I love my BK7m....but mainly as a convenient and very capable drum machine. I also use the excellent (to me) acoustic piano controlled by my VP770 which sits atop my organ (KeyB Duo MK111). This is my rehearsal configuration and I wish I had another (BK7m) for my studio which is in another room. IMO, the BK's drums are even better than my upgraded full kit Alesis. However for convenience, I usually use configurable drum tracks for recording. I'm thinking about getting a hardware drum machine for my studio but can't settle on one that I think justifies the money. If I ran across a deal on a used BK7m in prime condition, I'd buy it.

chas

Chas, check the buy section. I just listed my bk7m. zuki

Hi Diki,

Thank you for that, yes I do have a lot! I've kept a few even when upgrading and some I've purchased back that I used to own but still wanted to use them. Some are unique, like the Pa700RD and some are very rare like the Ketron SD60, I've never seen one used for sale in the UK. I am looking to offload a couple more though whilst the trade in prices are still decent for them, but some on my list will be with me permanently.

Yes there is no denying the quality of the BK9 and those live band styles are quite fantastic. That sound quality is across all the styles so that's a great benefit. I think the EA7 loses that a bit, plus it doesn't have A LOT of the major styles from the BK9 anyway which I was quite surprised about.

Yes, the only new technology that offers a substantial increase in realism of live sound is (imho) the audio loop tech that Ketron have adopted, but it comes with issues, most importantly is a lack of full chord recognition in many styles. Plus, of course, the inability to change the sound or edit the Part.

So that one style will always sound the same, and you will sound identical to everybody else with a Ketron. I always liked the ease of editing the factory styles and just doing some minor stuff (change one guitar sound for a different one, or changing the snare sound etc) and knowing I had something a little bit different!

There’s something to be said for taking the EA-7 styles and using them in the BK9 rather than the other way round. Roland added the ability to have two or more Drum Tracks to the BK series, but afaik not ONE of the ROM styles used the feature! I guess they didn’t tell the style creators about it, or it was added too late in the style creation timeline for the creators, plus of course, probably 80% of the styles were legacy styles (as most arrangers do) so you couldn’t add an extra drum track without losing an existing track…

However a FEW of the EA-7’s ROM styles made good use of the feature, and are backwards compatible with the BK9 (if they didn’t use some of the new percussion stuff in the EA-7). Some of those BK9 percussion kits have GREAT sounds, it’s a shame the style creators didn’t add them instead of using the pretty sub-par percussion in the stock kits!

Try adding the EA-7 styles to the BK9 rather than the other way round! 🎹😎

Hi Diki,

I tried exactly that I was quite surprised at the results, they sound superb. Only a very small amount sounded off, but it would usually only be in the drums if it did.

However I also did notice that some of the styles that are in both the BK9 and EA7, the EA7 version of the style sounds better in the BK9 than the BK9 factory version!! This I was quite surprised with!

That’s the result of a few years of tweaking the factory styles between the launches of the BK9 and the EA7… I definitely got the impression that Roland leaves creating or tweaking the styles until preproduction keyboards are available for the style team, and by that point the sales division is screaming for them to finish so they can start selling them..!

I’ve already alluded to how not one single BK9 style uses more than one kit, and I think you are hearing the results of just a bit more time spent EQ-ing and balancing the styles than Roland gave the BK9. A company more committed to making arrangers might have brought out an update that replaced the original ROM styles with those tweaked for the EA7, but so much about the last two Roland ‘pro’ arrangers seems half finished.

On the BK9 there were plans for expansion ROM sounds that never got designed into even the motherboard (there are no expansion slots á la G70), and zero factory content for the Key Audio feature (which would have made for an excellent substitute for no multipads). Not to mention, no way to Link Chord Sequences to Performances or Link .jpg’s to Performances (for sheet music display on a connected monitor), relegating both those features to disuse (if you can’t bring up everything you need in one go, it’s no use live!).

On the EA7, 128MB (that’s not a typo!) of RAM for the sampler is almost useless in these days of multi-GB sized RAM on Yamaha’s and Korg’s. And once again, no factory audio multipads and no way to take SMF’s and import them to multipads (basically rendering it only useful with the ROM multipads).

It just felt like Roland no longer cared (G70 got quite a massive update in v2.0) enough to fix the launch shortcomings. And given that Roland basically bailed on the entire segment after the EA7, I think there’s a good case for this being true!

Am I able to obtain a copy of the EA-7 Factory Styles so I can import them into my BK-9? are they available to download anywhere?

Thanks