I noticed that when I record with MIDI (not audio), with any of my performance memories on the BK-9, the Volume/ Reverb / Chorus levels are not recorded.

What I mean by recording MIDI is, you go to Menu --> Global --> Utility --> you set the Recording Mode to MIDI (not Audio) --> then you go press the REC button on the keyboard, and start playing with whatever performance memory and style you selected.

When I listen to the MIDI recording everything has a Volume level of 100 (Up1, Up2, Lwr, MBass). There is no Reverb or Chorus levels recorded on those tracks when I go inside the 16 Track Sequencer (on board).

To record with a Style (MIDI format) it's no big deal, usually I leave the levels where they are.


But with my performance memories I have different Volume level settings.

Question is --> Is this normal what I described? or something is messed up with my keyboard and it should record Volume, Reverb and Chorus levels.

Thank You.

You will need to check in the manual about what the BK9 stores and sends over Midi, (Hopefully Diki will chime in as he is familiar with the BK9) as every arranger manufacture is different.

NOTE: As arrangers are designed to be self-contained their Midi capabilities are usually limited, thus an external Midi keyboard is handy to have as they can control everything.

Bill

You’ll need to set up the recorder to differentiate between Song Parts and Keyboard Parts in the Song Setup. I don’t have the manual here or my keyboard. There’s something in the manual though.

I think the shortcut is to call up the Performance before you play the sequence. But it has been a while since I used the MIDI recorder, I’m mostly using audio tracks these days. I definitely remember something I had to do in the Track Settings to make sure that it DIDN’T record the Keyboard Parts and change to the original sound after I tried to get it set to something else. Took me a while to figure that out!

The main problem is, when you think about it, the BK9 goes beyond the basic MIDI sequence limitations, as you COULD have the sequencer playing 16 different tracks/sounds and STILL have four more Parts for the Keyboard Parts. 16 Parts is supposed to be MIDI’s limit, so I definitely remember having to do something to get Recorder/Sequencer tracks to address the right Part.

The price of capability is complication! 😂😱🎹

Diki, would you please look into the manual for me? I'm not asking you to do the work for me, I'm also searching inside the manual myself, but so far I didn't get any luck.


I always thought that the BK-9 would record anything you play on the keyboard as MIDI, even with the performance memories. I mean, yes, it records everything, but the parameters are all at 100.

So instead of SMF's you are using Audio recordings? Do you suppress the vocal part?

Sites like karaoke-version.com offer backing tracks in multitrack format very inexpensively ($2.99 each!), so it’s possible to mute ANY tracks you don’t need, change key or tempo (with audio processing tools) and chop and restructure the song into whatever you need.

In fact, use a program like Ableton Live and you can do most of that on the fly.

I’m pretty busy this week, so no time to experiment with what you need, but honestly, I think I did most of this stuff by calling up a Performance FIRST, then playing the DAW into the arranger set the way the DAW recorded stuff. If volumes needed adjusting, I did it in the DAW.

Most of the times, I tend to solo each Part in the DAW and record it as an individual stereo audio track, so I can use my DAW’s audio plug-ins (compression, EQ, better reverbs etc) on the tracks. So it doesn’t really matter what volume each Part is, I’m going to mix it using the DAW.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I tried mixing it all in the arranger. Plus, I often substitute VSTi sounds for the arranger to get better drums, pianos, strings etc..

Just edit the header information for each Part in the DAW, then pay attention in the MIDI settings of the BK9 for whether incoming MIDI gets sent to JUST the ‘Song’ section (the 16 channels of the 16 Track Sequencer) or whether the channels for the Keyboard Parts get sent to the Keyboard Parts.

Best of luck! Roland unfortunately complicated things by having 16 channels for the sequencer PLUS five channels (UPR1 UPR2 LWR MBS & MI Parts) extra. It works great as long as you are using JUST the BK9 for everything, but complicates routing when using an external sequencer…

As Diki says, you need to send the performance setting to the DAW after you have started record on it, otherwise the performance settings will not be sent. (If you choose another performance while still recording, the DAW will remember this as well.

As a rule of thumb, do everything you want to do after you have started record, as anything you don't need can easily be edited out.

Bill

The biggest problem with the Performance settings is that much of them (MFX settings, any Tone edits) are sysex and very difficult to track down and edit the correct hex value.

This is why, if you’re using the Keyboard Parts as part of the sequence, make sure that you save the Performance and recall it before you play the DAW into the BK.

There’s also a good case to be made for transferring the SMF of the DAW back to the BK to play if you want to do some surgery on the drum kit and effects. Those are easily edited in the Makeup Tools, and afaik there is no software editor for the BK9 other than the iPad BK9 editor (still available on the Apple Store), so editing this in your DAW is out of the question.

Compared to a synth workstation, an arranger is much harder to work with in a full studio setup, it’s simply not designed for the task, it’s designed as a live performance tool. This means we need to find workarounds to overcome some of the problems, and simply live with some of the others.

After all, the synth workstation generally sucks as a live performance tool unless set up very laboriously (and still can’t do live style play) so it’s unsurprising that the arranger has similar restrictions when used as a studio centerpiece…

Diki, I think we are not on the same page. Forget about the DAW, this thread is only about the BK-9.

What I'm asking is:

Using the BK-9 only, nothing else, no DAW ,no nothing, just the BK-9. I open one of my performance memories, I hit the REC button (in MIDI rec-mode) and record the song, and for some reason it's not recording the Volume levels that are saved with the Perf. Memories.

When I re-play the MIDI file on the BK-9, all Volume levels go to 100 for Up1, Up2, Lwr, M.bass.

When I set the BK-9 (within Global) to record AUDIO (instead of MIDI) it records (obviously) Volume and Reverb levels everything as it should, but once I switch over to MIDI recording the Volume levels from the Performance Memories are not recorded. Volume is set to 100.

I'm wondering if it's even possible, maybe the only option is to go into the BK-9's 16 track sequencer, and set the Volume levels manually afterwards.

So that's what I'm asking if it's even possible, maybe it's not, I just never realized it, since I only used the MIDI recording mode to record styles for creating MIDI backing tracks.

Check the manual for how to have the Sequencer play either the Song Parts or the Keyboard Parts (per track). I think the issue may be somewhere in there. I have done full arranger ‘captures’ to the Recorder, and they played back correctly iirc…

I probably saved the Performance, and recalled it before playing back the Recorder, which likely takes care of the volumes etc..

Do you have ALL the manuals? There were at least two, possibly three, and maybe some addenda for new features of bugfixes added later. Plus I found a bunch of sysex info not in the BK9’s manuals in the MIDI section of the BK7m’s manuals.

Just go over the 16-track sequencer’s section about track ‘type’ (or something like that), and make sure in the MIDI section you’re not filtering anything from the Keyboard Parts.

Bottom line, it’s not hard to go to each track edit page and type in the volume and effect edits. But if the MFX isn’t coming up correctly, I think you are playing the track into a Song Part, and not the Keyboard Part…

If that turns out to be the case, you will have to assign MFX and EQ manually to copy the Keyboard Parts’ settings. Iirc, there’s no way to copy a setting directly. Mind you, if you didn’t edit the MFX, just call up the type for that track (in the Makeup Tools) and save.

If you have an iPad, it might be interesting to use the BK Performance Editor to ‘capture’ the sysex strings used in selecting MFX/EQ and adjusting their settings…

Not sure how you’d do this, the iPad wants to be connected via USB to the BK9, perhaps it could USB to the computer and set ‘through’ to continue to the BK9, or maybe simply select MFX while in record mode in the 16 Track Sequencer.

But if you can get it to work, it might give you a way to deal with the editing sysex…