A lot of very good sounds, but Roland has to work on a natural sampled vibrato in the SuperNatural tones e.g. when trumpet and saxophone tones are sustained. The basic sound and the behaviour modeling features are very good, but when sustaining tones the sampled vibrato is missing, instead there is an artificial vibrato that makes it unnatural! In some older sax tones of the BK-7m the natural vibrato is there. I don't like it in the SuperNatural tones, it's artificial - also in my Integra.

I wonder what is the real reason the BK line didn't do as well as the Yamaha, KORG, arrangers etc?..... The Bk organs sound terrific..the iPad add on editor is a interesting feature also..

- it was to cheap
- people didnt understand the 2nd screen
- eu resellers make more money selling a Yamaha
- no midi pads


The more i think about it, the more i can see 2 touchscreens ( acomp en sounds) that share sliders and knobs in the middle become could easilly become the new standard..

Maybe it's a kind of chain reaction. Roland didn't have any arranger of that price range for several years. Now it's difficult to get back into business in that segment, as most dealers probably don't even have any BK-9s on display to try it in the store. Typical self-enhancing process where cause and effect blurr: Dealers don't order a display unit as they anticipate lacking demand, so no customer can test it, and nobody buys it. Etc.
Additionally, marketing was bad in the beginning, and many buyers are too much focused on visual aspects, if they see a big touchscreen they think the sounds are better, and those two small displays put them off.
AND it's Roland's own fault as they didn't deliver the tone expansions they announced.

I noticed the very same thing with the SuperNatural sounds. This made some of the woodwinds, like oboe, sound fake, too.

Yes, I've noticed it with the woodwinds too. It seems impossible to create a natural sounding vibrato with artificial parameters like LFO pitch and filters, it has to be sampled. I don't know exactly how (or if at all) Yamaha has implemented this in the SA2 voices. Roland certainly wanted the tones to be flexible so that the player can decide if and when a vibrato comes in or not, which is not possible with the basic sample having the vibrato in it. It would have to be a kind of scripting so that a sample without vibrato would have to blend into a vibrato sample e.g. when applying aftertouch without the switch of samples being audible in an abrupt way...

To those who have actually owned a BK-9 and also a Korg PA900;
Which of the two keyboards sounds more realistic? I'm only interested in sounds, not features. I'm curious to know what the verdict is, especially important are acoustic (pianos, drums, bass, guitars, trumpets...) and orchestral (strings, woodwinds, brass and choir) sounds.

And I wonder if the new Korg PA4X will top them? From the few demoes so far, it sounds great.

Thanks for any opinions you'd like to share.

Sort of what the Tyros does, with the "head, body and tail" of samples. It does it flawlessly.

Sounds are SO subjective, but here are my opinions: Korg organs are very good, BK9 is GREAT. Piano better to my ears on Korg. Roland E guitars are good but pretty dated. Korg guitars are there but most need some tweaking to sound great. Drums are very close. I prefer Bass on the Korg. Sax, edge to the Roland. Trumpets, both are good. Choir, edge to Roland.
Korg PA3X sounds better than PA900, but both are very good.
I have PA3X for sale so I can get a 4X. Also still have SD7. You didn't ask about it, but most all the sounds are better than Roland or Korg, especially the drums and bass.

Don M good luck with your new KORG Pa4x,...I Know you'll do great things with it. As for Myself I've learned my lesson the last few changes... and will wait for the next Yamaha TOTL offering as I am not in a rush to change at this time. And with some of the the S970 styles sounding great on my S950 there was no need to change.
I do like what I hear in the BK9 especially the block chord organ but it's just not my cup of tea.

So the Tyros allows the player to extend the "body" as long as desired and then change to the "tail" with a sampled vibrato? That's what should be implemented in the Roland SN tones. But maybe the difference is (that was recently discussed in a German forum) SA2 voices are still sample-based and Roland SN tones may be more real physical modeling. But in the latter case, the modeling for vibrato would have to be made more realistic, but then it would demand more processor power, as the Integra already struggles with several SN tones played simultaneously. So I guess the "simpler" scripting/sample approach of SA2 voices is the easier and better solution. Quite a complex matter, this modeling...

Thank you so much for your feedback, Don! Watching YouTube demoes is great, but they don't always reflect the sound you'd get at home.

It's interesting that you rate the Ketron above the others.

With T6 well over a year away, it will be a huge update from the S950...
I also agree with you that the upgrade from 950 to 970 is not a big one, and not really worth investing in..

I also hope that the T6 is just a few pounds lighter then the T5, altough the T5 aint that heavy in my book with.

bachus...I know you don't play out every day ....but if you did like many of us you would consider the weight a BIG concern ...loading and running around setup in & out multiple times a day...just sayin.... I will say this if they reduce the size & weight of the next Tyros 6 or whatever it's called I will get one for sure..

Rosetree, I read this in an older Yamaha brochure describing how this works on the Tyros 3. I'm sure it's the same on the Tyros 4 and 5. I've found the brochure, and I have it here in front of me. I'm writing exactly what it says, "Super Articulation 2: The sophisticated new technology breaks down down the characteristic articulations of the instrument into separate elements, and then re-synthesizes them in real time as you perform." The brochure also shows a diagram of a sound wave divided into 3 parts; Head/Body/Tail. In between these 3 elements, you choose your articulation, and it connects the elements together. I hope I've explained this in an understandable way. I've searched for this document online, but cannot find it, otherwise I would have shared the link, so you could read it yourself and see the diagram, too.

I have a question for you, Rosetree: 1)what do you mean when you say that the Integra-7 struggles with several SN tones? 2)Does the latency increase? 3)Does it cut off notes? 4)And how many SN tones can it play at once before problems arise?

Thanks!

Personally, I haven't experienced these problems even when I played complex arrangements with about 10 tracks through the Integra, but I mostly tend to take more SRX sounds and only few SN tones. But I read a lot about these problems in the Rolandclan forum. You should find threads about the problem there, I guess from about early 2014. It can occur even with 2-3 SN tones if these use a lot of glissandi, slides etc. Then both latencies, uneven rhythm and lacking notes can occur. Someone reported it to Roland, and their answer was that unfortunately these problems exist and they hope to manage it better in future instruments. So no hope to get it solved in the present Integra, but as I said, SRX sounds (plain PCM of high quality) are more important to me, and it doesn't seem to be a very frequently occurring problem.

Thanks very much for your answers, Rosetree.