Why So Little Interest In The VA-7?, Reason I ask this, is because I heard it on the demo (I have a CD demo now), and it sounded super.

There seems to be little mention of the VA-7 when it comes to comparing Arranger keyboards, and it always seems to be "Yamaha 9000 V's Korg PA80, V's KN6000, V's Solton X1, V's Korg i30 etc. I suppose the fact that it isn't as user friendly as the other keyboards is one reason.

The Variphrase part of it is super, but i haven't heard one proper - so for all i know - the other sounds may be bland. The fact that the DSP is limited was one reason i didn't Trade my kn6000+ £150.00 stand +£700.00 cash for a VA-7.

Just wondered about the lack of interest on the VA-7 (it is rather new you know. Take a look at the Roland Variphrase Forum! - hardly Piccadilly circus is it!.

Jupiter5

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I tried the va-7 and I found it good but not enought to compete for example with ketron X1 and it's price is high as the X1.

I always wondered why a company at the size of roland doesn't always deliver superior products in all domains. I think the logical answer is that roland produce hundred of products and can't put a lot of attention on all of them, while ketron for example are specialized only in arranger keyboard and can focus on a single product to make the best of it. Probably roland are happy to be in the second or third place in hunderd of products instead of only being the first in a single one.

Hi Jupiter5

Several people have mentioned that navigation is too awkward for live use. Also, in America it is not marketed through Roland's Pro division. For my purposes, I rule it out because it lacks real-time vocal harmony. The sounds are great, but I bought an XV-5080 so I will not miss them (plus I get the expansion slots). There is a rumor of a more professional 76 key Roland to be shown in Frankfurt in March.

Clif

I too, am a fan of vocal harmonizers and have used them for over 10 years to get my "trademark" vocal group sound. It is the first priority in my shows, followed by the bass&drums, then all the other goodies. As long as the voice, bass & drums are good - I'll handle ANY crowd - even with a substandard keyboard. With THAT said:
I have been disapointed by ALL the built in harmonizers that come standard in the top arranger keyboards. I've had them all too:
Kn5000,Psr9000,X1,G7 - none of them gave me what I needed. Now granted - I'm extra fussy about my vocals and I need to be able to manipulate in and out of the harmonies with the ease of a cat on the prowl. My foot is alsways poised at the on/off switch for the harmonies. I admit that the convienience of having a unit built into the keyboard is nice - but NOT at the expense of functionality. I can put on a better show with my digitech unit than with any of the other "built-in" units. This is largely because I trigger the chords from my RIGHT hand and i need it to follow every little change. The X1 was erratic, although very good sounding, the 9000 was poor in response time, and the Kn5000.......well that was just crap. The mic input is terrible on that keyboard. I am really hoping that the new Korg has a better than average harmoniser in it, because I would love to be able to "free up" that space in my rack. As it stands, I only need three spaces to cover my whole rig with tremendous flexibility. I use a three space padded bag that hangs vertically from the front two arms of my IQ2000 "X" stand.
top space igitech Vocalist access
middle: Sony E10 mini disk player/recorder
bottom: Toa D3 mixer (4 strereo channels)
So far it's a perfect fit, but I am always looking to simplify my life in transit
If your vocals are truly a priority, as they are with me - don't settle for less than what "you need to hear" just to save a few wires or pounds. I remember a few short years ago......it used to take me twice as long to set up; just to sound HALF as good!

Here is my take:

Here in the US at least, Roland has two branches - Musical Instruments, and Contemporaro Keyboards. The MI division sells the "pro" gear, advertises its product line in the RUG literature, which is available from the professional music stores, such as Guitar Center, and allows its products to be quoted on line. This latter point is the reason for the retailers to lower the prices, to provide a 20-25% (or even more) discount. In addition, promotion over Internet allows people in more remote areas, without a dedicated dealer, to order an instrument from anywhere, thus making them more available.

The CK division is dedicated to "home" keyboards. The dealers are not allowed (by Roland) to advertise prices over the Internet, are for the most part restricted to their sales territories (no outside mail orders here), and there are no published list prices. This leads to extensive price gouging by many dealers.

The VA-7 is marketed by the CK division. Having looked into the pricing of the instrument, I can attest to the ridiculous price gouging going on. I live in a major metropolitan area, and there is only one store (with 3 branches) that would quote me prices. The price quoted by the two branches was almost $1500 apart - one $5000, the other $3500. I suppose if I was serious about buying one, I could probably negotiate a bit on the price (e.g. they'd throw in power chord and pin striping for free). Though I did not think it provided enough improvement over my G1000 to justify buying one for myself, I am sure this pricing scheme turns off many potential buyers, especially since the competition (e.g. PSR9000, GEM WK8, Solton) can be had for well under $3000, and PA80 is advertised for $2000 (after discounts) by the major on-line stores.

While I will be the first to argue that there is not so much difference between the "home" and "pro" instruments, especially in the arranger market (e.g. speakers and ease of use are as important for the pros as for the amateurs), IMHO, it is the marketing and pricing scheme which impacts the availability and popularity of the VA-7.

Regards

Hi Uncle Dave

Clearly, the dedicated vocal harmony devices are better in terms of features and quality than those built into the arrangers. Since you try all the keyboards, are you also going to try a Voice Prism? Also, can anyone explain to me how you use 4-voice harmony to do a "smokey jazz vocal sextet" as promoted in the VoicePrism ads?

Clif,
I looked at the Prism just last week and was dissapointed at two things:
1)It only has stereo outs - for this much money it should have individual outs
2)It's two rack spaces high (although very shallow) - this is two bulky for my road gear.
***I never even plugged it in, but I'm sure it sounds wonderful - it's a TC !

Hi

I bought the G1000 one year ago, and I like it much. When the VA-7 arrived, I tried it at my friend's home. These are my impressions:

- Sounds are improved, but not so well I expected. I've got the impression that many sound use same or very similar samples as G1000. The "incredible" piano sound look very similar as on G1000, but it's only better filtered. The really improvements are the Jazz Scat sounds, one trumpet, sax, and two excellent acoustic drum kits (unique recorded along with drumkit resonance), best of them I've ever heard. In total - about 15 sounds are markable better than on the G1000.

- The TouchScreen is nice feature for mixer, some non-realtime functions and selecting sound variations, maybe. But, I think that placing the most important functions (like variations, keyboard mode, synchro stop...) on the TouchScreen is an very big mistake, the main reason why I disappointed. I think the TouchScreen isn't definitelly think for a live performance, a soluttion with buttons or knobs for many important functions is much better.

- Keys are very soft (plastic-feel, similar as G600). Some people like this, some need semi-weighted keys. My postulate is that all model of the keyboard should have at least two options - with 61 key/Speakers and 76 key/No speakers (congratulations to KORG in that way - there are Triton 61key and Triton Pro X 88key, for example). About speakers...this is nice feature for working at home and training, but I think there is no professional player who need speakers - they have amps on the stage, and probably some speakers at home, so they will never use incorporated speakers - in ever case, the keyboard is some harder to transport, because of speakers. Also, speaker's magnetic fiels may destroy data on magnetical media disks when you place it on the speaker.

- D-beam is a futuristic feature, but I don't see the real need for this (instead of the ribbon controller), except for "games".

- Variphrase is an excellent feature, but only has purpose in some genres of music. The posibilitied are very limited, and this is NOT replacement for the very more needed Vocal Harmonizer, nor Sampler. I think it would be a great sampler if it had Key mapping and looping (like Solton, Kurzweil, SoundBlaster...). I tried it with many different samples and think that this is very great technology, but it's just on the beginning. There will be much of development in that way.

- Also, I tried to use the VA-7 to do same job as G1000, and I must say this is impossible in many cases.


Conclusion: I don't think that entire arranger category of instruments is "unproffesional", as some people say. The best prooves are G800, G1000, Solton SD1, GEM SK880 and Yamaha 9000pro, which are designed fully professional (without pictures of selected instruments, buttons in all possible colors and "video games" on the display). The VA7 isn't deffinitelly a professional thing, nor replacement for it's predecessor - G1000. This is nice solution if you buy keyboard for the first time but guys, if you have the G1000, KEEP IT, even if you buy some VA. Thanks to many great features, easy and FAST operations at live situations and, of course, very reduced price these days ($1.200 in U.S.), it's the best solution. We have to wait some time - I hope all arrangers in the future will be FINISHED technology, equipped with plenty of memory, a powerful sampler and serious Vocal harmonizer (there are already some ones, but not so good sounded as Roland's, in my opinion).

Keep your gear that do the job and TRY the thing every time before you buy.

Sorry for a long post

Good luck, everybody