I have a Yamaha YBNP76 case, which only weighs about 4 lbs and can hold the BK9. Of course, it's not the same rugged protection you've got there, and I wouldn't suggest it if you've got roadies handling your stuff. But if you're carrying your own gear reasonably carefully from home to car and car to stage, it's sufficient for that, and there's your weight savings. You can get it for about $60.


I have not yet really looked into using the BK9 to control an iPad sound source. In a brief scan, I couldn't find anything in the manual about, for example, specifying an external part for Upper 1 or Upper 2, or otherwise specifying any kind of recallable external zone (e.g. having a sound over some part of the keyboard trigger an external iPad sound, using whatever MIDI channel and some Program Change command for selecting the sound). How would you go about integrating the kind of iPad sounds you're talking about?

Kind of getting back to the topic of this thread, having first played the BK9, I wondered about whether a BK-7M might be a better choice for me. But...

...having "favorited" a bunch of BK9 sounds, I was surprised at how few of my favorites were in the BK-7M. To my ears, most of the best sounds are exclusive to the 9.

... I'd miss the clonewheel organ

... I'd miss the BK-9 Editor which makes it easy to customize sounds via an iPad. That appears to be the only model that has such an editor. (Editing on the small BK-7M screen doesn't seem so appealing,)

... I don't think the BK-7M has a way to create your own rhythms...?

The area to look into is the MIDI Sets. You only get eight, but that’s plenty enough to work well with a modest iPad setup (I’m primarily just using a few solo sounds, as you have noticed, most of the BK9’s sounds are bang on).

In the MIDI Set, you select which Keyboard or Song/Style Parts get sent out the MIDI/USB connection. Then select which MIDI Ch# you want to transmit on (so it doesn’t have to use the Internal Ch#) and decide which controllers, sysex etc. you want to send or block. At this point it’s send mode only you need, so make sure to turn OFF all incoming MIDI, especially sysex!

Once you’ve set up things the way you want, save as say #2 of the 8. I recommend setting Set 1 to Internal sounds only, no transmit of any kind, no receiving anything (unless you are hooked to a DAW). Make this your Default startup Midi Set, so you always start up with no chance of anything unusual coming from the iPad!

You can probably come up with your own needs, but I definitely recommend one Set for UPR1 transmit, one for UPR2 only, one for LWR, then whatever combinations you need.

BUT…. WARNING!

The MIDI Set data is stored in the Global parameters, which on the BK series, has NO BACKUP at all. 🤯 This means WRITE DOWN ON PAPER ALL THESE SETTINGS! That’s the only way to recreate them if you end up having to do a reset (as are ALL parameters stored in Global, which includes your Mastering Tools data, Mic settings, FC7 assignments and much more). Total PITA, fixed on the EA7…

Then, once you have your MIDI Sets tested and stored, you can Link each individual Performance (all 999 of them!) you create to one of the Sets. From this point onwards, you can basically just use and play the BK9 without worrying about external gear (yes, this system will work with most external gear, whether USB or MIDI). Call up a Performance, and all routing and setups are done for you.

As to calling up the sounds in an iPad instrument, there’s a bit of a wrinkle. Been a while since I tested this, the Keyboard Parts can only SEND the PC#’s of the Internal sounds. This isn’t a problem if your iPad instrument just uses straight 1-128 PC#’s, but if it wants to see CC#00/32 codes for bank select, you may not find an Internal Tone with the same codes. YMMV, caveat emptor!

Song Parts (if you decide to REALLY complicate life by using the iPad/external gear for Song Parts!) can be set to transmit any code, so no problem there.

I’d recommend you walk before you run… get the SWAM tenor or alto (or get the bundle!), hook it up to the iPad, use a simple MIDI Set to transmit just controllers (filter out pc# to not inadvertently change the sound in the iPad) for UPR1 (my #2 Set) and then just bliss out playing that amazing sax sound!

Sorry for being a bit late with the reply… chemo sucks! 🩷🎹🩷🎹🩷

Thanks for all your helpful info!

Since there are only 8 recallable MIDI configs, I don't think the inability to specify MSB/LSB for a program change would necessarily be much of an issue. If I wanted, for example, external sounds to be associated with MIDI Sets 2 through 8, I could put the 7 desired sounds on 7 different channels on the iPad side, so merely having a MIDI Set transmit on a different channel would call up the desired sound, without having to send any Program Change at all!

I think there are also AUv3 hosting apps which, themselves, could respond to Program Changes of your choice (i.e. staying within 1-128 with no MSB/LSB needed), and that app would in turn invoke the desired patch from one of the hosted apps. I'm thinking about Keystage, Camelot Pro, AUM... I think one or more of these would probably be able to do that.

Sorry to hear of your health issues. :-(

The only issue with AUv3 hosts is I think it taxes the system rather more than just addressing the one program (like SWAM or Minimoog Model D).

One thing I found amazing was, because it’s monophonic (although the solo strings can double-stop), native latency is astonishingly low (under 6ms) for the saxes. Highly playable and zero glitches!

My needs for now are simple, I'm still trying to not run before I walk yet!

If you're only running one program, you're probably right. But once you're running multiple apps, at least in my experiments, it seems it is less taxing on the system to use a hosting app. Originally I thought that (for example) running two apps (say, SWAM and Model D, each set to respond on different MIDI channels) would be more efficient than running three... i.e. those same two apps plus a hosting environment (so using the host would be something you'd choose for some other benefit). But while it may very with the app combination, from what I've seen, you actually seem to gain some efficiency (or predictability/stability) by running them via the host, as some elements of the individual apps are no longer being used.

Which host do you recommend..?

My experiments would have been with either Keystage or Camelot Pro. The former has a free demo; the latter's free demo is only Mac/PC, but you could try it that way, and then buy the iPad version if you like it. A lot of people also like AUM, but it doesn't work the way my brain works. ;-)

Thanks…