I recently bought a BK-5 to replace my PA600 and just want to share observations
for amateurs hobbyist like me playing at home.
I did the switch mainly because of the lack of styles and how they sound on
the PA600, just got tired of tweaking. My wife and I play mostly jazz, swing and latin.
For instance we wanted to play Take 5 put I could not find a decent 5/4 style on the Korg, in
less than 10 minutes I have found half a dozen for the BK on the net. When we first heard
the BK-5 we both said: Wow! that's what we wanted, way better than the PA600.
Out of 24 songs in our repertoire, 21 were already in performances list and they all sound
great, the remaning were in the songs I had downloaded (around 1500 at the moment).
The PA had much less and only a few were good for us.
Don't get me wrong the PA600 is a very good arranger in that price range. It has more good
sounds than the BK-5 except for drums, bass and maybe piano. The PA600 as better styles
for country, pop, dance, rock and funk(more punch), but we don't do these styles. The touch
screen is plus but Roland way is quite easy too.
I wanted to share this because many of the comments on this forum are made by accomplish
musicians and some very passionate who tends to bash lower priced arranger and sometime
a company. I understand that they have different needs but I had read so many bad comments
last year about the BK-5 that I was nervous when I got it, after buying it without trying it,
now I just love it.