Just returned from the National Accordion Association Convention.

I did see, hear, hold and play the Roland BK-7m module. Unfortunately, it was not under the best circumstances and it was very brief. If you've ever been in a convention setting you know what I mean. NOISE, NOISE, and MORE NOISE! Sorry, there are no photos or video, If you can believe it, I forgot my camera.

So, here it is in brief. The construction is great, weight abt 3 pounds, color is good (black and silver.) The screen is small, however, the blue backlight on black background is very readable.

Did not go through all the styles, but the ones I heard sounded really good. (big band, latin, some rock) very usable, very full sounding, 4 variations and one-touch sounds. Did not get a chance to hear country.

The individual voices that I heard were OK. Here again, I did not hear all of them. Obviously, they don't compare w/Yamaha's SA voices, but I think there adequate.

I appears to be very user friendly; ready to play "out of the box". One thing that impressed me is how easy it was to hook up my accordion(about 3 minutes.) Of course this module was created in part for the Roland V accordions. So when you plug it in, you select Roland accordion from the menu and it automatically finds and sets the MIDI channels. If you have a non-Roland MIDI accordion, seelect "other accordion" then, push one note on the right hand, then one chord button, and finally one bass button, and it finds and matches the MIDI channels for that.

For me, it's a big hit, however, it did not seem to attract a lot of lookers. I actually had to ask three times if I could try it out and I think I was the only one that did. Roland did not seem to push it. It mainly sat on a table unused. They really did not do an indepth presentation! This probably happened because they had just one guy and he was quite busy demoing accordions.

I did not get to see how it handeled media from a thumb drive as far as load time etc.

The price makes this a very attractive ($999.00.) Actually, I ordered mine before I ever saw one. And now, just from what I've seen and heard I think it was a great decision. Another thing that sold me is the fact that it can be controlled via a foot pedal (FC-7.)

I think it will work great as a stand alone or complement other keyboards and arrangers. It's a "must have" for any accordionist. IMO, it's a lot of "Bang for the Buck."

Wish I could say more.

Don P