Roli Seaboard RISE

[zerocrossing]

So, my Rise 49 came today! Well, yesterday but with a house guest and debate party, I unboxed it today.

First impressions.

Heavy. This thing is well made, no doubt. Keep box cutters and other pointy objects away though. I think I'll keep the door closed to make sure my cat doesn't wander in. It does feel great. It feels better than great. It feels right.

Software download and registration is a pain in the butt. Somehow the Dashboard app refused my email until I reregistered (I got a message that my email was not registered... even though I clearly got an email from them to that address) using my Facebook account. :/ That could have gone way smoother.

Setting things up is a bit of a pain in the ass as I'm using Live. I can live with that. I knew what I was getting into. The tutorial video (which I had to search around for) is good and clear. Where's the Equator plug in? Search around for that. Come on Roli. Let us choose our VST folder please.

The Equator plug in sounds very good. ROMplerish, but good. To be fair, I'm stuck on preset #2 "Mellow Duduk." Why am I stuck on that? Because it is just so damn f'n fun to play and it sounds amazing.

Here's what I love about it.

• I know how to play it. You do too, if you play a keyboard. I had a Push for a while and it always felt weird doing chord stuff on it.
  
  The response is fantastic. It feels like a musical instrument. I had a Starrlabs guitar like controller and it felt like a toy.
  
  It's beautiful.

Here are my (minor) criticisms so far.

• Packaging. It's just a lot of waste. Yeah, it's beautiful, but all I remember was how difficult it was to get it out of the box. We don't all need to be Apple.
  
  No black and white key designations and narrow spacing will make it take a bit longer to get used to. In a dimly lit room it's not all that obvious where the apex of the hump is except for on the black keys.
  
  Streamline your onboarding process.
  
  Work with Ableton to make sure things like this can work more seamlessly.

Maybe there are bugs in the MIDI mode or something else I haven't come across, but so far it works exactly as I wanted it to. I'm super happy.

[zerocrossing]

oops

[gjvti]

@zerocrossing
Thank you for such a detailed report! It is good to be prepared for some of their software odds. Still wish they made Rise 49 with built in equator for something below 2K, but then their Grand 37 would't make sense... of course

[peter_neo]

Imo, a grid controller will eventually be the standard MPE hardware.

1. http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/piano-vs.-grid.html

2. No other company has a product like Roli. They have no direct competition. Every Fender needs a Gibson. There are a lot of companies making a grid controller. Ableton, Novation, Native Instruments, Roger Linn, etc. Competition is essential to refining an instrument. It also gives us choice and availability. Playing an instrument is about a shared experience. If you hear a song you love on guitar, it's easy to get a guitar and learn it. Any successful instrument will have this accessibility.

Favorite grid controller performances:

Linnstrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weSZpEgRf4Q

Ableton Push:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLo9eRAgQCL/

[peter_neo]

I wouldn't be surprised if a keyboard MPE controller is the standard since musicians are a stubborn, conservative bunch.

Roli has a lot going for it too:

1. Well funded.
2. Marco Parisi is the best product specialist ever.
3. Famous musicians are using their keyboard in their studios.
4. They are taking their keyboard to music schools for it to incorporated into the music curriculum.
5. Collaborating with other companies to create a MPE standard to speed up software development.
6. It's an interface that every musician is familiar with.

[Cinebient]

And i must say again that the support is great and feels premium.....(even if they sometimes can´t help).
I provided them with a few videos about my problems (with the sliders) and it seems to be a software thing. But only with their own software (Equator and Dashboard)....strange.
But these days i even like the Seaboard in normal mode without the multi dimension expressions a lot more than normal keys. I like the feeling to play on it much more now than on hard plastic keys or a glass multi-touch screen. Playing instruments with a lot velocity layers works really very very good for me. Really....i don´t want hard keys anymore
If they get the software right and expand it for those (like me) which would love to experiment sometimes with exotic scales, tunings, splits...whatever.
As workaround there are plug-ins and DAW´s which do this maybe but i would like to set it up inside the Seaboard software itself. An iOS dashboard would be great too. It plays well with iOS devices and apps but you still need to connect it to a PC/MAC if you want to change something.
I also would really love to see more import options for Equator like EXS24 files support etc.
I wonder if there will be an 88 keys someday of the Rise.
Like i said before, i could even imagine such a silicon surface like the Rise has as a keyboard for notebooks etc. in the future or for other things. At the moment it´s the best inbetween multi-touch and tactile feedback......let´s hope Apple won´t buy them one day

[Cinebient]

Imo, a grid controller will eventually be the standard MPE hardware.

1. http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/piano-vs.-grid.html

2. No other company has a product like Roli. They have no direct competition. Every Fender needs a Gibson. There are a lot of companies making a grid controller. Ableton, Novation, Native Instruments, Roger Linn, etc. Competition is essential to refining an instrument. It also gives us choice and availability. Playing an instrument is about a shared experience. If you hear a song you love on guitar, it's easy to get a guitar and learn it. Any successful instrument will have this accessibility.

Favorite grid controller performances:

Linnstrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weSZpEgRf4Q

Ableton Push:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLo9eRAgQCL/

Not bad but i would agree with some others here that i didn´t saw much really impressive performences with a Linnstrument yet compared to some i saw with the Seaboard Rise.
Most performances i saw with the Linnstrument could be achieved easy with an iPad f.e. too (or even exceeded) with apps like GeoShred and similar tools.
But maybe i just didn´t saw the right things yet?
It´s of course a personal thing too.

[jabe]

2. No other company has a product like Roli. They have no direct competition. Every Fender needs a Gibson. There are a lot of companies making a grid controller. Ableton, Novation, Native Instruments, Roger Linn, etc. Competition is essential to refining an instrument. It also gives us choice and availability. Playing an instrument is about a shared experience. If you hear a song you love on guitar, it's easy to get a guitar and learn it. Any successful instrument will have this accessibility.

Not so sure no the competition front. Most instruments didn't appear during the internet age. It's much easier for companies to get feedback to products and ideas these days.

[tapper mike]

Not bad but i would agree with some others here that i didn´t saw much really impressive performences with a Linnstrument yet compared to some i saw with the Seaboard Rise.
Most performances i saw with the Linnstrument could be achieved easy with an iPad f.e. too (or even exceeded) with apps like GeoShred and similar tools.
But maybe i just didn´t saw the right things yet?
It´s of course a personal thing too.

Umm Here's where I disagree.

The linnstrument has more surface area.
The linstrument has both velocity and pressure sensitivity. MPE You won't get that independent velocity attack on each note or independent afterpressure on an ipad.
It's simply not possible. You also won't get the independent note bend / directionality or the independent up down within a "cell" note mpe control on an ipad.

You must not be watching the right videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roKfNfrOXFs

[zerocrossing]

@zerocrossing
Thank you for such a detailed report! It is good to be prepared for some of their software odds. Still wish they made Rise 49 with built in equator for something below 2K, but then their Grand 37 would't make sense... of course

Yeah, that would be something. Does the Grand have the built in sounds engine? I have no idea really. So expensive I never really dug into what it did. That would be cool though. My plan is to save over time and eventually trade up for a 61 key version. This should do fine in the meantime.

[zerocrossing]

Imo, a grid controller will eventually be the standard MPE hardware.

1. http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/piano-vs.-grid.html

2. No other company has a product like Roli. They have no direct competition. Every Fender needs a Gibson. There are a lot of companies making a grid controller. Ableton, Novation, Native Instruments, Roger Linn, etc. Competition is essential to refining an instrument. It also gives us choice and availability. Playing an instrument is about a shared experience. If you hear a song you love on guitar, it's easy to get a guitar and learn it. Any successful instrument will have this accessibility.

Favorite grid controller performances:

Linnstrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weSZpEgRf4Q

Ableton Push:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLo9eRAgQCL/

I agree that choice is always a good thing, but that performance isn't really anything to brag about. It's exactly the kind of thing that puts me off to the Linnstrument. Lots of wrong notes or obviously accidentally bent notes. I hear that on a lot of Linnstrument demos. Almost all of them... and that's a slow piece. I imagine I could never do fast articulate runs on that thing. I look at it and the size of those buttons does look like it would be harder to become really good at, especially for a ham fisted hack like myself.

[zerocrossing]

Not bad but i would agree with some others here that i didn´t saw much really impressive performences with a Linnstrument yet compared to some i saw with the Seaboard Rise.
Most performances i saw with the Linnstrument could be achieved easy with an iPad f.e. too (or even exceeded) with apps like GeoShred and similar tools.
But maybe i just didn´t saw the right things yet?
It´s of course a personal thing too.

Umm Here's where I disagree.

The linnstrument has more surface area.
The linstrument has both velocity and pressure sensitivity. MPE You won't get that independent velocity attack on each note or independent afterpressure on an ipad.
It's simply not possible. You also won't get the independent note bend / directionality or the independent up down within a "cell" note mpe control on an ipad.

You must not be watching the right videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roKfNfrOXFs

See, that is bad to me. It's a slow and methodical piece, yet that phrase @ 1:04, where it goes C-B-A-G-E is sloppy as hell. No offense to Roger, but I'd have done another take or used another tune that didn't have as hard a part to do. If the inventor of the instrument can't play a line like that with a high degree of proficiency, I imagine it's far too hard to do. Maybe if the pads were bigger? Maybe if the scale was set up differently? I don't know, but I'd have been ashamed to post that video. The reason I was frightened away from the Linnstrument is that basically almost every single video demo contains playing like that. At some point I have to say it's not the player.

[minorguy]

The Roger Linn example makes the Linnstrument seem like it's essentially a pedal steel guitar, lol. But I realize it can sound differently too. "The Brink" example was terribly out of tune. Obviously your thumbs are virtually useless with the Linnstrument. Seems it would be hard to play fast or play a lot of notes at once. It's not for me since I'm used to playing a traditional keyboard. But I can see that it might be good for people who aren't strong on keyboard anyway. Sliding up to a note looks like it's easier to do than on the Rise.

I'd be really interested in getting a Rise 49 except that the lack of traditional MIDI output is a showstopper for me. It becomes so much trash once the driver no longer works.

[Cinebient]

Not bad but i would agree with some others here that i didn´t saw much really impressive performences with a Linnstrument yet compared to some i saw with the Seaboard Rise.
Most performances i saw with the Linnstrument could be achieved easy with an iPad f.e. too (or even exceeded) with apps like GeoShred and similar tools.
But maybe i just didn´t saw the right things yet?
It´s of course a personal thing too.

Umm Here's where I disagree.

The linnstrument has more surface area.
The linstrument has both velocity and pressure sensitivity. MPE You won't get that independent velocity attack on each note or independent afterpressure on an ipad.
It's simply not possible. You also won't get the independent note bend / directionality or the independent up down within a "cell" note mpe control on an ipad.

You must not be watching the right videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roKfNfrOXFs

But my iPhone can do all this
But yes, iPads needs also 3D touch. But polyphonic pitchbends and aftertouch events are no problem on iPads....and even velocity (but not via pressure).
You can build even your own knobs, keys, whatever with some apps.
Tactile feedback is missing of course.

[peter_neo]

2. No other company has a product like Roli. They have no direct competition. Every Fender needs a Gibson. There are a lot of companies making a grid controller. Ableton, Novation, Native Instruments, Roger Linn, etc. Competition is essential to refining an instrument. It also gives us choice and availability. Playing an instrument is about a shared experience. If you hear a song you love on guitar, it's easy to get a guitar and learn it. Any successful instrument will have this accessibility.

Not so sure no the competition front. Most instruments didn't appear during the internet age. It's much easier for companies to get feedback to products and ideas these days.

The internet has definitely made R&D a different process, but I still have reservations about an instrument with proprietary technology ever reaching it's potential. There's no other MPE, keyboard controller on the market available as an alternative. Roli needs another company that can cut into their sales and force them to reevaluate their product and service. It'd be pretty interesting if they licensed their technology to a larger company like Roland, etc.

This looks cool, but it's still vaporware.

https://www.keithmcmillen.com/labs/k-board-pro-4/