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Nice Demo, he made it sound far better than I did!!

I agree with both Craig AND Hammondave at the same time, if thats possible! I think the Vr-09 is a very good attempt to put a lot of sounds into a cheapish keyboard, the organs are good etc, synths great, BUT I also think there's been a few too many corners cut. Having to buy a Ipad to edit the synth means spending another £300-400 so then its not so cheap! Only has 200 sounds and does NOT have top quality piano, but could have had, not really enough SUPERNATURAL sounds. If they had packed more quality sounds in and had editable synth with a decent size Screen, sure charge a bit more this would have been KILLER keyboard. Plus some of the bugs need to be fixed and there seems a lot of vagueness on the Roland Blog about that, and promises of more sounds, Axial library, but it turns out these are not available, so I can see where Hammondave is coming from. Roland do need to address this stuff, they need to put the EFFORT in! I am enjoyed the debates on here, we all have different ways of seeing the world and expressing how we feel about stuff, its called LIFE!

Craig I think this is an excellent idea, but why not also try get some kind of petition together of VR -09 owners of people who are interested and send a long email to Roland direct and try and get them to address all of the issues that frankly do need addressing. Forgetting all the bitching thats gone on the other site which doesn;t help. There are serious drawbacks to some fucntins on this keyboard, but i think a little 'pressure; from customers might get some results., As someone said if you just sit back and wait nothing might happen. do you think this is worth doing? I've out a few comments up on the Roland blog but I don't thik that getting to the right people to be honest. Need to aim direct to people who can ACT I think this kind of 'people power' is ultimately going to work but it may take a bit of time!! Thanks for all the work you've put into this keyboard, Roland owe you one!

Apart from bitching about each other its been a very useful thread about an interesting new instrument. I know nothing about Hammonds or clones so not able to comment on whether its accurate or not. Out of many keyboards i've tried its certainly been the most FUN, for tweakability its great. It is what it is, a compromised product, that trys to do a lot at a very low price. I do hope roland fix the bugs, and increase potential, new sounds etc, then i might pull the trigger

No one has been censored. Its one of the best threads I've ever read about a new instrument, by people who have bought it and used it, and posted all its good points & shortcomings, compred to other boards etc, its been incredibly valuable, far better than any 'review' in a sponsored magazine, These forums are a great place for EVERYONE to have a say. You are free to agree, disagree, have an opinion. Its been very helpful, before & after i've played it myself. More of this is great, its what makes the world go round!

I'm buying a prophet 12, I know a totally different beast but It'll kick all other synths into touch, at least for a while! As for hammonds, Eps, clavs & Rhodes sounds i'm sure for recording a Nord elctro rack or JV2080 will cut it. I really think Roland should have made VR-09 a bit more of a premium product, 76 semi weighted, aftertouch, organ bars, arps, same sounds but more supernatural,Decent Pianos! Rhodes, EPs, classic vintage organs, keys and synths, more editable synth controls with filters, lfos, waves etc i.e a proper synth section, all organs, synths etc editable in large black and white screen, same splits etc but with assignable effects for each, even more effects with knobs, tremlo, chorus, chuck in a vocoder and audio input to use synth filters and now you have one hell of a product!! Ok and charge $1500 for it Why can't either yamaha, korg or Roland do that?? Its seems a deliberate ploy not to put all this stuff togehter so that you are forced to buy more products, or there is so many compromises, you get a Great X but a poor Y. JUST GET IT RIGHT! Can't be that hard for a company like Roland, churning out quality products for years to sit down and design a decent tool that people really want, with hands on controls. NO MORE MENU'S Don't get me wrong i really like the VR 09, still may get it as best of bad lot, for price, but if I worked for these companies I would invest time reading threads and blogs, and then creating something people wanted as Casio seem to have done with PX5S, though even that has skimped on full organs bars, so again its all annoying compromises, but thats life!!!!

I think I'll wait for a while and see when sounds ARE avaialable for VR, and any other updates, certianly its got some great sounds in there for the money no doubt about that, I really really enjoyed my time with it....its no.1 on list just will try out a few others like Nord etc, then go for something!

Hi Craig I see that you commented on the Roland Axial site. I was just wondering if you managed to actually download any of he additional sounds to the VR-09 and what you thought of them, this could be a clincher as to whether I buy it or not! Its ver y annoying that they synth editor is only avialable only on ipad as that means another £400 investment. I see that the Intregra is now editable via Mac, but not PC. I think Roland don't seem to have a very clear and straightforeward policy on editors. I will presume they are working on PC editors for all there stuff, doesn't make sense otherwise. Once they have sorted this stuff, I will probably get one for organs, clavs and EPS, but may just go for NORD lead 2 x rack whihc I could get very cheap section hand, plus I could download samples from Nord. For me playing the VR-09, the organs were not the best thing,as there was a lack of bottom end, the octaves didn't go down far enough , On church organs one could do way down, on a large rig anyhow! The synth section and drums were very impressive and instant tweak factor, can't stand menu diving how ever impressive board might be!

Yes I agree, they would be great to have.. but something tells me that we need an OS update OR the iPad editor needs to be updated before the sounds can be made available to the VR-09.. right now the VR-09 has no capacity to load in an individual sound!! You can only save/load entire registrations sets into it (no individual sounds or registrations) and the iPad editor has no librarian capabilities right now.. So something has to be updated to make it work.. since it's VA synth based sounds, I suspect that the iPad editor will be updated to include and allow for a library of sounds. This would be the easiest way to get sounds like this classic roland synth set into the VR-09. Craig, rather then going through the whole blog, I just wanted to ask you, is the expression pedal issue that fact that when using a volume pedal there is not a smooth volume curve? I used 2 pedals in the store and neither really seem to work properly, the volume just seemed to jump, it was not a smooth curve. Also , ans I may being dumb here you cannot lower or raise the octave range on the organ section. Obviously you can use the drawbars, but it still doesn't seem to go low enough. I mean what happens when you plugged in Bass Pedals, surely these must be at a very low octave, so how does this work exactly? I didn't buy it in the end, I wanted to wait and see what new sounds were available and its still a bit vauge. I did enjoy playing it, In the sore it was put through a pa, so I could really belt it out. Sound alone its really very good, some of the strings can get a very good mellotron once you've tinkered with effects etc. Layers seem to work well and adds to options. I dhave a lot of fun playing just not sure I really really want it, but theres not many options at this price, thats the problem!!

I should be picking up my VR 09 today, one of the forst in the UK I reckon, theres not many around and this was before I heard of the announcements about sound expansions, very exciting, I did wonder about it only having 200 onboard sounds, though quality is pretty high. I hope they decide to throw in the Roland 'classic' synths , I think that would be the iceing on the cake!! Thanks Craig for all your input on here, showing the good, the bad and the ugly. Despite its quirks it still looks like a good buy. My first proper keyboard, its going to be emotional!!

Hi Craig Thanks for all the useful posts & examples from VR 09, maybe Roland could employ you!? I've a question, if you plugged in another keyboard as a controller for the Vr 09 to play its sounds can you still use its effects to alter the basic tones? Can you alter the synth sounds from the keyboard, is editing available through menus etc, I didn;t really have time to delve when I played it? Also have you tried the ipad editor for the organ and synth? I imagine this will open up even more potential? If you have used the ipad editor can you store the edited patches either on the Vr 09 or on the ipad editor itself, or in some other programme? I really want an organ, and the only thing else I was considering was a Nord electro, at twice the price. I know this can play samples so this is quite tempting, but it lacks the synth side. Plus I actually, unlike others here, quite like that Roland 'shiny' polished soundm its very sweet to my ears and that counts!! If I had money I would get the Nord and the integra 7 then all bases covered!!

I have probably played on the only VR 09 in the UK, finally in London I was there to visit friends and went to the famous Denmark Street where there are some fabulous gear shops. I'm a noob so my comments won;t influence anyone one way or another, i just wanted to say that overall I found playing around on the Vr-09 was a lot of fun, it was quite easy to navigate around, making layers, getting some nice stuff going very quickly. I was very impressed with the basic sounds, I know many are not 'proper' Supernatural sounds, but a lot of the pads are quite beautiful, strings ok, brass good, the organ is fantastic and although I#m not an organ player & cannot judge how good it is , I mananaged to dial in a lot of very pleasing Emerson sounds, (can't play liek him of course!!) The Pianos didn't sound especially amazing, not deeply resonant, passable, the rhodes etc sounded nice, but again I'm not an expert. Great with phaser and delay though....... What I really loved was the quick way you could really change the basic sounds very quickly with the sliders etc ,especially with synth section, and the effects work very well together, by using subltle combinations of overdrive, delay, reverb, slicer, phaser, chorus, etc and other multi effects you could very easily create your own sounds, often quite complex sounding stuff, so its not quite a basic as it first appears. I imagine with the ipad editor the synth programming would get as deep as any decent soft synth out there? Having all the fantastic drum sounds is also a bonus, plus lopper for creating riffs, its all fun and easy. While in the shop I played a few other keys, roland pianos, Korg SV 1 and Jupiter 80 etc. Of course these other boards had far better keys and felt like premium products. If the VR 09 had had a better keyboard and all the sounds of the Jupiter 80, plus with drawbars & instance effects, for say £1500 it would be a total killer, I hope Roland put something like that out. BUT for the price, £739, which is 400 -500 cheaper than anything else like it I would say that I was pleasantly suprised at how nice it sounded. I didn;t have time to go through all the sounds but out of 80 or so, very few sounded bad, most were very good and some excellent, nice flute, saxes, strings, basses etc. I think desite the obvious problems, such as you can;t assign effects to different layers etc, and other problems mentioned in the thread, some of which could be sorted its an excellent keyboard for a beginner, student, for someone wanting something thats very instantly playable. Its not intimidating, not bursting with 000's of features, no sequencer no arpegiator, but in a way I don;t mind, I quite like the fact its SIMPLE to use without horrible menus. etc. Yes a Big colour screen would be nice!! A lot of fun, I think I totally agree with Craig, when he stresse that NO its not the great keyboard ever made, BUT for the money you are getting a really nice little package... its very immediate and playable. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did. Probably will buy one as a learning tool, then maye when I'm a better player migrate to a 'better' keybed, but will probably keep it for the fun factor!!!!! Nice, heartwarming product P.S Has anyone played the Korg Krome, how does that compare to VR 09 or the MX 61 they are only keyboards which are in price range, neither of which have organ drawbards.

For the same price as a Nord Electro 4 it is feasable to buy BOTH the vr-09 & the Casio PX5S, as the casio seems to have great pianos and EPS, great layering ability, the VR-09 has the drawbar organ,good drums, some nice SN solo voices, & deeper editing of synth capacity....plus you could hook them up for 2 manual keys as well, quite a lot of hardware for £1500 ($2000!

Thanks for posting, thats really a very nice sound, and great playing! What instrument are you using for the lead, clarinet? and what kind of scale is that please? How long can you record a 'song' for, and did you use the looper first for the drums and pad sounds? Cheers

I put a comment there containing all of the bug/design problems that I have noted so far, however I didn't see your comment (mine was the only comment). Perhaps I put my comment in the wrong place? I put my comment on the new blog that was posted today, so your probably went onto an older one! I do wonder how many of these they will sell. Judgeing by the comments here you organ guys are a tough bunch to please!! To my novice ears, every demo video has had some sound that I have found pleasureable, which again for me is unsual for a synth/keyboard. I'm really more into synths than organs etc, but the sound of this just makes me want to play one!