BK-7m is no harder or easier to use than any other BK arranger.

It is definitely one of those 'set it up in advance' type arrangers. Not really a great 'free panel' arranger. But most new arrangers are going that route nowadays, with the bewildering range of options and features they now offer.

There comes a time when you simply have to move on. You can't keep expecting arranger makers to add more and more and more features, then expect to run it all with the simplicity that the old one trick ponies did!

I think John's problems came about because he wanted to do things HIS way, rather than the 'Roland Way'... Once you decide to do things the way that Roland do them (it's not realistic to expect Yamaha or Korg to do things Roland's way!), the BK's allow you to do most things other modern arrangers do. But if you've been a stranger to the Roland Way for ages, you'll have some adjusting to do. Just like if I were to get a Yamaha. I'm sure I could find a dozen things that would make me scream 'Why did they do it THIS way?!' LOL

The BK-7m has a pretty good 'MIDI Wizard' that makes setting it up to be used by a variety of controller types easy, setting up MIDI channels appropriately, all the way up to sending it a simple single MIDI channel, and the BK maps the splits and layers to that one channel. Performances can be called up via MIDI, so your controller keyboard can load your setups easily.

Depending on your controller, pretty much everything can be controlled by MIDI, and the BK-7m also has an FC-7 input (which the -5 and -3 don't) so you can put up to seven extra functions at your feet.

I'm pretty happy with mine, although I don't use it quite as conventionally as most. For me, it's primarily a sound-bank for my keytar, with optional styles, SMF's and MP3's if I were to want to do something as crazy as a full arranger gig on my keytar!

And, short of the Ketron modules (MUCH more expensive), it's pretty much the only game in town for an arranger module.

Personally, if I wanted to use this as a full arranger, I'd probably prefer to drive it with a decent WS rather than another arranger, and then get the best of both worlds, but I see no reason why anyone couldn't drive it from an arranger, as long as the master arranger had a decent MIDI implementation. That's your main problem, though. Some (Yamaha particularly) aren't quite as flexible as you might need.

Roland don't allow the codes to trigger functions to be changed (none do, TBH) and Yamaha do quite a bit of stuff with sys-ex, whereas everyone else uses simple CC/PC codes. So, YMMV depending on what controls it.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.