Roland VK-8M

There's no display.
Therefore you have to setup your "finetuning" in a very difficult way.
The most presets sound very bad, even there are no more ways to get good settings...

I miss a Rotary-Switch-Connector, so I had to built up my own midiController for switching the rotary actions during a live performance.
And the worst thing is, you can't store the volume in a preset!!! So you have to keep in mind the volume for every preset! Otherwise the mixer get a big problem. This is very important concerning Overdrive/Drawbars, which makes a wide dynamic range in volume.

The only good thing: it most sound great!

Hmm, I think I better go for a Clavia Nord Electro Rack 2 or Triton Rack

I grabbed a VK-8M from Sound Control in London 2 weeks ago to replace
my laptop/b4 set-up. B4 sounds fantastic, but having my laptop on stage between sets in dodgy North London pubs, and/or disconnecting it each set was too stressful. The VK-8M seemed like a perfect replacement, and much less likely to attract an oppurtunistic thief...Ease of use, for anyone that's had at least an hour or so on a B/C 3 is 10 out of 10....it's a close model ....a little tricky accessing the (very) few parameters that can be edited. The only thing I did was add some key click right away, but previous posts have indicated that other players have changed Leslie speeds etc.

The VK-8M is of course a module, so keyboard action is determined by your master board. Personally I find many modern keyboards to be a bit delicate feeling, compared to the short and sturdy C3 keys. I use a Yammi CS-6X, works fine. Hey, any organ players out there still have their old DX-7's? because they had a very smooth, fast and responsive keyboard, and would make a great manual for the VK.

Built in effects are ok...for live it's nice to have a bit of reverb right there at hand, and the Vibrato and Chorus are Hammond models and are not what some younger players might expect but they are spot on for me....Like my Hammond, I use either C3 V1 or none. Although, trivia....there is a 50 year old easter egg in older Hammond C3...if you rotate the Chorus knob slowly, while holding a chord, from C3 to V1 there is a "halfway" setting that is a combination of both, I kid you not, Hammond players! Thanks to an interview with Jon Lord for that one. Anyway blah blah
As to Midi....now here there be monsters! Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't seem to get this thing to work as a Midi drawbar controller for Native Instruments' B4 !? Is this a spat between companies, given that NI has it's own controller out know? Or am I missing something here....Let me know....
So if that's the case, then my concept of having the VK-8M for live and both it and B4 for studio is shot to hell....blah
One more gripe...the percussion has no on off toggle....instead you cycle through 3 options....a drag.

Oops one more....as previosly noted, it is a nuisance to have the D-beam controller come on for each patch....as you reach for other knobs you inadvertently trigger this damn thing. In fact, the first gig I did with it, I kept triggering TW brake from my master board when I adjusted overdrive on my piano...then the organ would be "dead" and I'd have to restart it....blah
hint, place the module high up, or off to the side of your rig, so your arms don't trigger the D-beam....although, I've found a place on my lower tier where I can change rotor speed with my head.
Last gripe..there's no footswitch for rotor (leslie RIP) speed...Que Pasa?

these gripes lose points for Mister Roland, but may not affect most players.

You know what?
All these posts about "does it sound like a B3?" yadda yadda blahhh
yeah it sounds like a Hammond. In fact it sounds like a Hammond more that my Hammond, so there. Just like you kids that think the best ever synth is a Jupiter 8, or a behemoth CS-80 etc etc...then when you play one it's like, ?!? whoa, that's all it does? where's the freaky/arppegiator/RPS thingy?
You get out what you put in.
I've had my Hammond C3 since I bought it from a church in Sault Ste. Marie (I'm Canadian, sorry) in 1988. And it's ton's of fun to play, but in the studio, listen carefully here, it takes a good deal of work to get a good, fat, noise free, buzz free sound. The Vk-8M is close enough, and better, based on it's variety of amp sims.
Just like buying an old Wurlitzer 200A, what you get from plugging that into a PA, is not what you hear on the Logical Song.
You can't cut out the studio engineer folks...
So for sounds, it gets a 10

except one thing...a guy previously posted about the way Hammond keys trigger8 or 9 tones, one at a time, as the key moves down...absolutley! And I don't know why this has been ignored
either....This is why a Hammond chord sounds different if played very lightly and rapidly....Only H players will know what we mean.

Seems built well. Yessir, I like-it!
I don't know...in 20 years playing pro I've managed to break every one of my playthings, even the ones I stole....
In fact my C3 has a graveyard of broken keys, to the left of the lower manual, where I've epoxied them and swapped them out for the upper right where I play most. Although now that the 80-90's are over and I've turned 40, I spend less time standing on my Hammond at the end of the night, that helps...;

Every Roland I've ever had has broken at some point.
The Only key I had that NEVER broke was my poor ol' DX-7, which I sold 12 years ago to buy a fp-8 that breaks down more often than a British car....
Being from Vancouver, I was always able to get good service...here in the UK I've been sent to a dodgy warehouse in Warrington by Sound Control, with my broken MC-505, which broke again 2 weeks later while I was playing in Central America....the lcd went, but I could still dial up patterns and guess....hilarious, I did better like that than I did the tour before haha
Basically, when you warrenty runs out on a 5-900 pound product, you're on your own...so low marks for the good folks from Roland ( sorry Dave)

It's good fun....for uses of the ring mod on Hammond, please refer to
Deep Purple In Rock...Hard Lovin' man
Deep Purple Made in Japan....Lazy

very entertaining.
Just like my Hammond, I have to use a bit of extra gain to get it to really howl.
PS I've got a pre 1960 C3 but have not been able to pin the date....any Hammond players out there, can I plug this site?
http://www.prevailingwinds.net/agelist/agelist.php

and of course my own, Cheesy yea yea bogoff ;-)
www.soundclick.com/badmrfrosty