Will I like a Roland VR-09?

[Marten Richens]

Hi Folks
Now I know this is all subjective and there is nothing better than getting hands on with one. However, The nearest place to me that has one is 100 miles away, so I thought I'd seek our your sage advice. I want to get something that has a good combo organ sound and have been put on to the Roland VR-09 by this very forum.

I have tried various flavour of Yamaha keyboards from the £250, all the way up to their £3,500 instruments and to be honest I didn't like the action of the keys on any of them, and I see that the VR-09 has similar looking keys on it. I come from a piano so don't like the flimsy feel of the Yamaha keys. I have had a go on a Casio CTK 7200 K5 and did like that action (the keys are full depth piano style).

My questions to those who have played a VR-09:
Will I like it's action, is it the same as the Yamaha keys?
Am I better off going for the Casio (half the Roland's price as well!) and trying to save for a Nord Electro 5?

The Casio does also have the drawbar organ function so I can get some semblance of a '60s combo organ sound out of it, but I've not seen as much about it. The guy in the music store says that they are great, but he is trying to sell it to me.

Thanks in advance for all your input. And my budget is practically non-existant, it's no good saying I should get a Korg Kronos or a Juno. If I could afford those, I'd get the Nord Electro 5 and this post would be pointless!

 

[CowboyNQ]

Hi Marten,

Personally, I LOVE the VR-09. In my opinion you will not get better organ sounds (tonewheel and/or transistor) at that price point in a hardware keyboard. I also like the fact that it is all about live performance in the way it's set up, which is where my personal interest lies.

Now, the action. Personally I have no issue with the VR-09 action, but I know others who don't like it. I would describe it as light, springy and snappy. It is not a weighted action like you'll find on an 88 key digital piano or workstation. How does it compare to the Yamaha action? I can't say as I have never played a modern Yamaha keyboard. I avoid them as I struggle to get along with Yamaha's UI, but again that's a personal thing.

My last disclaimer is I'm far from an expert organ player, but hopefully the thoughts above assist you somewhat.

Cheers!

 

[Marten Richens]

Hi Marten,

Personally, I LOVE the VR-09. In my opinion you will not get better organ sounds (tonewheel and/or transistor) at that price point in a hardware keyboard. I also like the fact that it is all about live performance in the way it's set up, which is where my personal interest lies.

Now, the action. Personally I have no issue with the VR-09 action, but I know others who don't like it. I would describe it as light, springy and snappy. It is not a weighted action like you'll find on an 88 key digital piano or workstation. How does it compare to the Yamaha action? I can't say as I have never played a modern Yamaha keyboard. I avoid them as I struggle to get along with Yamaha's UI, but again that's a personal thing.

My last disclaimer is I'm far from an expert organ player, but hopefully the thoughts above assist you somewhat.

Cheers!

Thanks Cowboy

I would love to love the VR-09 as everything else about it is geared to what I am looking for; set up for live playing; decent representation of tone wheel and transistor organ; mouldable sounds for fine tuning to get that Farfisa type snarl; split keyboard; recording capability; decent samples to build songs; and many other things I probably don't even know about yet. I am just getting a bit twitchy about the keys.

I'll hopefully get to have a go on one soon and will like the way the keys feel. If not I have two choices to learn to get over myself and like the action, or don't and fork out for something that is 3 times the price! It also helps that I am a Roland fan, so it has that in it's favour as well.

 

[Fishingmusician1]

I've always been a Roland fan having had an XP-60 and a Juno G. The display went bad on the Juno G which was a common problem for that particular keyboard, but nevertheless with Roland they are very easy and intuitive to learn, basic and straightforward. Now I have the Yamaha MOXF6 and though I've learned enough to record and get good sounds, it's a steep learning curve, they make it more complicated than it has to be. If you get the Roland, good luck with it.

 

[SoulDavid]

Bought this one a few weeks ago, the sounds are really good organ, piano and EP. Easy to drag to rehearsals & gigs.

However, there is a major bug in the EP family, apparently coming from RD-800. It's dissapointing and even more sad that Roland does not seem to want to fix the error. This bug might be be in the VR-730 as well. (same OS and sounds).

At a velocity greater then softest, a totally displaced sound comes from the key Eb3, a rather important key in the context. Yes I tried to transpose it, its not the keyboard

Remember that this is not some of the “other” sounds, this is the EP! One of the three pillars this piece should be recognized by!

Anyways, I'm returning this product.

 

[Marten Richens]

Bought this one a few weeks ago, the sounds are really good organ, piano and EP. Easy to drag to rehearsals & gigs.

However, there is a major bug in the EP family, apparently coming from RD-800. It's dissapointing and even more sad that Roland does not seem to want to fix the error. This bug might be be in the VR-730 as well. (same OS and sounds).

At a velocity greater then softest, a totally displaced sound comes from the key Eb3, a rather important key in the context. Yes I tried to transpose it, its not the keyboard

Remember that this is not some of the “other” sounds, this is the EP! One of the three pillars this piece should be recognized by!

Anyways, I'm returning this product.

Hi and welcome! Thanks for the heads up. That's definitely something to check out when I get hands on with one as playing Riders on the Storm is all Rhodes, so I could really do with reliable sounds!