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#177218 - 09/06/00 03:08 PM
Re: an hour with VA-7 (and how it compares to my G1000)
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Member
Registered: 12/03/99
Posts: 732
Loc: Phoenix, AZ USA
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Ilija,
you are right in saying that the shortcomings remain with the instrument whether you play it for an hour, or for three days.
Having said that, there is no perfect instrument, and each one will have some defficiencies or others in your, mine, or somebody else's eyes, especially compared to the competition. So, for the majority of us, buying an instrument will involve making concessions in terms of features, sounds, or some other capabilities.
Obviously, each person has their own preferences, in terms of what is important to them, and what they are willing forgo, which depends on the type of use, experience, and technique of the user. That is why trying the instrument hands-on can not be replaced by reading comments/reviews, from however many like-minded people.
Sure, many of us in this forum are looking for an instrument to be used in live performance situation. However, many of the VA-7 advocates also assert that they play live, and that VA-7 works well for them.
Trying an instrument hands-on is the best way to hear how it sounds, how easy it is to use, and to decide if it is for you or not.
_________________________
Regards,
Alex
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#177219 - 09/12/00 01:30 AM
Re: an hour with VA-7 (and how it compares to my G1000)
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Junior Member
Registered: 09/11/00
Posts: 24
Loc: Italy
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Hi everyone!! I've just had the possibility to play a new Roland VA7 and I've been really surprised by the quality of the sounds (I couldn't believed when I listened to drum samples!) and by the good sound impact of the styles. Now, I'm going to decide to buy a VA7 for myself, my only doubt is: how can I use Variphrase in my musical performances? Is there anybody who can help me? Next day I want to try to apply Variphrase to internal songs stored on VA7 zip, I think it could be very helpful to have some vocalist phrases at your disposal... I'll let you know! Originally posted by Alex K:
Well, folks, after months of anticipation I found out that our local music store (Keyboard City) has gotten the VA-7 in, and took an extended lunch to visit them. Indeed, they had a VA-7 set up, and after a bit of trying, I managed to wrestle it away from the salesman, who was practicing his Richard Klydermann(?) impression on it.
After playing it for an hour, I have mixed feelings about it.
Sounds - the quality is very good. I like the Roland sounds (on my G1000), and the VA-7 (SC8850) tone map is a notch better. I really liked the piano sound (A11). I only found the two upper real-time parts (Upper 1/2) and one lower part (Lower 1). Turning on Melody Intelligence appears to affect the Upper1 sound. I did not find Upper 3 part (which I have in G1000/EM2000). There is, however, a Vari-phrase part.
Vari-phrase - In my opinion, this is a total waste. Perhaps, some people would find it useful to have Oh, Baby! emanating from the keyboard while playing, but to have it done every time you press the right-hand key is too much. It may be more useful with user-recorded phrase, or some esoteric instrumental sound, but like George said in his post, the presets get really tiresome really quickly (20 seconds for me). IMHO, To make it useful, it should allow longer polyphonic samples, not just a single voice, and more than 6 part polyphony. It would be neat to sample the accompaniment groove from a CD song, and than play it back on the arranger keyboard. However, Variphrase (or maybe just the VA-7 incarnation of it) does not work well with polyphonic samples - it expects a single voice (vocal or instrumental). I don't think that Variphrase replaces the Vocal Harmonizer in any way.
Styles - I will agree with George that the styles are typical Roland styles, though for the most part, they are as good as the best Roland styles of old. Perhaps it is the quality of the speakers, or maybe the sound and drum samples, but they sound very nice. Of course, there is emphasis on soft rock/pop styles (hard rock styles are fairly poor, though better than G1000). Some of the new styles (from G1000 time) are a couple of nice techno beats, seemingly large number of Latin styles, and better waltzes (I am going by memory, having scrolled through the preset styles, one should really look at listing of styles in the manual).
Having gone through the presets, I found that the "band" was always set to largest setting. I have tried a few styles with the reduced band size, but that did not sound as good. There is a single fill in button on the front panel, which will play fill in and switch to either original or variation style of accompaniment, depending on what is playing currently. This is a bit of a shortcoming from G1000, where I could insert a fill to Variation while Variation is playing (variation fills are typically more full and colorful than fills to original), but I guess you can use FC7 foot controller (or a home-made device which mimics its function) to accomplish this. The styles have up to 8 parts, like the G1000 ones. There are 128 preset styles, which is on the low side for a high-end keyboard (Solton has 200 preset and up to 100 user styles), but there is room for 64 DiskLink styles, which is OK (though G1000 has almost twice a many disk link locations). I have not used the style-morphing feature, but I guess that it may be useful in modifying styles.
User-Friendliness - In many ways VA-7 is a very user-friendly instrument, perhaps even overly so. It seems that each instrument has a graphical icon representing it (Like Grand piano, Grand with an Open lid, Upright, etc) - I think this is a bit of an overkill. However, the One-Touch function allows to select among 4 configurable sound settings for the real-time parts. This is over and above selecting a performance. This is to me a very useful feature, too bad that you have to use a touch screen to make a change. There is also a possible bug? selecting a new OTS causes the real-time sounds to be momentarily interrupted, unlike selecting a new sound for the currently playing part on G1000 (or E70), but I am sure this will bet fixed in the software upgrades. The large touch screen is a big improvement over the miniscule screen on G1000; however, for the most part, where the lists of sounds/styles/performances/variphrases are shown, the list only displays 8 entries per page - the same as the G1000. This is in part due to the size of each list selection "button" - it has to be big enough for the finger to touch it, and for the most part, they are. Some soft-buttons are too small (for my fingers), like the ones on the tone selection screen, and several others. Even when the soft buttons are large, the touch response seems to be not very consistent - sometimes a momentary touch will be detected, and sometimes it will not be. I would prefer the tactile feel of the buttons to the touch screen anytime, at least for calling up things during the performance. I must give the Roland folks credit for including a selection keypad with separate octave/selection button sets. Would also be nice if they did not skimp on the bank (A/B/C) selection buttons and instead of one button with TWO lights the had provided three individual buttons.
The "SuperSounds" is also a nice feature, somewhat similar to Solton's OneTouch, which lets you quickly select from the short list of the sounds you use the most. There are five banks with their own selection buttons, of 8 sounds each; each bank button calls up the first sound in the bank; to select another sound in that bank you have to use touch screen (again). I did not quite understand what was the relationship between the OneTouch settings and the Super sounds (if it was possible to revert back to OTS, having called up the SuperSound, but in any case, this is quite useful.
The keyboard seems physically very large - I did not check the weight, but with the empty space to the right of the keyboard, and the joystick and ribbon to the left (which could be moved above the keyboard), the frame seems as big as that of the G1000, which has 76 keys. Unlike the G1000, which has buttons spread out all over the instrument, including the tempo controls in the almost unreachable upper right hand corner, the VA-7 panel design is rather compact, with all the buttons are either in the front, close to the keyboard, or in the center, near the display. The tempo control is a wheel, and a tap tempo button; but accellerando/ritardando (and return to default tempo when both are pressed) buttons are missing. Also, there is no Reset function, which allows you to re-sync the beat to the crowd dancing.
It is my impression that with its sound structure, some of the real-time controls missing or buried in the touch-screen menus, and over-graphical user interface, VA-7 is intended as a replacement to E-600, rather than G1000, so I would not be surprised if there is a more professional version in the works (I know, George, that Roland is categorically denying this, but my level of trust in Roland's PR machine is about as high as believing Bush after his "Read my lips" statement).
Finally, before leaving the store, I wanted to inquire about the price (I know that our European friends have seen a published price of $4300). The salesman told me "It's retail at about $6000", than after brief exchange in front of me with the store manager, he confirmed, that "yes, the retail is $6995, but for a good customer like you we will give a 25% discount, so it's about $5300"
Isn't that funny?
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#177220 - 09/12/00 11:12 PM
Re: an hour with VA-7 (and how it compares to my G1000)
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Senior Member
Registered: 11/24/99
Posts: 3305
Loc: Reseda, California USA
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After two weeks selling the Va7's here is what I am hearing from my customers. "Love the sounds", "the drums are amazing", and the user interface is so much easier than the G1000/EM2000. Also, the direct songplay and style play functions have been made evern easier than on the G and EM models.
If I have one complaint, it is wishing there were more dedicated buttons and less touch screen soft buttons. I am getting used to it though, and at times, I even like it better. I think that anyone who uses it will get used to the fact that some of the functions just take a couple of seconds longer to access because sometimes there are combinations of buttons and touch screen functions. Probably the one I wish I had been able to tell the Engineers to add would be a dedicated UP1 on and UP2 on button. Having to push "other" then the upper 2 soft touch button takes a little getting used to. But, I really like the 48 MB of sample Rom inside this keyboard and I love hearing the acoustic piano, Trumpet and Acoustic guitar sounds. There really shine!
If your asking me how I would compare this now that I've played it to the X1, it's hard for me to judge these. They are still very different. Where the X1 excels is in it's quality of styles and it's easy to use interface. The VA7 has great sounds and a great clean and fresh look, but (and there is nothing wrong with this) still reminds me of a newly packaged EM2000. Of course 128 note polyphony, 48 MB of sounds, can't be overlooked, and variphrase as others have mentioned, used wisely, sounds fantastic, but these are still two very different keyboards, and that's what's great. Choices, choices and more choices. It's a wonderful world!
George Kaye
_________________________
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene (Closed after 51 years)
West Hills, California
(Retired 2021)
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