I sold the BK-7M for the following reasons:
1. I found it added to rather than lessened my setup time on gigs
2. Most of the assigned OTS voices, which can't be changed then saved, were not to my liking and frankly did not fit well the style they were assigned to.
3. It was very time consuming doing just the very simple things on it - even after you learned how. For example, to simply audition styles and delete those not wanted you had to copy the styles onto a computer, play the style on the module, but delete the style from the copy on a computer, then reload everything back onto the thumb drive. What idiot designed that part of the OS???
I found the OS to be very hard to use and not finished.
It has many bugs reported by users all over the world - check the BK-7M users group and the Roland Arranger BK-7M forum.
I believe Roland rushed the product to market in order to announce it at NAMM. There is not an editor program available, that works, for the thing so everything must be done on the module. One of the owners makes adjustments to styles on his E50 then transfers them to the BK-7M - what kind of a deal is that? Not everyone who buys the module has another Roland keyboard to use as an editor.
Just my thoughts.
Deane
Thanks Deane. I knew that you finally did get it up and running, and I must commend you for your patience.
The reasons you sold it were basically the
same reasons the three owners, I met with, returned theirs.
One was using a Roland RA-90, which the BK-7M was to replace, but he told me that the latter was many steps behind the former for ease of use/setup, although it did sound better (which made it even more frustrating).
I hope they fix all the reported bugs with another OS upgrade, and perhaps learn from what they've done and produce a BK-?? that will at least have the ease of use found with their older modules. I too, had a Roland RA-90, and I thought it was terrific.
My plan was to use the BK-7M with a lightweight digital piano, but since it was even hard to use with a
dedicated (and TOTL)
Roland controller, I'm afraid that with the piano, things would have been far worse.
Thanks again for your very honest and complete reply.
Ian