Well, there’s nothing to stop you hooking up a BK7-m to a VSTi rig...

For me, the future may very well be something like Groovyband software, especially as the small development team and lack of corporate inertia allows them to reinvent the wheel, and move towards things like far more Variations and fills, or pseudo random note changes to move away from the repetitive nature of styles.

Pair that with a decent software collection of VSTi’s, you’ve got something that ought to move the bar higher by quite a margin.

In truth, I’ve pretty much abandoned the style engine part of my BK-9, I don’t find it as realistic as audio tracks (which often have real guitarists and drummers etc) and my goal has always been to convince ME (not the far easier fooled audience!) that I’m back playing with a great band...

Most songs, the chords are the chords. If I feel like making a substitution, I can usually pull that off without changing the backing (particularly if it’s reasonably sparse). But most of the time, the only thing I want to mess with is structure, extra solos, stuff like that. And I still struggle with the necessity of inputting chords rather than play like I did with bands, using my left hand for all kinds of things, not rote constant chord input!

So, more and more, the style section is less and less important to me. Fortunately, I think Roland went out on a high note with the BK-9, although it may not be the world’s best style keyboard, I honestly think it’s the world’s best gigging keyboard, light, great sounds, and designed with everything the gigging keyboardist needs. A great piano, a great (especially by arranger standards!) Hammond, killer guitars, brass etc. and a good 76 action.

If I had been stuck with my 45lbs G70 as Roland’s swan song, I am positive I would never have been as satisfied (no audio, no decent Hammond, no SN guitars, far less insert MFX etc). So far, at any price and at any weight, nothing even remotely tempts me to migrate...