Got to mess with the vr09 a bit last night and tonight. I don't want to go crazy editing before I do the update (my thumb drive doesn't seem to work, might have to get the roland one?) in case I'd lose them. Also, I just ordered an adapter from Bruce for the expression pedal so I can use my yamaha, that's gonna make a world of difference in the organ feel. First impressions, first of all the thing feels like a toy as far as the keybed goes, and they seem tiny (especially the black keys). The drawbars are a little small too. However, after playing it a while, I was OK with it all. The difference in how solid it feels compared to the SK is night and day though.

   The organ reminds me a lot of the old VK8's. They had their own sound compared to the korgs and hammonds, and this has that. One thing I always thought was for the deep purple/uriah heep/steppenwolf sound the VK's had the best onboard distortion out of the three (Korg/hammond/roland). This one seems to confirm that. It's definitely warmer than the korg and hammond (sk) distortion. I haven't ventilated it yet,or edited it, but first impressions are it's not going to be nearly as punchy and fat as the SK.

   The acoustic piano sound seems a little better than the SK, but there's something weird about the decay, luckily I avoid acoustic piano whenever I can, so that isn't a biggie. The EP's and clavs I thought leaned more toward the Nords than the SK's. Most people like the nords better than the SK, however, I have a rhodes, wurly and clav in the studio here, and I always thought the nords had more of a caricature of those sounds than a realistic sound. First impression is the SK beats the vr on the rhodes and clav, the wurly is a tossup (neither that spectacular).

    The extra sounds are OK on the vr, brass seems to be more synthy though. I haven't got into the synth section yet. The acoustic bass was pretty cool, especially with the split with organ on top. I'd never end up using that on my normal gigs, but I can see it getting use on the polka duo I do at the retirement homes. In fact I do very little organ at them so the VR will probably be the keyboard I bring for those.

     All in all, I'm impressed, and since I got it primarily as a backup, I am quite confident I could make it through a gig with this if the SK crashed. I got it for a steal, it's definitely worth the 495 I payed. I think it's gonna come alive a bit once I get the expression pedal going with it and do some tweaking. I remember I didn't like the SK the first time I tried it, and adding the vent and pedal brought that alive. I think it'll make a good backup for the blues stuff, but it's probably gonna be a primary for the duo things, and I do an R&B band occasionally, it'll probably sit on top of the sk for that to cover some synth sounds and brass stabs.