complex MFX on both upper/lower parts, but it seems to me that you should be able to have ONE different effect on a lower part (like the phaser on a phased piano sound).

Architecturally, there's a bigger jump going from zero fx to one than from one to multi.

 

Also, getting back to the idea that a design goal for the piece is simplicity of operation, even assuming that the hardware electronics and the software design of the instrument could permit sound A to go through one effect and sound B to go through another (a huge assumption), you'd still have to deal with the interface issues. i.e., if you have different fx on the two split/layered sound, and you reach to turn a knob on the fx panel, how do you specify which of the two sounds you want affected?

 

I'm only talking about having one effects "slot" on the lower section so that you can take a piano or synth sound that has one basic effect on it.. (like a phased EP) and maintain that one basic effect in a split or layer.

 

I fully understand the balance between functionality and simplicity, and from my perspective the VR-09 gets kudos for the great interface.. HOWEVER, there are several basic flaws in the implementation here, whether they are purposeful designs or just plain dumb decisions.. The three areas I identified are perfect examples of that.. Percussion going through the C/V is wrong.. (it's not how a Hammond works).. controlling a Hammond organ via the expression pedal is fundamental to the instrument so when it is in a layer it should do that.. on the other hand controlling an acoustic piano via an expression pedal is NOT typical of the instrument so when you layer an acoustic piano and a Hammond organ emulation together the expression pedal should work independently to control the organ and NOT the acoustic piano.. last but not least it's just plain dumb to force any instrument layered with an organ to go through the leslie sim..

 

I get what you're saying, but these things are wrong and I think that we should stay on Roland to get these things changed.. Personally this make a MAJOR difference in how I can or can't use my VR-09.. Fix the expression control and leslie layering issue and I can use this VR-09 alone for a gig.. as it stands I can only use it as an organ/controller.

 

[AnotherScott]

 

I'm only talking about having one effects "slot" on the lower section so that you can take a piano or synth sound that has one basic effect on it.. (like a phased EP) and maintain that one basic effect in a split or layer.

I understand, but still, even IF (huge IF) the hardware and the underlying software design could theoretically support splitting/layering two sounds each with their own MFX setting (so that an EP could have a phaser setting when split or layered with, say, a clav with wah), there are also interface issues. So you're really asking for three things here: you're asking for it to do two MFX at once (something it can't currently do); you're asking for it to route one sound through one effect algorithm and a second sound through a different one (something else it can't currently do); and you're asking for some way to have a single MFX knob control two effects (or be switchable as to which of two sounds it will affect). My point is just that you make it sound like this should be simple, and I see plenty of possible complications.

 

HOWEVER, there are several basic flaws in the implementation here, whether they are purposeful designs or just plain dumb decisions.. The three areas I identified are perfect examples of that.. Percussion going through the C/V is wrong.. (it's not how a Hammond works).. controlling a Hammond organ via the expression pedal is fundamental to the instrument so when it is in a layer it should do that.. on the other hand controlling an acoustic piano via an expression pedal is NOT typical of the instrument so when you layer an acoustic piano and a Hammond organ emulation together the expression pedal should work independently to control the organ and NOT the acoustic piano.. last but not least it's just plain dumb to force any instrument layered with an organ to go through the leslie sim..

I agree, those would be three significant improvements. And at least the first and third would not have complicated the operation of the board in any way. We don't know if these things were misguided decisions, or somehow overlooked, or if they are just not do-able within the board's architecture (for example due to my #4 or #5 above). Unless Roland comes out with an update to alter these behaviors, we'll probably never know.

[To B3]

Something came up and got me thinking... can we route the organ just throught the leslie on the MFX section and not the main leslie sim? If so, is it still controlable regarding fast/slow and things like that?

 

If it's possible, an organ/piano layer would still have the piano passing through the same leslie MFX (the one that would be used instead the main leslie) too?

 

Edit: Just found it on the manual and is specifies that both layers go through the same effect... so, no escape here until the OS Update (fingers crossing that it happens).

 

Nothing new about that yet? Really hoping that Roland is not saving tha good stuff for a possible 2000 dollars model...

[Craig MacDonald]

ToB3,

 

That's a good suggestion, I'll have to try that when I get my VR-09 setup..

[rien]

you'd still have to deal with the interface issues. i.e., if you have different fx on the two split/layered sound, and you reach to turn a knob on the fx panel, how do you specify which of the two sounds you want affected?

beneath the organ section, there is a button for upper/lower manual. this button is dedicated to organ mode, i think it would be a handy button to select between the upper and lower part of splits and layers, whatever sound is used.

 

actually, i find it painful to select upper/lower organ manual using this button but being forced to use the up/down arrows near the screen when there is no organ involved. the upper/lower button is more accessible, and gives a more visual clue with its red light ! also, the up/down arrows, beside selecting the split or layer part, allows to select the mfx type: multiple keypresses and many ways to miss the target. how many times did i mess a split because i highlighted the wrong line !

 

(you could argue that this button lies in the organ section but remember that the drawbars, which also lies in the organ section, are actually useful when using a synth sound)

[niacin]

Hi Craig,

The email from Roland US said that the organ doesn't respond to either CC#7 or CC#11, but will respond to sysex, and that it is in the midi spec, which I haven't checked yet. I may even end up getting a box from MIDI Solutions to translate the volume and drawbar sysex into CC#s so I can use it to control VB3 when I want to.

 

I will say that I didn't find myself thinking about the key action at all during the 2 (funk band with horns) rehearsals I've used it for, which is a good thing, and would be more than happy to have it controlling VB3 when I'm doing a trio gig. The VR-09 organ is great in a mix, but as you're bandmate noticed it doesn't have the presence of VB3 and I don't think I'd be happy with the sound in a trio situation.

Cheers,

Peter

 

Fairly early on in the mega thread on the VR-09 it was speculated that if you wanted to control the voulme of one side of a split with a pedal you could get a MIDI Solutions pedal unit and have it send midi CC#7 to e.g. channel 4 if you just want the right hand of a split to respond to the pedal.

 

Well not quite. I set up my old Anatek midi pedal unit and then I sent the following email to Roland US:

 

I want to control the volume of the upper part only when I have a split set up with organ assigned to the upper part. If I plug a pedal straight into the VR-09 it sends volume messages to both upper and lower parts. So today I got around to hooking up my Anatek MIDI Pedal unit to see if I could send volume changes to the upper part only. So I set the VR-09 up with MIDI Mode #2 and set the Anatek unit to send volume changes (cc#7) on channel 4 as per the VR-09 manual. I had just turned on the VR-09 so the piano patch was up, and I got a nice linear sweep through the volume range with the pedal. Sweet. But then I switch to organ mode and the pedal has no effect on the sound. Back to the clav and were all good again. Try a synth sound and its fine. But I cant get the organ to respond to midi volume messages. It's the same in split mode, any of the piano or synth sounds set to the upper part respond to CC#7 on midi channel 4

except the organ, which is what I need to control. Help.

 

They confirmed this is indeed the case. The organ sounds will only respond to sysex. Shoot me.

 

I will say that, in contradiction to suggestions on the other thread, the Roland US support guys were really helpful: they replicated the problem and then sent off a query to Roland Japan and had an answer for me within 24 hours. Kudos to them. The Japanese designers however have really crippled this thing. I am hoping they implement a volume pedal menu the same as the damper pedal menu so that in split mode we can choose which part the pedal effects, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

Niacin, I appreciate your post on this.!! One quick question.. when I read the Midi implementation document it looks like volume is on cc9 but expression is on cc11... did you try CC11 and if so were the results the same?

 

I'm just wondering if this makes any difference.. I suspect that the organ would be set up to respond to CC11 rather than CC9..

 

Is this something you could try?

KEVMO, I got your soundcloud clips working by simply changing the #stream to kevmo.. the organ sounds great on the Louisiana LGB tune!!! Very nice.. !! If you get a chance can you tell us what you were using for an amp/monitor system and how this was recorded.. I assume this was the internal sim?

 

I think that you have to admit that this is a pretty great hammond sound for $999..

[Kevmo]

Craig

 

Vr to -Vent mono to EV ELX12

recorded on Zoom H1 on top of lower keys CP100. Post processed with tube compression mastering tools in Adobe Audition

[Craig MacDonald]

Craig

 

Vr to -Vent mono to EV ELX12

recorded on Zoom H1 on top of lower keys CP100. Post processed with tube compression mastering tools in Adobe Audition

 

Kevmo thanks for the info.. the organ sounds great...!! Very authentic sounding in this clip, and a nice performance!

[Kevmo]

Thanks

Im loving this bd worts &the all and so is my band