VR09 first gig

[richforman]

So I've owned the instrument for about a month but last night was the first time I brought it along for a gig. Had gone back and forth on whether I'd do that at all; some of the limitations I experienced with it made me think that it might end up relegated to a lightweight easy-to-bring board for more casual rehearsals, jams, or just to keep set at up for learning songs at home without having to unpack and set up my "real" rig. But anyway my favorite thing about it, the organ sounds (better than my B4000+) made me want to incorporate it into the rig I use in my Billy Joel tribute (where I'm second keys, not "Billy"), where I use a fair amount of organ and really no piano (the main guy handles all that), so I figured I could easily get by without my Yamaha S80 that I mostly use for its 88-weighted character and good AP/EP sounds (as well as for lots of other good sounds and features including Master Mode) on gigs that call for lots of piano (most other gigs besides this one), and bring the VR09 instead. (Still needed is my Fantom X, for the many song-specific multi-timbral setups, the huge palette of good usable sounds and custom sample playback I need on this gig, ....and most others.) Different tools for different situations. ANYWAY!!! The nice result was that I got lots of compliments from my bandleader and bandmates for some of the new different sounds coming out of my new axe! (I didn't think they'd notice at all.) They appreciated and commented on a warmer, smoother, more accurate sound than what they were used to hearing from me for a number of my patches including harmonica, accordion, brass, Rhodes, and the improved authenticity of my B3 sounds. And I really appreciated and enjoyed, more than I got a chance to when just fiddling around with the instrument at home, the ease and speed of switching around on the fly between, and tweaking as I went along, dfferent patches, without even having everything necessarily thought and programmed out the way I usually do. Very "real-time" oriented, definitely fun and confidence-building. So anyway my new board has now earned an (occasional at least) spot in my gigging rig, for those circumstances when I can do without either my S80 (if I don't need piano and master mode) OR my Fantom-X (if I don't need complex spits and sample playback). If I do need those things (as admittedly, I still will for the majority of bands I gig with), then it'll still be my "regular"/real rig, with the S80, Fantom X, and my B4000+ velcroed on top of the Fantom to do the organ work; but otherwise the new VR09 will replace one of those two on my stand.

[AnotherScott]

Very "real-time" oriented, definitely fun

Yeah, that's the special appeal of dedicated, labeled, controls, logically placed and well sized for their functions... it's part of whay people like their Nords, Moogs, SV1...

[richforman]

Hey Scott, going on CTTE this year? I do wish that the VR09 also had similar, always-on dedicated controls specifically for the Leslie-sim settings, like fast/slow speeds and accelerate/brake times, just as it does for reverb, delay, overdrive, adsr, etc. Those things I would also like to play with in real time but as it is they do require menu-diving or registration-saving.

[AnotherScott]

Hey Scott, going on CTTE this year?

No, though you know how much I enjoyed the last two!

[brenner13]

It is good to hear another successful live experience with this little gig machine. I find it complements what's missing in the Fantom (passable organ) quite well.

 

Perhaps a bit of an underutilization, but the iPad editor can provide control for some organ bits that are missing from the VR09's front panel; although I still find the tablet interface to be cumbersome in live situations for most anything except for song charts and lyric reminders.

 

Anyway, thanks for the cool gig review.

[marczellm]

That the VR09 is great at harmonica, accordion and brass is new to me, the info is appreciated. How do you create articulation? Volume pedal? Modstick?

[richforman]

Well I didn't say necessarily that it's great at them, just that I got compliments on those patches from my bandmates (and these were on the baseline of the patches I had previously used for these, from either my S80 or Fantom X - so, not claiming the new axe is "great at" them, but rather, that to the ears of a few friends of mine, they were better in comparison to the versions of them they were used to hearing from my other two keyboards). In general I really like the quality of most of the built-in sounds on my VR09 but of course it's all strictly subjective. Anyway the keyboard is touch sensitive and I use that as well as, yes, joystick, the d-beam, expression pedal and again, the dedicated knobs and sliders that control the effects and tone quality in real-time, for articulation/expression (to the extent of my limited abilities!).

 

[MathOfInsects]

That the VR09 is great at harmonica, accordion and brass is new to me, the info is appreciated. How do you create articulation? Volume pedal? Modstick?

 

The harmonica is particularly strong--perhaps their best non-keyboard sample, IMO.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the brass, but they do sit nicely in a larger orchestral mix, if you're using one. (Particularly the french horns.)

 

In general, I find a bit of latency in the attack for horns, relative to the keystrike--giving them a bit of a reggae-like laid-back feel. When I adjust for this on the system level, the trigger point becomes too high for the keyboard patches.

 

Big disclaimer here is that I am not a big fan of horns played by keyboard players in general, so I may just be biased (or unskilled).

[richforman]

Question: When you adjust tone parameters using the knobs, (e.g. Reverb, decay, fx amount, overdrive), are those choices global to the instrument and stay in effect when you switch tones, or do they reset to pre-programmed values associated with the newly selected tone? It sounds to me like it's the former (which I don't care for) but maybe I'm mis-perceiving it. Same question for the parameters controlled with sliders, which are the amp envelope and cutoff freq/resonance.

 

[brenner13]

It all resets with a press of any preset or registration button.

[Philip Clark]

Yeah, my VR09 is my dedicated organ when I do a two-board rig. Thing'll rip your head off if you tweak it right.

[MathOfInsects]

It all resets with a press of any preset or registration button.

 

Although--annoyingly, sometimes--NOT if you switch sounds within a registration. Meaning: call up a pre-saved registration, say, a Piano/Synth split. Tweak the Reverb with the knob to karaoke levels. Decide you really want strings and bass, and press the Strings and Bass selectors. As far as the VR-09 is concerned, you are still in the same registration, and you will still have the karaoke-level reverb. You have to literally call up another registration to reset those settings.

 

(One exception is the MFX, which is different patch-to-patch, and will not keep the previous one, even within the same registration.)

 

Same is true, by the way, if you're spinning the wheel to select sounds: whatever you've tweaked on the knobs for that registration will stay in effect until you literally choose a different registration.

 

Yeah, my VR09 is my dedicated organ when I do a two-board rig. Thing'll rip your head off if you tweak it right.

 

That's the dirty little secret that somehow keeps this board in my rig: it's a beefy b*stard of an organ, when it wants to be.

 

Plus the synth sounds and the easy availability of tweakage make for fun solos.

[DenCV]

I agree on the harp patch. I had fun at a blues jam one night, one of the local top dog harp players was way back at the bar not paying attention so I switched it on. His ears perked right up. Then I started soloing on a diminished scale which he later told me you can't do on a diatonic harp, and it brought him up front to see who was playing harp. He told me it totally fooled him up until the dim. runs.

 

[agitato]

How realistic/authentic do the clav patches sound? Do they have all 4 pickup switch tones?