for people having BK-9 with v1.04,

BK-9 v 1.05 is officially available on roland.com

http://www.roland.com/products/en/BK-9/

some bug fixes,
User Dum kit function added
improvement in audio key sync

best Regards!

Thanks for the info and link to the update. I've got it and will update right away.

Unboxing as we speak...

UPDATE. Friend came over with a malfunctioning PA3X, so off goes the BK-9, up goes the PA3X on the stand, and I'm in tech support hell! Upgrading his entire OS and Resources, resetting, see if that works!

I just updated my store's BK-9 with the 1.05 and all went well. The website says it might take 20 minutes but it only took about 2 minutes. I checked at the RolandUS website and they don't have the update yet. Thanks for the link.

Just messing around right now...

The Hammond sim is MASSIVELY improved. Maybe not QUITE up to Nord levels, but as good as you are likely to need live. You can now get a good grind going at lower volumes. and the drawbar foldback is now correct, and the thing doesn't take your head off as you go up, and lose it's balls as you go down. Big kudos, Roland!

Navigation is a major PITA, but I think that about all keyboards without a touch-screen! As I've said, this is likely to be my solo or duo keyboard, so I rarely do stuff on the fly there... Wouldn't want to get stuck in a live gig with this, though. At least, if I had a G70 as an alternative!

The action is liveable... keys are about 1/3" shorter than the G70. More organ/synth than piano. There's a tiny hair more 'grab' when you do palm smears, but the corners are rounded enough to not be a big issue. Surprisingly, it is sprung a hair stronger than my G70, but weight is lighter, so a rather different feel. On the whole, I think I am getting to the top of the dynamic range a bit faster than the G70, so my default velocity curve might change from medium to high. Jury is out on this, though. Touch is just one of those things you have to adjust to.

The sad thing is that there is just about enough room on the panel for the G70 touch screen. Even if it added another $500 to the price, I believe Roland have made a HUGE blunder not using this. Navigation, editing, rapid Tone selection, style selection, Performance selection, all of this is MUCH slower than my G70. As are all non-touchscreen arrangers.

The included music rest is HUGE... but in the wrong way, IMO. It's quite a bit wider than the G70 rest, but no taller. So sheet music is still unsupported for half its height, tending to let it fold over backwards. But there's room for a triple page now... Me, I'd rather have enough height.

The USB slot is back in the recessed, hidden slot, covered by a door (like the Prelude). Far better than the BK-5's open slot. Not only does this protect the stick (and the delicate USB slot) from accidentally getting whacked, it's also 'out of sight, out of mind' for any light fingered kids (of all larcenous ages!).

The weight is amazing. Just about enough to keep it planted on the stand, but possibly a bounce issue if not supported fairly well out to the edges.

Not sure I like ALL the Factory Songbook entries coming up with Bass Inv ON... Hopefully there's a way to defeat that.

I'm afraid I have spent little time so far... worked until my gig on my friend's PA3x (seems he has a USB bus issue, got it updated with the latest OS, but then it refused to see the resources on the USB stick, or his gig backup! Ouch!), got home and messed around for an hour or so. Barely time to scratch the surface.

More as I progress.

I have to confess, I am amazed at how much reverb gets slathered onto some of the styles and presets. But not all...

Very perplexing. It's as if there is no standardized style as a template for each style creator or ROM voice creator. Some are drenched, some are quite dry. No rhyme or reason, no pattern.

Roland need some quality control!

The G70 had this issue and they updated it and removed a lot of the drenched sound. Hopefully, they listen and do it again.

Diki,
I too didn't like that the bass inversion kept coming on with different music assistants. It took me a while to figure how to turn it off. Here's how to do it:
1) push menu
2) go to global and push enter
3) scroll down to Performance Hold and push enter
4) Scroll down to Bass Inversion and push enter
5) use the wheel and select "on" (off is how it comes from the factory)
6) Push Exit
7) MOST IMPROTANT STEP: Scroll down to the bottom in global mode and go to "save global" and push enter, and then use the wheel to select "yes" and push enter. Now you are done. First time I forgot to save the global and next time I turned on BK-9 the bass inversion hold was back to off!
Also, each time you turn on the BK-9 the bass inversion light will come on at power up. Just turn it off once and it won't come on anymore.
I hope this helps.

I knew about that, but thanks, George, It is also where you hold other things like preferred fingering types.

Trouble comes when you want specific songs to have Bass Inv on, but your Performances all get stuck on Bass Inv off...

I am looking forward to the Session Manager software being updated for the BK's. It had the capability of batch writing your Performance parameters to any or all Performances you want. And leaving out the ones you didn't.

I am afraid that I really have to call Roland out about the dual display...

There comes a point where, once an arranger is complex enough, you simply cannot do what you need to to it for live purposes with merely a dual screen, a rotary encoder, and a pair of Inc/Dec buttons. The BK-9 is certainly well past that point!

OK, I get it... you were trying to save a buck or two, and some flunky at Roland went 'Well, we've got plenty of the LCD screens for the BK-3/5, let's put TWO in?'. And no-one in the room stood up and told him what a moron he was! A missed opportunity, IMO.

Look at how other companies that don't have touch screens do it... they surround the screen with buttons to the left, right and underneath. This makes quickly selecting what you want to edit a snap. There are five buttons to the left and five to the right of the S950's screen (a nice high-res color one at that, you cheap SOB's, Roland!) allowing you easily to select what you want to get to. Not so with the BK-9. For every parameter on the screen, you FIRST have to scroll around the screen using the wheel to get to the parameter in the first place, THEN press the wheel to select it...

It is idiotic beyond belief. And that's just the start...

There is simply too many parameters you need to get to in a hurry for the tiny displays, and things quite important get buried in sub menus, inside other menus. No chance whatsoever of getting to them live, while you play. Even exiting these sub menus can be a pain (although a held 'exit' will get you back to the top level in one go) if you want to do something further.

Let's take a simple example. Let's say you want to change the chord recognition type from Intelligent to Pianostyle (without calling up the piano mode - let's say you want to do it on a Rhodes, not acoustic)...

First, you hit the Menu button. You'd think that the Performance edit would be the first thing on the screen, at the top, where it gets immediately selected. No... the External Lyrics on/off switch..! Who the hell messes with that, much? You have to turn the wheel to navigate down to the Performance Edit selector, and then hit the wheel to open it up. You've now got a choice of 13 pages relating to the Performance settings! Arranger settings is #7 on that list, so you have to scroll down seven pages (careful not to overshoot!), and then hit the wheel AGAIN. You now have a choice of nine more settings. Fortunately, Arranger Type is #2, so at least you can see it! so you scroll down again to that, hit the wheel again (that is Roland's idea of an 'Enter' or 'Select' button ) to select the parameter, then scroll down again until you get the Pianist mode you want (there are two).

Can you believe all that?

Do you know what I have to do from the main page on my G70 to get to the same parameter? I hit the main screen in the top left area (the 'Chord' section) and there it is! Along with the zone and arranger hold chord, Intro ending alteration and Dynamic Arranger buttons, plus other buttons that link you directly To the arranger Options section, Melody Intelligent section, and One touch settings.

So, one hit on the G70's screen, eight separate things to do on the BK...

Rinse and repeat for nearly everything. As far as I am concerned, this is idiotic! Particularly as Roland, in their previous arranger series, had a perfectly great working touch screen system for an arranger (the E50) that was $1000 LESS than the BK-9. Admittedly it was B&W, not full color like the G70/E80, but functionally identical.

Basically, this relegates the BK series to something you HAVE to set up everything for every song in advance. Other than selecting styles and tones on the fly (it does have the 'Favorite Tones' section from the BK-3), best of luck getting to much in a hurry!

Now, I AM one of those kind of guys when it comes to my solo and duo stuff, so the arranger is not going back to the dealers. But Roland have missed a massive opportunity here. This is potentially, tied to a touch screen, one of the most powerful, easy to use arrangers AND live band keyboards ever made. The Hammond sim is so good, it makes it a contender against the Nord's (particularly as it does so much more than even the Stage), against Korg's stage pianos, against anything that Yamaha can muster. It's pianos are great, basically, everything in here is great. So far, no real sonic disappointments... OK, it doesn't QUITE compete with the SA2 horns and the like, but it's a LOT closer, and some of the SuperNatural stuff goes even further than Yamaha do.

This is one amazing arranger/live keyboard.

Utterly let down by the decision to shave costs by axing the touch screen, and not surrounding the main screens with buttons.

Once again, Roland show their utter disconnect with musicians that play their keyboards. And their complete inability to recognize what was BEST about previous models and preserve it as they move forward. Whoever made this boneheaded decision needs to seriously contemplate seppuku!

Thanks heaps for your honest discourse on the BK-9 m8. Much appreciated, and it is now certainly off my list

I can save some money and wait for whatever comes along over the next year or two...

The Integra-7 and an A-88 is still looking a great combo, granted nothing remotely like an arranger ( but with vA.... ) but an awesome setup

Dennis