RMC V9SF-001B Sub Filter board for Roland VB99 (Review)

Started by fokof, February 07, 2011, 10:21:06 AM

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fokof

I ordered a V9SF-001B from RMC for my VB99

info@rmcmusic.com

, the idea was to clean up the low end since the VB doesn't have a high pass filter.

After some initial mishap (more on that later) and a couple of weeks of use , I can say that it is helpfull for any Piezo based pickup bass.
I have two Graphtech equipped bass and it cleans up a bit of the unwanted left hand noise on some more sensible patches like the GR synths.
You don't hear the improvement as much on the bass emulations , but you can definitly hear it on the synths patches.

For those same reasons , it helps A BIT too in the Pitch to MIDI departement. If your into pitch to midi , and wants anything to help a bit , and you have a piezo based system , it will help.  It still su** , but su** a little less.

Strangely , the filter doesn't affect as much the GK3B pickup, I wonder if there is already filter in the GK3B circuit......  ??? .....

A very very big HEADS UP ( for guitarists too ) when setting up the RMC filter , you can't have a reverse pickup setting.
If you do , your low B (low E) will have the filter of the high C (high E).
I saw some questions here about why there isn't any filters at the input of the VG and VB while there were some on other older units ; well I think that the "reverse" option on the GK setup page is the answer.

As you guessed , all my basses had a REVERSE pickup , when I installed it , the tracking was horrible and I had no more lowend on the bigger strings , after a couple a email exchange with Richard , he finally put the finger on the problem : the reverse option.
100 thumbs up for Richard for his incredible service , very nice guy. 

If you have a piezo based system , and want the best out of your VB99 , go for it , it's a nicely invested 150$
If you have GK3b setup , it probably helps too , but it is a lot less obvious.

Gros merci a Richard et Denise

fokof

Did some tests to check out the RMC filter frequencies. (for VB99)

I have an RMC fanout so I played back a Pink noise to each string input of the VB99.
In the setup GK page , I took a Piezo G , all flat , and sett it all so that it modulated @ 3 "tick" before clip (wich was all @10)

Pink is low B
Yellow is E
Orange is A
Blue is D
Green id G
The gray is the pink noise , direct.

Interesting to see how each string is processed in the second capture.
The first capture is to show at wich frequencies each strings are.

steadystate

Quote from: fokof on February 07, 2011, 10:21:06 AMA very very big HEADS UP ( for guitarists too ) when setting up the RMC filter , you can't have a reverse pickup setting.
If you do , your low B (low E) will have the filter of the high C (high E).
I saw some questions here about why there isn't any filters at the input of the VG and VB while there were some on other older units ; well I think that the "reverse" option on the GK setup page is the answer.

I can see also how a hard-wired filter wouldn't work with reverse mode, but the 88 had serious issues with reverse mode seemingly unrelated to this.  All of my guitars (4) have reverse-mounted GK2's.  My VG-88 did not work properly with any of my guitars in reverse mode.  Selecting "reverse" in setup produced massive crosstalk between the 6th and 1st strings, the 5th and 2nd strings, and the 4th and 3rd stings.  Adjusting the sensitivity for either string in an above-mentioned pair would affect the sensitivity of both strings.  It was if the pairs were mixed together before the sensitivity adjustment.  Balancing the strings was extremely difficult and altered tunings would badly glitch.  I had to use the unit in normal mode and treat the 6th string as the 1st...and so on.

The VG-99 works with reverse mode.  As far as filtering, Roland could have implemented filters in software in all products to accommodate both normal and reverse.  No reason to not have filtering.  Roland is a dichotomy of brilliance and idiocy.


admin

#3
Suggest perform the electrical mod to your guitars with reverse mounted GK-3 PU's to allow them to use the "normal" PU Direction GK User setting, and be 100% compatible with any third party High Pass Filter boxes

more details here:

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3365.msg22370#msg22370


FWIW-

* VG-8 / VG-8EX Input Filter Mod instructions are here
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=13078.0


* VG-88 Input Filter Mod instructions are here
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=916.0