Well, it's done. My first new keyboard since I bought my G70. I'll do a review and maybe some audio examples when it gets here.

Stay tuned.

Also, there's likely to be a used, but good condition G70 for sale as soon as I have dialed in the BK-9. It will come with an SR-G01, the SRX card specifically designed for the G70, with a nice selection of newer sounds (and there's a large library of factory styles revoiced to use them), and a music rest. Factory packing case (I only have the one hard case, as one was for home use only).

No point in a backup G70 now I'll have the BK-9.

Good luck with your new BK9 Diki...cant wait for a full review & demo of course..use it well!!

congratulation for your new baby!
do you have any idea about when it will arrive??

I hope not 9 months!

I also heard about new sw coming in some months with interesting new features!

waiting for a your rewiew!

Phantom... any hints as to the update (or is that simply more iPad apps)?

There's a few things I would KILL for on the BK-9...

The return of the Mark/Jump capability for SMF's, and the return of the Dynamic Arranger feature.

Throw in the return of the Cover Tools feature, and the ability to Link a .CSQ chord sequence to a Performance and I am one happy camper.

Odd (or maybe not so, considering it's Roland!) however that 3 out of 4 things that I would like are things Roland USED to have and dropped. Who on earth at Roland makes these stupid decisions? Do the even PLAY an arranger? I doubt it!

Diki...as far as I can understand it will be both...


I hear various requests about some of these features in different fora...probably some of them in the next releases will be introduced...
maybe asking them in civil manner can increase possibilities!
also contacting directly Roland US could be a possibility.


I think that as in all companies people change in R&D department, so sometimes specific features seem to be not so still important and are left out...
and probably it is not true!

This is about the only leap of faith I have made with a keyboard. Normally, I want to play anything a couple of days to make sure I can't live without it...

But I do have a BK-7m, so quite a bit of the overall workflow and basic sound is familiar to me, and a lot of the styles. So I'm not flying quite as blind as it might seem.

It always pays to take a USB stick to a dealers. If their software isn't up to date, most things upgrade from a stick, nowadays, would have taken you 5-10 minutes to upgrade the store keyboard and then connect to the apps. I think, with how barebones brick and mortar music stores have to be to compete with online sources, that yes, it IS too much to expect all their gear to be upgraded..! YOU probably know ten times as much about the arrangers than any in store personnel!

Diki ... that last sentence being said, and with all the mailicious jackass hackers out there, how many dealers are going to let someone with a USB stick near their keyboards ?!?

Frankiev and George - would YOU ???

Not really that much you can do to a keyboard...

But they might be leery of letting you near their computer system! Perhaps it's worth d/l'ing the update at home (and the update instructions) and just take it to the store.

You make them aware that the sale is predicated by you being able to test how well it works with your iPad, and that that is determined by it being up to date, I doubt any dealer would turn you away from updating it.

Here is a post I wrote to Richard on the Roland arranger site..

Richard, there is a problem with the BK's that bothers me....and I need to have a hands on the BK9 before I consider it...I do have a BK5 now..

When I edit on my G70 (SMF) and save common edits via make up tools, and try them in any BK , it will play, but drums are piano...(same problem with earlier models like the E600)..The biggest problem it causes the make up tools in the BK from recognizing it as a SMF...so we can not edit on the BK..

I know the problem..I can remove specific system ex files via the G70 and resave the file for the BK...Too time consuming for something that works fine on other previous models..G and E series(E50,E60)...I call it a bug...and it needs to be fixed...Here is a file you can test on the BK9...Freeze feature does not fix it...

Basically the error come from g70 and I try to explain what I understood:

XG Midi files should not be mixed with Make Up Tools sysexc
this is why BK doesn't allow you to enter MKT with this XG files
G70 doesn't have such control, so you can enter MKT and add MKT sysexc into XG MIDI files.
On BK, these hybrid MIDI files doesn't work correctly that's why you are listening piano instead of Drum

This is what I understood from a technician's explanation...
some kind of fixing should come indeed...
hope it helps...

best regards