From groovecake@yahoo.com Sun Apr 27 20:53:06 2003
Subject:Re: Roland VK-7's & 8's - Comparisons & Questions

Ben,

Former VK-7 user here (now I run the B4).

I really really really liked the Vk-8's action.
However, what prevented me from forking over the dough
for it was that the one thing I had hoped they would
improve wasn't improved. The Vk-7 and 8 are not right
in the upper octave. It gets thin. I finally had
enough of the Vk-7 after 4 years of love (familiarity
breeds contempt). The VK-8 was not an improvement in
this area and I turned to the B4.

Mitch

--- BenWaB3@aol.com wrote:
>
> I had a chance to test out the VK-8 for a little
> while today. I used to own a
> VK-77 but sold it w/in the last year so will have to
> go on memory in the
> comparison. I really liked the 77 as a MIDI
> controller. For my purposes it
> was really versatile controller; from what I can
> discern from fellow list
> member's posts it should be much better than the
> BX-3 in that regard. However
> it did have one flaw (IMO anyway) that I couldn't
> program out of it which was
> the final factor in deciding to sell it. We'll get
> back to that later. As
> far as the environment, I had to listen through
> headphones exclusively. There
> was some sort of mass piano rehearsal going on in
> the store w/ about 15-20
> grade & middle-schoolers playing simultaneously at
> any given time. Kinda gave
> the whole place an "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" type
> of vibe. Anyway, all
> observations have to be tempered through the
> headphones factor.
>
> Certain parameters on the VK-8 seemed to work more
> efficiently as far as
> range of change. Maybe it was just the unit I got
> but many of the different
> choices on the 77 seemed to only bring out the
> subtlest of changes. The 3
> vintages of keys on the 77 had some difference in
> the basic sound but nothing
> compared to the 8. Also certain things change a lot
> more on the 8 in that
> regard. With Vintage 2 tonewheels (early 60's) the
> chorus level automatically
> drops way down. Ch.-3 is about as pronounced as
> ch.-1 on the other 2
> vintages. The chorus doesn't sound as artificial in
> the upper range as w/ the
> 77. On the downside for the 8, if you flicked your
> finger on the edge of the
> key it would double trigger badly as the key bounced
> up. Overall though it
> seemed like the differences in the individual
> parameter sections were more
> overt and you could get much more varied basic organ
> sounds w/ the 8 than w/
> the 77.
>
> One question for those of you who have the 8: Is the
> brightness control some
> sort of sweepable band boost filter? That control
> wasn't on the 77. My main
> problem w/ the 77 was that there was an annoying
> resonance in the medium to
> upper midrange. I tried to program that out every
> way I could but it still
> remained. Like I said, it could have just been the
> unit I had. I seem to
> attract any defective units for some reason. Must
> still have a lot of karma
> to work off. Anyway, with the brightness control on
> the 8 that resonance is
> there w/ the knob in the center position but it goes
> away as you turn the
> knob far enough either way. If the 77 had had that
> I'd probably still happily
> own it. It had (as I recall) a setting for bright,
> mellow & something else
> (mid-boost I think). But the differences were much
> more subtle & the
> resonance still remained on all 3 settings.
>
> Some othjer questions for the 8 owners would be: Are
> there certain parameters
> that you can still set even though they don't have
> thier own dedicated
> buttons & knobs on the panel, such as key click &
> the volume level of the
> normal & soft precussions. Also if you're switching
> between patches can you
> program the unit to maintain the Leslie speed from
> the previous patch, or do
> you need to toggle it all over again once you've
> made the switch? I seem to
> recall the 77 giving you that option.
>
> Overall I thought the 8 was an improvement over the
> 7. Some people have
> stated that they still prefer the 7, so it just
> proves the mileage may vary
> maxim. But if any of you 7 or 8 owners would care to
> add your comments,
> whether agreeing or disagreeing w/ my observations,
> it would be most welcome.
> Thanks.
>
> Ben Ninmann
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>

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