Just a question, Rosetree: How do the sounds and styles of the BK-9 compare to the BK-7m's? Are they noticeably better? I think you may have mentioned this in the past, but I'm not sure.

From Rosetree's comment: "BK-9 has everything the G70 had, and much better sounds in addition, with the exception of the lack of an SRX slot."



That's too bad. It would have been great to have slots for the SRX expansions. Better yet, it should have had all the sounds of the SRX boards built-in. In your case, however, you have the Integra-7, so it's not a problem.

Thats not entirely true, the G70 also has a vocaliser on board, which is not on the BK-9, also the keybed of the G70 was awesome, i dont know if the same keybed made the BK-9.... and there is more... The G70 had 1bass , 2 left and 3 right hand sounds... Which is still the most of any Arranger out there.... Also the G70 had some nice style features, cover and make-up tools from which atleast 1 didnt make it to the BK-9 and some more smaller features which didnt make the BK9

Stating that the difference is only the SRX slot, falls short by half a mile, and not really fair to the venerable G70 that was way ahead of its time when released...

Of the 1,700 sounds of the BK-9, 1,100 are identical to the BK-7m. The other 600 are a mixture of a few (22) superNatural sounds, maybe 200-300 from the SonicCell, largely identical to Fantom X, and some hundreds from various sources including a few from SRX expansions such as SRX 04 (two string sections). (Note: the 1,100 from BK-7m already contain many from SRX 09 World).
All in all, many good sounds are already included in those 1,100 that are identical to the BK-7m. But the BK-7m has some weaknesses in string sections, acoustic guitars etc. For these weak sounds, the BK-9 has got clearly better alternatives among the additional 600 sounds. I would especially mention better strings (from GW and SRX 04), SuperNatural acoustic guitars, better grand pianos (although the BK-7m ones are already really good, one sounding exactly like SRX 11), and a better choice of brass sounds, too.
So, in total, if you pick the best of the 1,700 BK-9 sounds, the sound quality is considerably better than the BK-7m's.

Thats not entirely true, the G70 also has a vocaliser on board, which is not on the BK-9, also the keybed of the G70 was awesome, i dont know if the same keybed made the BK-9.... and there is more... The G70 had 1bass , 2 left and 3 right hand sounds... Which is still the most of any Arranger out there.... Also the G70 had some nice style features, cover and make-up tools from which atleast 1 didnt make it to the BK-9 and some more smaller features which didnt make the BK9

Stating that the difference is only the SRX slot, falls short by half a mile, and not really fair to the venerable G70 that was way ahead of its time when released...

Thanks for that detailed breakdown.

So, if I understand you correctly, the 1,100 sounds that are identical in both units actually sound better on the BK-9?

Too bad Roland tends to drop good features in new keyboards. As far as sound quality goes, from what I've read, the BK-9 is better, though.

No, the additional 600 sounds make the difference. I think the identical 1,100 sounds really sound identical. I'm not sure if there's a noticeable difference in the effects, I haven't noticed any, but I don't think there's a difference in the sample quality of those 1,100 sounds. (Small surprising exception: the BK-7m even has one tiny advantage: it has two or three so-called "Natural sounds" - a simpler type of "SN" sounds: at least one sax and one trombone. Their pitch bend reacts with natural scales. This feature has been eliminated in these 2 or 3 sounds in the BK-9 probably due to the 22 SN sounds - however these 22 SN sounds don't include such a trombone and a different (worse!) sax.)