VR730 or VR09 and bass pedals

[Dave Fournier]

Hi to both of you,

I have both my VR730 with Hammond XPK-100 pedals and my Hammond SK-2 with Hammond XPK-200 pedals set up in my music room. The VR730 really is a usable organ, except I would much prefer to have a sustain on the bass. The iPad app works great for controlling the drawbars for lower and pedal, and I use the keyboard drawbars for the upper, with my playing style those are what I change most often anyway. I have been playing them both, tweaking the VR effects to get it as close as I can to the SK. I often need to do a gig where there are stairs involved, and the Roland with the smaller pedals would save me half the weight, but first and foremost I need to be happy with the sound.
I am considering getting a small synth module like the Waldorf Rocket, and just using that for bass with the pedals, then I can have the sound I want but the drawback is that there would be a constant volume rather than having it controlled with the expression pedal.
I may be able to find a used JV module or something, and MIDI the pedals to that, but I'm not sure if I could also send a volume controller MIDI message from the VR at the same time.
Right now I am watching for a decent used SK-1, problem would be solved.

Happy Easter!

 

[Tugge]

Dave
I if you have a windows computer test the V-combo editor. It can do so much more than i Ipad app and you could make a choice if it may give you any advantages. Aterlier bass sounds with sustain just to make a try.
May I ask you a question. Does the VR730 have 165mm Octave width as standard Piano keys and your SK2 or does it have the slightly smaller keys size as the VR09 with an Octave width of 160mm? (since it has a completely different key thay VR09 I would guess for the standard 165mm Octave)

 

[Tugge]

> Atelier AT-100 vs VR09
priceof(VR09+basspedal+Hammer/Waterfallkey+Amp/Loudspeakes+Midirouter+etc.etc.) vs. priceof(AT100) ??
portable lightweight plastic synclav vs. real living-room instrument ??

> mainly because of your editor where all sounds may be choosen
spend so many many hours on the editor, some 1-2 additional hours to adapt the editor (for the Atelier-Tab) to an Atelier would not make the difference. Anyway it might be usefull for any Atelier owner.

> Some sounded to me as if there was a very small amount of sustain already in the sound.
indeed

Franky
In my country I can get a VR09B new for 900 Euro. I have only seen one used AT100 for 1800 Euro but with shipping cost it would be 2000-2100 Euro. I guees it would be cheaper if found from a privet person but then I would have to drive at least 2000km to get one so I don't thind that will end up much cheaper.
Pedal board would be 900 Euro 20 pedals but I would go for 25 pedals at 1300 Euro.
But plan is to midi to another organ with obiously wouldn't be needed if that would be an Aterlier and I could get access to all sounds.
Money no obecjt I would import a Yamaha with 2x61keys and 25pedals, from japan, and then addon some proper organ sounds via midi but thats beyond 20k Euro and noting I consider. So I will have to make some major compromises. Unfortunately Aterliers don't send out aftertouch (and lowerend models don't have aftertouch at all) wich I think is a major flaw considering the prices. That means you are stuck if you want to addon upgrades with midi.

May I ask
Is the V-Combo Editor some kind of open source code that I could possibly continue working on myself? I have only checked out the .exe version.

 

[Dave Fournier]

Dave
I if you have a windows computer test the V-combo editor. It can do so much more than i Ipad app and you could make a choice if it may give you any advantages. Aterlier bass sounds with sustain just to make a try.
May I ask you a question. Does the VR730 have 165mm Octave width as standard Piano keys and your SK2 or does it have the slightly smaller keys size as the VR09 with an Octave width of 160mm? (since it has a completely different key thay VR09 I would guess for the standard 165mm Octave)

Both the SK2 and the VR730 have the same size keys, both are the 165mm octave (6.5 inches). As for the editor, my home computer is an iMac, and my tablets are all iPads. I have 4 of them, the oldest is an iPad original, and all I use it for is for the VR right now. I also have all of the PDF manuals for all my equipment on it.

 

[Franky46]

> In my country I can get a VR09B new for 900 Euro.

what I wanted to ask since - where is your country?
In EU middle there are still a few stock VR09 "without B" (same instrument) for sale, 699 euros + shipping EU (max 30 euros).

>Is the V-Combo Editor some kind of open source code
it's open as a gnu... feel free to hack - unless you do no copy-sale

@ Dave: just in case of ... the 'windows' editor also runs on MacOS/OSX , e.g. for editing the upg-files ...

 

[Dave Fournier]

Thanks

 

[Tugge]

Sweden.

It seems to be more differencies than I first though between Atelier and VR09 concerning addressing the different parts.

 

[Franky46]

> Sweden
nice : ) know some motorcycle riders there. People with a BIG heart!

VR09 'no B'
www.session.de/ROLAND-VR-09.html , 699,- + shippment 15 euros (stock is getting empty)
is where I buy (30 km from my home) , friendly and professional, 33 days return, 3 years inhouse warranty

VR09 'no B'
www.keymusic.com/item/roland-vr-09-v-combo : 697,- , free shippment to Sweden
keymusic (Belgium/Netherlands): don't know them, 30 days return, 2 years inhouse warranty

VR09 'with B'
www.musik-produktiv.se/roland-vr-09-b.html, 699,- free shippment to Sweden
musik-produktiv (Germany) : good reputation (equiv. Thomann or Musicstore, etc), 14 days return

in Sweden there is www.4sound.se, ca. 100 euros plus

You might get a used one for 150 (?) euros less, but it will be - err - used, without warranty and no 'give back'.
Give it a try, if you're not pleased with the VR, it's max 10-15 euros lost for return fees

for the editor: yeah, there are more 'parts' in the Ateliers, but it's no magic to customize, just work

 

[Dave Fournier]

The PC3 setup is basically a midi setup; i.e. the keyboard is internally MIDI'd to the engine. The fact that you indicated that there are no problems when the keyboard is MIDI externally to control another module and doesn't play multiple notes tells me there is a software corruption. It is sending the same MIDI notes internally when a key is depressed as it does externally. The fact that playing those notes to an external unit produces one note of sound but internally produces three notes of sound indicates software issues. I would do a hard reset, or better yet, a fresh install of everything. I'm not sure what software level you are on (I'll assume 2.21, the latest). I would go to the Kurzweil site and download the entire 2.21 package (operating system update).

http://kurzweil.com/product/pc3/downloads/

I would then do a fresh install of 2.21 following all of the instructions which wipe out all internal tables and refreshes everything. The entire process takes about 10 minutes. I'm fairly certain that your problem will disappear. Of course when you do the fresh install all internal programs are lost; so you would have to back them up first and then reload them. Before reloading anything I would do the fresh install and see if the problem goes away. If it does then I would reload your programs and see if the problem resurfaces. You may have a program that corrupts the internal memory. This is especially true if you ever used the soundtower editor which is notorious for corrupting the data. Also someone may have given you a program to use that also did the corruption.





The IT guy at my shop said he'd like to take a look at the Kurzy. He likes to dabble with this kind of stuff and likes a challenge. He had it about a month, got it back today, all fixed! There was a continuity problem on the circuit board with all of the jacks, it looks fine, but he was going point to point and found it. Soldered in a jumper wire and the problem is corrected. I was still thinking of selling it, but just played it for an hour and the sounds are just too damn good! I think I will leave it set up in my studio for a few months and keep playing it, and if it seems reliable I will start gigging with it again.

 

[blyons]

Hi,

I’m very late to the party on this subject. I managed to get three different manuals working on the VR-09 using MIDI pedals, a 2nd keyboard as a MIDI controller and the VR-09 as upper on channel 4. I used a cheap MIDI Quadra Merge from MIDI Solutions so that I could merge inbound MIDI Channel 2 (MIDI pedals) with Channel 3 (Lower manual). I did discover that I could only do drawbar settings on the lower and pedal manuals using the Roland iPad editor for the VR-09. It may also be possible to edit the lower manual by setting up a split at the lowest note on the keyboard. That way you should be able to get to upper and lower manual drawbar settings from the front panel of the VR-09 directly. It may also be possible to set the pedals from a controller using System Exclusive commands sent from the lower manual controller or the pedals, but I have not had time to test that out yet.

The VR-09 is a great sounding keyboard but seems to have an odd, non-standard MIDI implementation. A couple of hours monitoring the MIDI stream coming from the a keyboard operating in various modes is usually all that I need to make it more useful. I’ll post back on any interesting/useful results.

Bill