Hi, my first post on Roland

BK9 mic volume too low:

Under global mic settings, I have low and high gain turned up full but the mic is still way lower volume that the overall keyboard. I am using a shure 87 condenser mic with phantom power turned on.

All suggestions welcome and thanks in advance

Welcome Bobby.

The gain for the mic is on the front panel. Those 'high and low' settings in the menu are the mic EQ settings. I would put them back to flat, or even roll off a little lows if you sing very close to the mic.

There is a switch for phantom power on the back of the BK9. Make sure it's ON (and turn down the master volume before you change it! Turning phantom power on and off can often result in a VERY loud pop!)

Try singing over one of the factory settings (the ROM Performance List). Make sure you haven't got all the Keyboard Parts at full volume. 100 is a good place to start, or even lower if you play hard!

One thing to check is the microphone itself. Condensers are a bit more delicate than dynamic microphones. If it's been dropped a lot, the capsule might be damaged. Have you used it elsewhere with no issues? SM87's are pretty robust though...

Lastly, what are you playing through?

Hope this helps. Primary thing ito check is the Mic Volume knob (top knob of the second column, just above Mic Reverb). And put those EQ settings back to flat!

Hi Diki, thanks for your quick reply,

I only bought the BK9 last week and when I tested the mic input in my room I think it was through headphones.
The phantom power switch is on.
The mic volume knob was full up and that is why I pushed the frequency gains all the way up.
The mic is fine, I did my first BK9 gig last night and put the mic through my mixing desk as usual.
I will set everything up right now and try one of the factory settings and play it through my Roland studio speakers and get back to you if that's OK.

Problem solved ! I don't know what I was doing wrong but it all works perfectly now. Much appreciated for you getting back to me so quickly.
My main keyboards for many years have been Ketron and I currently own an SD1 and an SD9. The BK9 is a fraction of the weight for gigging so will suit me to a Tee.
Could you recommend any tuition sites or hints and tips please?

Many of the youtube videos are not in English. I will work my way through the manual and personalise this beast but I find videos are easier to take in.
Ketron styles convert to roland not too badly so a bit of tweaking should get me up and running

thanks again

If you switch on closed captions, then go into settings, you can get YouTube to translate the text for you, many videos also allow direct translation of the voice directly. (Although usually there is a small delay)

Bill

thanks Bill

While I understand the desire to play the familiar, you may find yourself missing out on a fresh approach to many songs by trying to port familiar styles from the Ketron (plus any styles that use the audio drum tracks won't work!).

I tend to always use the keyboard change as a chance to reinvent myself, and I'll gig my old gear until the act is ready to go...

But if you do like editing styles, SMF's etc, I'd concentrate on learning the Makeup Tools section. There is a surprising depth to this header editor, allowing easy change of a style or sequencer track's sound, volume, effects, along with more elaborate editing like velocity offsets, MFX inserts (almost no ROM styles use any MFX, and it's a complete gamechanger adding them) and per Part EQ's etc.

And don't settle for less than perfect drums... inside the Makeup Tools you can edit the drum kit itself, change sound, use different kicks or snares, change the tuning on each drum, effects levels and velocity and EQ etc.. Particularly when converting older styles or sequences with velocity, moving the offset so the multi-layer sample changes sound helps the groove.

You'll likely be missing your Ketron's Multipads (Roland stubbornly refused to add these until they added a very half-baked system to the last MOTL arranger they made, the E-A7). But if you dig into the Key Audio feature, you'll find that you can add them back by recording them from your Ketron (wav 16/44) and then triggering them along with the style. Only percussion though, they don't chord track...

They're getting as rare as hen's teeth, but snag any used FC-7 footswitch unit you can find (or build one yourself, they are standard Roland polarity momentary switches). This is the secret weapon of the Roland arranger player! You've no doubt noted how few front panel buttons there are... but footswitches can give you back many functions buried in menus. The Assign Switches also give you a lot of control.

The important thing to remember is that the FC-7 assignments are Global, but the Assign Switches are per Performance. Very handy! Should you use Key Audio for adding percussion loops, you can trigger these from up to 7 switches on the FC7. If you don't, the top 7 keys (or however many loops you cue up per Performance) are used to turn them on. I hate that, I'm always turning them on accidentally by playing too high! Usually a couple of loops are enough, so two of the FC7 switches gives you back the full keyboard.

If you can play full proper piano, try setting chord recognition to Pianist2 and turn on the Dynamic Arranger feature. Now just play piano on full keyboard and the chord recognition is really good compared to the standard 'three notes down to change the chord'. You now need five down while using the sustain, which helps stop runs and passing chords from freaking out the chord recognition! And as you play harder or softer, the Dyn Arr will make the backing harder or softer too! It's amazing how this can make it feel like the backing is listening to YOU!

Last little tip... set the D-Beam to do something like ARR Mute. It makes for very dynamic performance if you can quickly drop down to just bass and drums for sections.

Roland have a VERY different design approach to arrangers than most others! You’re going to be pulling your hair out from time to time as you find things it can't do (multipads, break/fills, etc) but dig in and you'll find some very MUSICAL stuff, and in the end, that's what we're making, right? 😎🎹

Hi Bobby, what is your process for converting Ketron styles? Ketron has many more style control parameters compared to Roland, with more added by the time the SD9 was released. So I'm quite surprised to hear you say that they convert well! Please tell us how you're doing the conversions. Thanks!!

Sorry for late reply, between Christmas gigs and slowly but surely getting my Roland to replace my Ketron, I clean forgot to check back on the forum.
Firstly thanks to Diki for the tips. A lot to be going on with and I look forward to it. Many moons ago I started as an accordionist before switching to keyboards so my left hand is not the best but I try to play 3 finger chords as much as I can. I relish my reinvention, great tip about the D beam. I use the break button a lot !
I do have a ketron 6 switch foot pedal so I might look in to converting it to work on the BK9. Any tips on that procedure would be great.
Secondly to TedS
I use Styelworks XT Universal and convert SD1 patterns to Roland G70. Then I tweak on Bk9 - change drum sets , remove fret noise etc.
My midifiles are converted using Midifile Optimizer which has a BK9 configuration.
Hope that helps but if there's anything else I can help with just let me know.

Is there a way to make a playlist of Midifiles ?

Thanks again for getting back to me. I will update after the mad holiday gigs

The pin diagram for FC-7 operation is available on the web (maybe even here if you do a search!). But it's going to depend on whether Ketron use the same polarity switches as Roland/Yamaha. Korg use opposite polarity.

You can get a decent break/fill by using a button for break, then hit a fill button on the '3' or '4' of the bar. Easy enough if you use foot switches and put the variation select (with auto fill on) next to the break.

One more tip... get a good case! No bags. Very few parts are still available for the BK9. Especially the slider board. Mess that up, it's going to be hard to replace. The individual sliders can still be found, but if you mess up the board they're soldered to (or any of the main boards go bad) you may find it hard to use.

Treat it with care, it's the last of its breed!

Thanks again Diki, I have been using a bag but will use a case from now on. Can you help with a way to make/access a midi file playlist please

You CAN play an SMF playlist, but it has some drawbacks. If you select a MIDI file from its 'My Songs' folder then press the Quick Menu button, one of the options will be 'Play all songs in folder'. Press that and as soon as one file finishes, the next one will start.

But here are the drawbacks... for starters, you can't reorder the folder without renaming the files. They play in alphabetical order from wherever you start.

Secondly, the SMF will not call up the Keyboard sounds. The Performance is the thing that does that, and there's no way for one Performance to move automatically to the next one. You CAN move from one Performance to the next while it's playing, but it doesn't change the 'resource' (the SMF or audio file). You have to stop the song, THEN select the next Performance which then loads the resource.

The exception is playing styles, where changing the Performance will change the style while still running (unless you use a Perf. Lock to 'hold' it).

Can you explain why you want to move through a set automatically?

Maybe I phrased my question wrong, I do not want automatic. Sorry to refer to other brands but on both my Ketron keyboards I have the root directory with midifiles in alphabetical order. From this directory I have made up my own lists like fast, slow, Country etc, and arranged in the order I might use them on a gig. I constantly switch between midifiles and performances and try to have one or the other lined up in advance. So although they are playlists in order I can select my next song or performance randomly .
I am using Songbook Pro on my ipad to select performances and it works perfectly, allowing me to make up any amount of playlists and select any performance easily.
Scrolling with the wheel through over a hundred midifiles is not the fastest when maybe dancers are waiting on me pressing the next button lol. All I can think of would be to have similar genre midifiles on a few usb sticks but again this would not be fast enough during a gig.
I have in the past used a third party midifile player like vanbasco where my playlist are on my laptop screen and songs are easy to select at random but I think the BK9 must have a much easier way of jumping between performances and songs.