# Roland VG-99



## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

I didn't tell you all about this but back in 1995 I bought a Roland VG-8 at Saved by Technology. When I first saw it demonstrated a few months prior at the Canadian Music Week show and sale I immediately said to myself "I have to buy this." I think the salesman at SBT was a little bit shocked after I tried it out and I told him I'd take it. His mouth literally dropped open.  Being an early adopter naturally the price of the unit was pretty high but at that time I was in pretty select company. I'd say that I was probably one of only four or five people in Canada with a VG-8. Alex Lifeson of Rush already had one at the time. 

Now, 2 weeks ago I was at Long & McQuades and I was trying out a nice used Epiphone Casino which at that time was selling for $550.00. The action and playability was really very good. I didn't buy it but I figured I'd think about it for a while then go back. So, early last week I did go back and I saw they lowered the price to $525.00 but before I could get it down to play it again another guy took it down and was trying it out so I figured I'd walk around a bit and look at some other things and what did I see but a box with the words "Roland VG-99" on it. Now, I don't know how things are where you're living but finding a VG-99 here in Toronto is very hard. I've seen some on Ebay going for $1,000.00 or more and I did briefly consider ordering one that way but there are always fees attached that make it even more expensive. I talked to the salesman about it and he agreed that it is very hard to get them. He told me that the one on the floor was one that for whatever reason was returned! I couldn't believe that someone would actually return a VG-99! Oh well, his loss is my gain. They reduced the price on it from $1,200.00 to $1,000.00 but I don't have it as yet. I told the salesman that I'd like to get it with the FC-300 foot controller. He informed me that they didn't have them in stock yet but they're on order so hopefully sometime this week they'll have it in. 

BTW I've read that the VG-8 when it was introduced in 1995 was outputting 12 bit sound and I see that the VG-99 has 24 bit sound so that must sound phenomenal. The 12 bits sounded pretty good at the time although there was some digital noise on some of the higher gain patches.

Here's a picture of the VG-99: http://www.roland.com/products/en/VG-99/images/info_01L_L.jpg

Here's the FC-300 foot controller:http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/FC-300/images/intro_L_L.jpg
I'm really looking forward to getting this.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Oh BTW just thought I'd let you know that VG owners hate it when non-VG owners ask them "How's the tracking on it?" Somehow people assume that the VG series are guitar synths but they're not. They're guitar and amp modellers. It wasn't Line 6 that started the modelling craze, they just jumped on the bandwagon. Roland started it back in 1995. Now a Roland GR-33 on the other hand *is* a guitar synth. Anyway, still no word from Long & McQuade but when I do get the VG-99 I'll let you know.


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## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

The VG99 looks like a good upgrade to the 8 and old 88, but I will stick with my 8. I think the biggest problem with all these systems was a lack of rackmountability. I never liked stepping on my VG8 because Ive destroyed so many Roland FC pedal boards to know that they dont take abuse well............


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

I know what you mean but with this new one you can either use the FC-300 foot controller or you can mount it on a stand. I also forgot to mention that I'll be trading in my old VG-8 towards the purchase of this one. Truthfully, I will miss a lot of things about it but this new one is just packed with great features. I joined the V-Guitar forum over at http://www.vg-99.com but it doesn't seem to be like this place. I posted in the new users forum a few days ago and there were 20 views but not one person said hello to me. I will say though there are a lot of good tricks and tips over at that forum for the VG-99. 



Accept2 said:


> The VG99 looks like a good upgrade to the 8 and old 88, but I will stick with my 8. I think the biggest problem with all these systems was a lack of rackmountability. I never liked stepping on my VG8 because Ive destroyed so many Roland FC pedal boards to know that they dont take abuse well............


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

*Got It.*

Just an update to this old posting. I finally got the VG-99 on Monday. As I said in the original post I also wanted the FC-300 foot controller to go with the VG-99. Well, Long & McQuade called me on Monday to let me know it was in so I went down and while I was there I asked the clerk why it took so long for the foot controller and he told me that when the warehouse out in Mississauga is out of them they don't order just one or two but anywhere between 100 to 200, so in other words, I basically had to wait for them to manufacture the controllers. 

I was checking out my VG-99 yesterday and I have to say that overall I'm pretty impressed with a lot of the presets. I'd say I like about 85% of them while the others are just so-so. This unit is a lot deeper than the VG-8, which I traded in towards the VG-99. It also comes with some nice editing software you can use on your PC or Mac. I'm going to have to play around with this unit and see what kinds of sounds I can get out of it.

BTW I couldn't believe how many virtual distortion/metal pedals there are in this unit. If you play hard rock or metal you'll really like the VG-99. There are also some looping functions, which wasn't in the VG-8, along with a lot of modeled acoustic and electric guitars along with banjo, sitar and of course the "synth" type of sounds. Lots of amp models and various effects as well. Once I get a little more familiar with it I'll make some recordings and save them as an MP3 so anybody interested in it can check it out.


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## defex (May 24, 2008)

Kenmac said:


> Oh BTW just thought I'd let you know that VG owners hate it when non-VG owners ask them "How's the tracking on it?" Somehow people assume that the VG series are guitar synths but they're not. They're guitar and amp modellers. It wasn't Line 6 that started the modelling craze, they just jumped on the bandwagon. Roland started it back in 1995. Now a Roland GR-33 on the other hand *is* a guitar synth. Anyway, still no word from Long & McQuade but when I do get the VG-99 I'll let you know.


Hi its my first post, I thought i ought to mention about this.

the VG-8 - 99 process the signal with DSP, not convert it to MIDI and then generate the sounds.

The reason it works so much better than line6 etc is because it is using the hexaphonic pickup so it can *process each string separately* it does a great job at it. its not quite the real thing of course, there is zero latency and the sound itself is as close as most people could tell.

The vg-99 DOES have guitar to midi functionality built in, it is quite rubbish unless you want a string type sound to swell up in the later part of a note played. I have the axon AX100 II for that and it is much faster. 

The axon actually measures the time you picked to the reflection back down the string rather than a phase locked loop, which takes a lot longer. roughly 4 times. it has no DSP, and a fairly mediocre built in sound library. i dont even have that output plugged in to anything, just MIDI.

Something i really like about it is the way you can send a midi CC depending on the position where you pluck the string. I like to use both the vg-99 and the axon together with the axon controlling the mix of the the 2 guitars on the vg-99 depending on where the (actual real one im playing) guitar is plucked. so the closer you play to the bridge pickup the more the guitar is mixed to (usually the more twangy of the 2) or you can control reverb mix with it which i find quite fun.

to use both at the same time you need the roland 13 pin GK splitter GKP4. its hard to get in canada. (let alone a vg-99 or an axon) ! but only 110 bux or so

anyways enough rambling BS nice to join your forum :rockon2::food-smiley-004::rockon2:


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Hi, welcome to the forum defex. Yeah, I know all about MIDI tracking as I've dabbled with that for years. As a matter of fact the very first guitar synth I bought way back in 1985 was a Roland GR-50 that generally had mediocre (at best) tracking. The built in sounds were 12 bit, which at that time, were pretty much state of the art. I haven't messed around with the guitar to MIDI functions in the VG-99 yet as I've been making my own patches for the past little while. I'll eventually share them over on the VG-99 forum.

I found that for MIDI guitar to really work effectively, as you say you pretty much have to get an Axon or if you want a MIDI controller that looks like a guitar then try doing a search on Google for the Yamaha EZ-AG or EZ-EG. I was fortunate enough to get one just before Yamaha stopped making them and I bought it at, of all places, a Future Shop store! It only cost about $250.00 at the time and it does a great job with no tracking delays whatsoever as it's basically a guitar shaped device with lots of buttons on the fretboard to press down on. The only negative to the AG controller is you can't bend strings and it's always transmitting sysex messages but I guess that could be filtered out in a DAW like Cubase, Sonar, Logic, etc. They're hard to find now but from time to time they do pop up on E-bay, Craigslist and Kijiji. The EG version came with a whammy bar which *did* allow you to bend notes and the AG version looked more like an acoustic. I should actually take some photos of mine and post them sometime. I just wonder what kind of reaction I'd get to it. :smile: Thanks for the info. Looking forward to more posts from you.



defex said:


> Hi its my first post, I thought i ought to mention about this.
> 
> the VG-8 - 99 process the signal with DSP, not convert it to MIDI and then generate the sounds.
> 
> ...


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