Korg Kronos & Roland BK-7m

[Rich Z]

Anyone else hooked these two together?

To be honest I was originally wanting to get a PA3X arranger, but the more I watched and listened to YouTube videos of the Kronos, the more it became evident to me that the Kronos just sounded better and actually had a whole lot more flexibility in what it could offer. Seriously, playing polkas using accompanying sounds of an accordian and saxophone for lead is just not what I have in mind to be playing. And I sure liked the idea of having those Karma generated arps to play with. About a year or so ago I bought a Roland BK-7m to use with my Kurzweil PC3 and I found that the backing tracks were perfectly fine with this combo in a plain vanilla sort of configuration. The arpeggiators on the Kurz were disappointing to me, so I never even bothered messing with them. Honestly, Karma was one of the real selling points to me looking at the Kronos. But I really wanted the backing tracks of an arranger as well.

So today I played around with integrating the BK-7m with my brand new Kronos and I was very pleased to find that I could get them to play together pretty well. The Karma patterns and drum tracks on the Kronos are fully synchronized with the backing tracks of the BK-7m. I'm just scratching the surface, but even my initial fumblings sound just outstanding to my untrained ears. I'm sure there are going to be some snags I just haven't uncovered yet, but at least now I feel pretty confident that it is POSSIBLE to get what I want. Which is, quite frankly, the best of both worlds with a combined arranger and a workstation. I honestly was going to be bummed out pretty badly had I found out this wasn't going to be possible to do.

Yeah, this might be old hat to you guys, as I'm a newbie with this stuff, but heck, I'm excited as all get out about this..... Someone not knowing any better would think I can really wail on this keyboard. LOL!

So if anyone else has worked with this combo, and you wouldn't mind sharing some tips with me, I sure would appreciate it.

[Bachus]

Anyone else hooked these two together?

To be honest I was originally wanting to get a PA3X arranger, but the more I watched and listened to YouTube videos of the Kronos, the more it became evident to me that the Kronos just sounded better and actually had a whole lot more flexibility in what it could offer. Seriously, playing polkas using accompanying sounds of an accordian and saxophone for lead is just not what I have in mind to be playing. And I sure liked the idea of having those Karma generated arps to play with. About a year or so ago I bought a Roland BK-7m to use with my Kurzweil PC3 and I found that the backing tracks were perfectly fine with this combo in a plain vanilla sort of configuration. The arpeggiators on the Kurz were disappointing to me, so I never even bothered messing with them. Honestly, Karma was one of the real selling points to me looking at the Kronos. But I really wanted the backing tracks of an arranger as well.

So today I played around with integrating the BK-7m with my brand new Kronos and I was very pleased to find that I could get them to play together pretty well. The Karma patterns and drum tracks on the Kronos are fully synchronized with the backing tracks of the BK-7m. I'm just scratching the surface, but even my initial fumblings sound just outstanding to my untrained ears. I'm sure there are going to be some snags I just haven't uncovered yet, but at least now I feel pretty confident that it is POSSIBLE to get what I want. Which is, quite frankly, the best of both worlds with a combined arranger and a workstation. I honestly was going to be bummed out pretty badly had I found out this wasn't going to be possible to do.

Yeah, this might be old hat to you guys, as I'm a newbie with this stuff, but heck, I'm excited as all get out about this..... Someone not knowing any better would think I can really wail on this keyboard. LOL!

So if anyone else has worked with this combo, and you wouldn't mind sharing some tips with me, I sure would appreciate it.

Next to BK7-m there is two more options available for people that want to add arranger styles to their Kronos

Ketron, has the audya 4 and the Midjpro, but those both are more expensive then the Roland BK7-m.


For those allready in a home studio environment, there is a program called Varranger, which takes software arrangers almost on par with hardware arrangers. And its only €300.
It currently works best with an external GM sound source. But with the upcomming version a high quallity software soundsource of 4GB will be part of the deal. You could also use the GM voices of your Kronos as soundsource, or any VST you want.. It plays styles of all major brands, and is made to be fully controlled over midi and works very well with a touchscreen.

http://www.varranger.com/

So if you are allready using Ableton or any other DAW, this migth be a viable option to add arranger styles for easy playing to your setup. And its the most frequently updated program i have seen to date.. they just got 64 bit support into beta. It has become a professional tool very fast and quite some OMB's are using it live on stage.

[solo40]

Would a Korg PA600 be a good option to go with kronos (as I have it already)?

[Rich Z]

Next to BK7-m there is two more options available for people that want to add arranger styles to their Kronos

Ketron, has the audya 4 and the Midjpro, but those both are more expensive then the Roland BK7-m.

Well, if I had had another $4K to throw around, I think I would rather have bought the PA3X instead of sinking the money in the Audya 4. Is the 4 really all that good to command such a high price?

As for the MidJPro, if it were the same price as the Roland, I would like to take a look at it, but at over twice the price, well, what's it offer for that surcharge?

[Rich Z]

Would a Korg PA600 be a good option to go with kronos (as I have it already)?

I presume that the PA600 has as much MIDI functionality as the BK-7m, so I would imagine you could set it up as a master sending timing signals to the Kronos to keep the drum track and Karma arps synchronized with the styles on the PA600. I don't think you have anything to lose by just trying it if you already have both of them.

[solo40]

Thanks Rich,
am just waiting for the K2 to be available here,
Then I need to decide 61 or 88, and that will be difficult,

[Rich Z]

Thanks Rich,
am just waiting for the K2 to be available here,
Then I need to decide 61 or 88, and that will be difficult,

Just take a look at that MIDI capabilities your PA600 has and figure out what you need both keyboards to do. In my case, I wanted the chord changes I do on the Kronos to be detected by the BK-7m, but I wanted the Karma arps and drum track on the Kronos to be controlled by the timing of the BK-7m. So you need bi-direction control between both devices. There may be other ways to do what I want done, perhaps even better ways, so hopefully someone who really knows what they are doing with this MIDI stuff and familiar with the BK-7m (and other similar devices) will chime in eventually.

Good luck getting your Kronos when it becomes available! It's quite an impressive piece of technology. And I am nowhere near even scratching the surface of this thing.