I just sold my BK-9. Luckily, somebody was keen on a lightweight 76-key board with organ drawbars and paid 90% of my purchase price of December.

Although I still have mixed feelings about the sale, as it was a unique arranger in the sense that it was low-weight with 76 good-quality keys and without built-in speakers (those speakers are a no-go for me), I think it was the right decision in view of the cons I lately realized and the fact that I already have an Integra-7 soundwise.

There is one problem about the BK-9 I only realized last week, it may be a detail only for some users, but essential for me, as I often need pure piano plus strings:

The BK-9 clearly has a polyphony problem.
When you play a SuperNatural piano and add the best strings to it (Full Sect.2), notes are quickly cut off when you play with sustain pedal. Not just when making excessive use of it, but with normal playing of a pop ballad. It is very striking.
I am sure the cause consists of the following two factors:

1) The SN-A sounds require much power from the processor, so they eat up much more polyphony than an ordinary PCM sound. (Roland mentions this with respect to the Jupiters and Integra.)
2) The strings "Full Sect. 2" appear as one tone in the BK-9, but from the SRX 04 expansion board from which it stems, I know that the original patch consists of 4 waveforms. Even if you don't see these 4 components, they are there and eat up polyphony.

I still have to check if the same combination of sounds generates the same problem in the Integra - so far I have had very few polyphony problems with the Integra. If the problem doesn't appear, this means that the BK-9 processor is too weak to handle SuperNatural sounds in combination with other sounds.

You may ask: then why not just take a different strings tone that doesn't require so much polyphony? - That's my other criticism: This one strings tone is excellent; ALL the others are average to low quality. Why didn't Roland add at least a handful of different SRX 04 strings to the BK-9? Instead, there are 20 or more strings of a rather low quality, taken from the BK-7m and older instruments like GW7.

are you considering the Casio MZ x500 next?

No, I don't consider any arranger in keyboard shape. I am mainly synthesizer-focused, and my problem was that I want to use my MoXF6 and don't want to schlepp two instruments, so for the moment I got back another BK-7m B-ware, and for the future I will be checking the first user reviews of the Ketron SD40 when it is released.

[quote=rosetree]

There is one problem about the BK-9 I only realized last week, it may be a detail only for some users, but essential for me, as I often need pure piano plus strings:

Once you hear superior sounds, it is hard to relegate yourself to less. This, perhaps, has caused me to buy more gear than I should have.

I think of you as a consummate crafter of fine sounds, and that is meant to be a compliment. Whereas, I had a BK-9 and found the sounds and styles to be very good, I haven't been exposed to the quality you have, hence, my opinion.

There might be other audiophiles to agree with you, but not many would encounter this problem. I am glad,however, you resolved your problem.
Bernie

You are right that as a whole the BK-9 sounds very good. Piano plus strings solo without style is something I specifically need during weddings when accompanying soloists. I am surprised these problems occur with this way of using the BK-9, but I've sometimes had some dropouts when using very dense style arrangements, too. So polyphony is a certain problem, when using styles it only pops up occasionally, but that's the reason why Roland hasn't used SuperNatural sounds for style parts at all.
I just received the B-ware BK-7m again and tested it by playing the automatic intros and endings of two styles from the "Live Band" section. Sounds very good, even the guitar style parts sound good - actually regarding the styles alone there is no big difference to the BK-9.

I had the Integra 7 for a week, and tested it with vArranger.

I also had some polyphony problems when I selected the best Integra 7 supernatural sounds for each style track in some heavy styles (yamaha styles)

Layering sounds is common to get richer sounds, but need more polyphony

For many people arranger modules would be a perfect solution... Which allows you to combine your favourite arranger styles with your favourite key....

Ketron for sure has some excellent styles... And for the bk7m, i dont think the style part is that much different from the bk9..

I wish every arranger would be available in a module form....that would make choosing your 2 keyoard setup much easier..