Midi Accordion with Roland BK7M

[remo]

Dear all,
New to this forum so be gentle!
I am a professional accordionists living in North West London. I have recently had my accordion installed with a state of the Midi system by a company in Scotland.
I was loaned 3 sound modules/expanders. Two being Roland’s (RA90 and RA800) and the other being an Orla XM45. All three very old and the sounds not great. I have recently been looking at the Roland BK7M which looks and sounds great.
Does anyone have a similar set up and can assist how to assign each of the channel’s on the keypad in the accordion to different sounds? Ie solo, treble, chords and bass.
I haven’t yet purchased the Roland BK7M, however, it would be great to hear if someone has the same setup and can help

 

[JerryPH]

2 trains of thought:

1:
Being primarily designed to be used with Roland V-accordions, here is an idea of how the autoconfig for V-accordions is set up in terms of the MIDI channels:
Accordion section 1
Bass/Free Bass section 2
Chord section 3
Orchestra1/Organ section 4
Orchestra Bass section 5
Orchestra Chord section 6
Orchestra Free Bass section 7
Drum section 10
Orchestra2 section 11
Basic Channel (For selection Sets, User Program) 13
Set up the relevant sections in your accordion and you should be good.

2.
If that doesn't work, find out what channels are mapped to what functions on your accordion, download the manual from Roland and configure the BK to your match your accordion's functions.

 

[remo]

Thanks Jerry,
I will try this....my old Orla was so easy!

 

[JerryPH]

Yes, most of the time all you need is a channel for the chords so that they change when you change and a channel for the right hand... which you can do with the BK-7m as well, but after using it with all the bells and whistles, it sounds less rich with just those two. In the past, I even just used the chord channel and was done, the arranger did the rest along with the fills and breaks.

 

[remo]

Thanks Jerry,
I am torn! The Roland BK7M looks and sounds great, however, not the easiest to use. I’ve been looking at the Orla and Ketron range. They are much simpler to use as they have been designed with the accordionist in mind. The Ketron looks and sounds the part, I wonder it’s ease of use.
Can anyone advise?

 

[JerryPH]

Hate to say this... MIDI is MIDI. Whatever knowledge you need to make your MIDI accordion work on the BK-7m is going to be the exact same knowledge needed for any MIDI arranger.

I own a Solton Programmer 24 (made by Solton/Ketron), a Ketron X4 and a BK-7m.

Here is something you should already know... what channels are your Bass, chords and right hand mapped to on your accordion?

 

[Keymn]

Dear all,
New to this forum so be gentle!
I am a professional accordionists living in North West London. I have recently had my accordion installed with a state of the Midi system by a company in Scotland.
I was loaned 3 sound modules/expanders. Two being Roland’s (RA90 and RA800) and the other being an Orla XM45. All three very old and the sounds not great. I have recently been looking at the Roland BK7M which looks and sounds great.
Does anyone have a similar set up and can assist how to assign each of the channel’s on the keypad in the accordion to different sounds? Ie solo, treble, chords and bass.
I haven’t yet purchased the Roland BK7M, however, it would be great to hear if someone has the same setup and can help

Keyboard arrangers are my best bet over this modules. Have the Korg pa1000. Very accordion friendly and many more editing capabilities. Only weighs 23 pounds. Room to expand with sd card. But it serves as a dual purpose for me, I also do shows with just the keyboard...