Hi Deane,

It would appear he buys his kit at Promenade Music. However, I do recognise him. I believe he came in aroundabout Christmas, enquiring about the VP7. I don't think I had it in stock at the time, but I've got it now! By all means tell him about me, if he wants to pop in for a chat... maybe even see the BK7m or T4 (I see he has a T3.) I'd be delighted to take him through them.

The store I work at now is relatively new. It has only been there for just over a year, and people are still discovering us everyday. However I have worked in Glasgow for 9 years now and in Edinburgh for over 4 years before that. It is rare that I have not crossed the path of arranger keyboard users in this locale. I hope he is the same man I am thinking about! Blantyre isn't far from us.

I noticed you uploaded your performances to the yahoo user group. I had a wee look through them today. Forgive me but there are a lot of your songs which I just don't know... not my era, sorry! However, I was very impressed by the professionalism of them. You seem to have edited effects well and layered your sounds well. Nice job!

Linda (accordionlinda) had asked me for the registration from my sax ballad video. She is convinced it has something different from her ones in it. So I have uploaded it there too. I was thinking of doing some more to put on there, but I want to put things that people may use/want. I need to have a think about the type of people using the group and the registrations they may need.

In the meantime, if there is anything I can do to help you via your friend Willie, let me know. It's a small world eh?

All the best

John

Pre-purchase question: I want to be able to record the midi data of the accompaniment parts to my computer sequencer (Sonar) for further editing (I'll be using the unit to create basic backing tracks in my sequencer that I will then tweek as necessary). Pg 66 of the BK manual has options for setting the Transmit off or on for each Acc part and setting the Transmit channel for each Acc part. So I'm assuming that the BK7m will in fact transmit this data to my sequencer if I set this Transmit switch on. Is that correct? Will it transmit via the USB (I would assume so, but the Wizard setting for Computer/Sequencer says it disables the styles and sets the unit in multi mode, so I would have to use one of the other modes and and it's not clear if the USB midi operates in the other Wizard modes).

Hi Ric... I'll try it out for you tomrrow. I am on a day off then so hopefully will get some time, particularly since the rain is forecast to return. I use Sonar X1 PE. What are you running?

At the moment I am pretty certain eveything you want to do can be done, certainly I could do that stuff with my G70. Also if you want to use backings, do not set it up as connected to a computer/sequencer in the wizard. You wont get the styles then. in other modes I am sure the USB connection still transfers midi data. The computer/sequencer settiong in the wizard is designed to set up for you to use it as a sound module. It works well with sonar since there is an instrument definition file available to download from the Roland website.

Thanks for your help Sweentech. I'm running Sonar X1 By the way, I've enjoyed reading all of your postings on this thread. They have been very very helpful.

Rick and John,

Currently the USB issue is a discussion I'm having on the BK-7m Yahoo list with Roberto who may or may not be with Roland Italy.

He just wrote last evening that the USB MIDI Ports are active with the MIDI ports but I asked him to clarify. The manual does not explain this at all. I read the manual too and found that part about Arranger functions are turned off when in Sequencer mode.

John, if you do have success in using both USB MIDI and hard MIDI at same time please post it here. It will definitely be a plus for what I want to do. Otherwise a MIDI Merge box is in order.

Rick, if you are only sending messages to the PK-7M from your controller and not receiving anything, you could also use the out port to go to an In on your pc for Sonar to record. If you plan to do both and have the BK managed by the PC only then you could always connect directly via MIDI Cables by-passing the Sequencer function, but yes, (according to the manual at least) it will send the arranger tracks out through the out port depending on those settings you mentioned. I want to do the same and many other things too.

PS: John, loved your "Careless Whispers" on YouTube.

This morning I setup one song (Alley Cat) using 4 different user programs with different voices on the UP1 and UP2 voices. The assignment of voices works great - BUT, changing programs, and or voices, on the fly using the wheel is a tricky deal to say the least.
However, if you wanted only 4 voices per song you can setup 2 user programs per song and use the UP1 and U2 voices. That is not to bad.

This is my first attempt and I'll work on it this week and report back. My initial thoughts on this is that organizing your gig lists might be a real pain with this system - I'll give it a try and see how it goes. Like most of us I have several thousand tunes in my gig lists - that is a lot of user programs.

Deane

Hi Deane,

A simple solution for you (since you don't have a FC-7 pedal) may be to use a pedal plugged in to the pedal port on the back of the BK7m. It can be set to function as perf. next or performance next. If you do this, but still need a damper, plug the damper pedal into your A800-Pro (and an expression pedal for that matter too if needed.) They will transit the signal straight through to the BK7m in addition to what is plugged into the BK7m directly.

I just took delivery of another FC7 pedal for myself which I purchased on ebay for £17 + postage. It was too good to be true, because it has had a different plug fitted (6 pin rather than 8 pin) which looks like it has been adapted to work on a Korg EC5 socket. I'm slightly annoyed with myself, because I wanted another to use with my G70 seperately. Hummmphhhh!

Guys, I'll come back to you on your USB questions shortly.... I am just trying it out now.

Hi Ric,

I just tried recording a style into Sonar using the USB midi connector. It all worked! Please be aware to keep the channels discrete, you should receive the channels individually into Sonar, so set up a track for each accompaniment part which you are going to record, then save this as a template, so you can use it again and again, each time you wish to record a backing from the BK7m. It will also retransmit the keyboard information it receives, if you select global for the soft thru on the BK7m. Be careful through that you are not trasmitting from your controller keyboard on the same channel as one of the style parts transmits to sonar on, otherwise you will merge that data. You may also wish to consider setting the BK7m as the master clock source.

Vin, the information is also transmitted out of the standard midi ports. I got them to play into my G70 to check.

Rick, I am not sure what your controller keyboard is, but it would appear you are also transmitting from a PK7 at the same time. If this is plugged into an Atelier with the dedicated cable then it should send out the pedal messages automatically. If you are using a controller keyboard like the A800Pro, set the midi merge destination on the A800 to midi out, and turn on the merge switch on the side, then it will retransmit the midi information from the pedals to the BK7m.

Now here is an amazing thing. This all means you could stack togther 3 A800-Pro keyboards in a three manual setup, and a PK pedal board, and all can transmit into the BK7m simultaneously, by using the input merge on each A800, and setting a different midi transmit channel for each. Fabulous! All of that can also be retransmitted to a PC via USB from the BK7m too.

Thanks for your compliments too!

Sweentech: thanks so much for trying the USB for me. That's great news. Your earlier posts about the differences between the GW8 (which I have) and the BK7m prompted me to compare the voice and styles lists of both instruments and it seems that the BK7m has so many more voices and styles in the categories that matter to me, so with this USB question now resolved, I'm definitely buying the BK7m now. Thanks again!

Nice one Ric.

Good luck with it!

John