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The VR-09 is what interests me the most with Roland's new releases. I might pick one of these up in the near future. :-)



V-COMBO VR-09: LIVE PERFORMANCE KEYBOARD
Instant Access to Inspiring Tones and Live Expression

Travel-ready, affordable, and outfitted with top-level Roland sounds, the V-Combo VR-09 is the ideal all-in-one solution for performing keyboard players. Dedicated piano, organ, and synth sound engines—organized in three intuitive blocks on the front panel—provide all the essential tones you need, right under your fingertips. The powerful real-time controls give you maximum expression on stage, with nine sliders for tone shaping and a large array of knobs and buttons for tweaking the seven simultaneous effects and various parameters. Other great features include an onboard looper, a drum section stocked with a library of rhythms for practice and jamming, and more. With its versatile sound selection, inspiring operation, and smart user interface, the V-Combo VR-09 is a dream come true for gigging musicians.

Professional keyboard with instant-access operation for performing musicians
Light and mobile; battery or AC power
Pro-quality acoustic and electric pianos, including grand piano with 88-note stereo multi-sampling
SuperNATURAL®-powered Virtual Tone Wheel organ with nine harmonic bars, plus newly developed transistor-type ‘60s organ tone
Wide range of synth tones, from vintage classics to modern essentials
Seven simultaneous effects with dedicated real-time controls
Looper and built-in rhythm patterns; WAV/MP3/SMF song playback via optional USB memory
Free VR-09 Editor app available for iPad
INTUITIVE OPERATION FOR EXPRESSIVE STAGE PERFORMANCE

The V-Combo VR-09 was designed from the ground up with the needs of live players in mind. An intuitive front-panel layout and clear LCD screen offers quick access to Roland’s top piano, organ, and synth sound engines, along with plenty of real-time controls for expressive tone manipulation. Seven simultaneous effects include rotary, delay, reverb, tone, overdrive, compressor, and customizable MFX, with dedicated knobs that tweak multiple parameters with a single twist for powerful sound shaping with minimal effort. The smart interface makes it simple to set up splits and layers on the fly, and to save all your keyboard settings in user memory locations for instant recall on stage.

PRO ACOUSTIC AND ELECTRIC PIANOS

Piano is a cornerstone sound for live playing, and the V-Combo VR-09 is filled with a wide selection for covering all musical styles. The gorgeous acoustic grand piano features 88-note stereo multi-sampling, delivering pro-level tone that rivals Roland’s dedicated stage pianos. Many popular vintage E. Piano sounds are onboard as well, along with complimentary effects such as vintage phaser and tremolo. The compressor—accessible via a dedicated, easy-to-reach knob—transparently boosts the level of the piano sounds, ensuring that your playing always cuts through when performing in loud bands.

WORLD-CLASS ORGANS

Roland’s renowned SuperNATURAL technology powers the V-Combo VR-09’s classic tonewheel organs, while nine harmonic bars provide authentic real-time performance control. A newly developed transistor-type organ is also included, offering the unique sound of combo instruments from the 1960s. The 61-note keyboard has an extremely fast response, perfect for essential organ techniques such as trill, sputter, glissando, and percussive hits. Rotary speaker and amp simulators reproduce the characteristics of vintage organ speaker cabinets and overdriven tube circuits with astounding realism, while a new “Twin Rotary” option delivers a deep, aggressive effect never before heard.

VINTAGE AND MODERN SYNTH TONES

The V-Combo VR-09 is packed with a ton of ready-to-play synthesizer sounds, from vintage analog classics like JUNO strings and ‘80s synth brass to textured, modern-era digital tones and beyond. Front-panel controllers allow you to tweak the synth tones intuitively in real time, including convenient ADR and cutoff/resonance adjustment with the harmonic bars in the ORGAN block. Onboard effects like “Bit Crash” provide the ability to create modern synth voices for current dance music, including dubstep.

VR-09 EDITOR FOR IPAD

The free VR-09 Editor app for iPad gives you powerful, intuitive control of the organ and synth sound engines via your tablet’s full-color touchscreen interface. Quickly edit organ sounds and customize vintage tonewheel characteristics such as leakage, click noise, and rotary speed, and easily access synth sounds to build custom tones and layers. After tweaking sounds at home, you can take your iPad to the gig and use the app for extra real-time control on stage. Convenient, cable-free communication between the V-Combo VR-09 and iPad is simple to set up with Roland Wireless Connect. Alternately, you can link up with a USB cable via Apple’s iPad Camera Connection Kit.

Looks like it will run about $1199 US... The link below has it advertised for 729 pounds....
http://www.production-room.com/roland/roland-vr-09/

I dont even know where to begin how disappointed I am with this, Roland could've done something great and instead they release this lol, a "stage" version of what? the Jupiter 50, isnt the jupiter 50 a stage performer, so this is a limited version of the limited version of the of the Jupiter 80, oh and wait they have another limited version with the Rd64 except its even more limited but has weighted action? I dont get it, what a mess. Oh it has drawbars...wow, sorry for my tone, I was just really looking forward to today and letting loose my savings account. Guess that wont happen anytime soon.

I think this is a cool piece. Since the $1500 Hammond XK1 was discontinued, there's been no drawbar organ available for under $2k. If this is $1199, that's great. The fact that it does a bunch of other stuff is a bonus! I think both this and the RD64 are nice additions, in that both are bringing something uncommon to the market... a well priced clonewheel, and a compact weighted piano and MIDI controller.

Don't see the NEW and WOW factor here. Decent piece of equipment for a certain purpose , but nothing really exciting here under the hood. For a gigging musician (especially in 'no-power' circumstances) a nice tool, with a lot of 90's charisma in terms of sound. Maybe the organs are worth it alone, but it all reminded me a bit of my Kurzweil PC3 machines, which did roughly all these things and have been around for what....like 20 years or so (yes they also desperately need an update). Very 90's too by the way ;-)

Good tool, nice repackaging of existing Roland technology and sounds and batteries (not?) included. Now up for the exiting NAMM news and releases...

Perhaps a Kronos revision with a really good, but lightweight keybed and sturdy case - not revolutionary , but it will make a lot of people happy.

Perhaps like the Roland. ;-)

It appears to be a repackaged VR700 which was a repackaged VR760. The synth tones and pianos are not Supernatural.

Roland needs to SNify everything in their pro lines and relegate all their cheesily sampled stuff to their toy lines.

Unless Roland can replace their V-Piano with truly realistic modeled presets in another modeled instrument (which is good enough to pass for authentic acoustic piano sounds) then there won't be any further improvements.