Roland VB-99 V-Bass

The Roland VB-99 V-Bass is a V-Bass Synthesizer System from Roland, aimed at bass players who want one unit to cover a wide range of sounds¹. Rather than a single-effect bass pedal, it is a modeling system: it sets out to accurately model the world's most popular basses, from classic electrics to upright acoustic bass and fretless bass, and combines those models with a range of bass amps, synth sounds, and polyphonic effects¹.

What it does

The VB-99's modeling covers the instrument itself, not just the amp. A player can switch between the character of a classic electric bass, an upright acoustic bass, and a fretless bass, then run that through modeled bass amps, synth sounds, and polyphonic effects¹. Polyphonic operation means the effects and synth sounds track across all the strings you play, not just single notes.

One of its structural features is dual independent signal paths¹. That means two separate processing chains can run at once, so a player can set up two different sounds, or split a signal into two routings, rather than being limited to a single series chain.

For players comparing it with a conventional multi-effects unit, the difference is scope: where a multi-effects pedal processes your bass's own signal, the VB-99 replaces the instrument's voice itself with modeled basses and adds synth sounds on top¹.

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