Roli Seaboard RISE

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If the aftertouch works anything like the QuNexus it's flawed from the start.

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aMUSEd wrote:If the aftertouch works anything like the QuNexus it's flawed from the start.
Wow, I really like the aftertouch on the QuNexus. hmmm... should I not?

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aMUSEd wrote:If the aftertouch works anything like the QuNexus it's flawed from the start.
I totally agree. Trying to reproduce precise values with aftertouch is nearly impossible. I suppose it'd be fun for unpredictable modulation though.

I just hope the K-Board Pro 4 has good x-axis modulation/vibrato control.

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I really think it's the wrong approach to pit these devices against each other in a death match. All of them are great and a huge step up in terms of expressive playing. We should be embracing the diversity of options instead of trying to prove that our personal choice is the best one. I understand that these are all pricey devices, and it isn't an easy choice to make. But I don't think there is really a wrong choice to be made at this point.

Roger Linn owns a Seaboard. Just saying.

I would also say that the Continuum is more or less in the same category as the Seaboard.
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.

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deastman wrote:I really think it's the wrong approach to pit these devices against each other in a death match. All of them are great and a huge step up in terms of expressive playing. We should be embracing the diversity of options instead of trying to prove that our personal choice is the best one. I understand that these are all pricey devices, and it isn't an easy choice to make. But I don't think there is really a wrong choice to be made at this point.

Roger Linn owns a Seaboard. Just saying.

I would also say that the Continuum is more or less in the same category as the Seaboard.
totally agree with this!
thanks for saying...

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I'd have to agree that Linnstrument and Push demos are generally underwhelming. Ableton needs to produce more quality videos about Push as an instrument. They should write some literature about playing techniques as well. Linnstrument has a small team so it's understandable that they don't have flashy videos, etc.

I have hope that good playing techniques will eventually be figured out because there are so many grid controllers out there.

Here's the guy that writes the Linnstrument code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F2RCCp5YMQ

Check out how this guy uses all his fingers on a Push:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLXKraFgXhb/

Emulating tremolo picking is easier on pads:

https://youtu.be/FGaalwzaoTE?t=34s

It's definitely still a work in progress, but the Seaboard is as well. All of them need better ways to keep in tune, handle vibrato. I believe the Linnstrument and Roli use some kind of pitch prediction algorithm to help players out.
Last edited by peter_neo on Sun Oct 23, 2016 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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deastman wrote:I really think it's the wrong approach to pit these devices against each other in a death match. All of them are great and a huge step up in terms of expressive playing. We should be embracing the diversity of options instead of trying to prove that our personal choice is the best one. I understand that these are all pricey devices, and it isn't an easy choice to make. But I don't think there is really a wrong choice to be made at this point.

Roger Linn owns a Seaboard. Just saying.

I would also say that the Continuum is more or less in the same category as the Seaboard.
All MPE controllers are cool and all ideas should be welcomed, but I still think Roli has the most complete package for anybody interested in MPE.

Continuum is a good instrument, but it's a totally different interface. Anybody that looks at a Seaboard will initially think it's a keyboard. I can see how playing them might result in similar musical phrases though.

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Yes, at the end all devices uses a different input and have pro and contra as well.
Best is to collect them all.....if i win the lottery some day :lol:
I just try to concentrate on the one i choose because i began to learn it better and muscle memory works great too finally.
If you change often devices you might be handle them all but get never really good on any of them (at least if you are at best semi-talented like me).
That was the thing with iPads and stuff that is was to easy to set up scales, chords and all the little helpers and i got lazy to learn stuff.
But since beeing in the midlife crisis i thought it's time to learn stuff and make it a project to master my Seaboard before it's too late.
Who knows what devices we will see in the future....where is the Holophone?! :D

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Getting back to the linn.

The same arguments get used over and over again and each time I provide context supporting it someone else comes in with a random idea that is flawed.

Roger Linn is a in inventor and CEO he also plays several other instruments but primarily guitar. So he's not the best at playing a linn because he doesn't have 8 hours a day practice.

The only guy who I know that makes a living playing a linnstrument live is Jeff Moen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roKfNfr ... ThL6W5tzSI

Jeff plays in one specific way. It's the Jeff Moen approach. He gigs playing the linnstrument for a living and most likely devote his time to performing as it is his living then make free videos.

With regards to technique capabilities that is upon the person to develop. Yes if someone wants to play an emulation of slide guitar to demonstrate the vibrato / slide potential of the instrument then that is what they play. How you play an instrument is up to you.

With regards to fast playing. Again Speed is determined to how fast you want to /are capable of playing. One can not have blazing fast solo's and capture the mpe at the same time because it's going to fast. So far interest is in the linnstruments expressive abilites rather then the shredding. Yes one can scale rather quickly on a linn. I know I have one but I don't have time to meddle around on it developing the technique of music I don't want to play.

With regards to instructional content on how to play the linn. Quite frankly it's not enough money (as in zero) for someone to pursue teaching. I through a lot of time and effort into lessons for ztar and barely recieved even a thumbs up for my efforts. I have other obligations as do many others who play the linnstrument. Even the linnstrumentalist barely gets a hit a month on fb and it hasn't been developed as a page until it gets more hits (probably) If you have a rudimentary understanding of the piano keyboard or the guitar you should be able to apply yourself to the linn. The truth of the matter is people are lazy and want to be spoon fed everything then often lack the commitment even when they are spoon fed to develop themselves. I've had more then one guitar student who couldn't bring themselves to practice more then one day a week for 15 minutes. They simply wouldn't commit to it. It's not just age. Technique comes from muscle memory. If you aren't willing to train your muscles for timing and scales and chords then you'll be hopeless.
Synapse Audio Dune 3 I'm in love

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killmaster wrote:
aMUSEd wrote:If the aftertouch works anything like the QuNexus it's flawed from the start.
Wow, I really like the aftertouch on the QuNexus. hmmm... should I not?
I just find - because the whole approach to aftertouch is based on how hard you press the rubber keys - that in practice it's impossible to distinguish from velocity because unlike with a traditional keyboard the only way it can sense velocity is also by how hard you strike the keys. This means when I'm playing with AT turned on it's very hard not to trigger it and even harder to control the amount in a usable way. With a traditional keyboard there is no way to confuse the 2 things because velocity is based on how fast you strike the keys and AT on pressing down after striking the keys so they are very different gestures.

Not sure how the Rise handles this, it's also touch based so maybe this is also an issue but not tried one? However with the softer and larger keys there's more scope for using different gestures - with the QuNexus the keys are too hard and tiny for that (if they updated the editor to allow for configuring poly AT to tilt that might work but the other problem is they just don't update their stuff - I asked for this when I bought it years ago and there have been zero updates to the editor).

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aMUSEd wrote: I just find - because the whole approach to aftertouch is based on how hard you press the rubber keys - that in practice it's impossible to distinguish from velocity because unlike with a traditional keyboard the only way it can sense velocity is also by how hard you strike the keys.
This may sound a little off-topic here, but let's remember how it all began: On the Ondes Martenot, you had a "touche d'intensité" controller, which is some sort of expression key you press to control loudness with your left hand, while the right hand does the pitch work on the keys and via the ring controller. So no polyphonic aftertouch here, but one thing you cannot do with MPE instruments like LinnStrument and Seaboard: you have a very subtle way of controlling attack/expression/volume/velocity/aftertouch and what else you would call aspects of it in the MIDI world.

Try to play a fast legato line with even velocity on an MPE controller with velocity/aftertouch mapped to pressure - it's hard getting that done with your quickly moving fingers. So it would be nice to use one hand to control this. But no one to my knowledge has made a MIDI expression "key", although it would be quite simple. You can emulate all that with an X/Y pad, a mod wheel or a breath controller, but all of them play differently.

There are currently two things that come close to what I have in mind:

This "expression block", which has CV instead of MIDI and needs its own case and power supply, made for the modular world:
http://www.synthesizers.com/q181eb.html

Or the E Touché, which will have MIDI and several controller parameters, but isn't for sale, yet. It's going to be under $500, allegedly.
http://www.expressivee.com/home/#product

I guess something like this could be made for less money. It would basically have to be a keyboard key with a spring controlling a potentiometer or something like that (I'm not an engineer, no idea if this is realistic).

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Or foot pedals.
[W10-64, T5/6/7/W8/9/10/11/12, 32(to W8)&64 all, Spike],[W7-32, T5/6/7/W8, Gina16] everything underused.

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What i don´t like too on the Seaboard Rise is the VERY limited configuration and the annoying quantization for the "white keys".
I would like to set the midi cc74 to velocity (or any other midi message i want) without having to use a midi converter inside my DAW.
Glissandos f.e. have just the initial velocity while you havn´t that limitation if you use the Y axis for velocity (like many apps do on multi-touch devices).
The midi cc74 (Y axis) behaviour is indeed a bit odd combined with that annoying quantization i can´t turn off.
In MPE mode you have an initial midi cc74 value but that means that you can have the full range from 0-127 on the white keys but only an initial from 64-127 on the black keys at initial touch. That is really not "musical" for me.
Like i said, i don´t know what Roli thought about the software, i find it not very well laid out and so stupid limited so that i have often to use midi FX, midi modifiers etc. to get what i want.
Here i think is the Linnstrument much more advanced....but also every other multi-touch device.
The tactile feedback is THE big plus for me and i still try to bug Roli to think about to include those features. But of course they don´t care about a few loud voices :D

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Chick Sangria wrote:
aMUSEd wrote: I just find - because the whole approach to aftertouch is based on how hard you press the rubber keys - that in practice it's impossible to distinguish from velocity because unlike with a traditional keyboard the only way it can sense velocity is also by how hard you strike the keys.
This may sound a little off-topic here, but let's remember how it all began: On the Ondes Martenot, you had a "touche d'intensité" controller, which is some sort of expression key you press to control loudness with your left hand, while the right hand does the pitch work on the keys and via the ring controller. So no polyphonic aftertouch here, but one thing you cannot do with MPE instruments like LinnStrument and Seaboard: you have a very subtle way of controlling attack/expression/volume/velocity/aftertouch and what else you would call aspects of it in the MIDI world.

Try to play a fast legato line with even velocity on an MPE controller with velocity/aftertouch mapped to pressure - it's hard getting that done with your quickly moving fingers. So it would be nice to use one hand to control this. But no one to my knowledge has made a MIDI expression "key", although it would be quite simple. You can emulate all that with an X/Y pad, a mod wheel or a breath controller, but all of them play differently.

There are currently two things that come close to what I have in mind:

This "expression block", which has CV instead of MIDI and needs its own case and power supply, made for the modular world:
http://www.synthesizers.com/q181eb.html

Or the E Touché, which will have MIDI and several controller parameters, but isn't for sale, yet. It's going to be under $500, allegedly.
http://www.expressivee.com/home/#product

I guess something like this could be made for less money. It would basically have to be a keyboard key with a spring controlling a potentiometer or something like that (I'm not an engineer, no idea if this is realistic).
You can do this via workarounds. The biggest problem is that those controllers don´t let you turn of the velocity via pressure.
It would be simple if i could put velocity on one of the sliders on the Rise. Of course you can do this via midi converters etc. But yeah....all those controllers lack a few things.
Some iOS synths offers what you mean (i think so).
F.e. Mitosynth lets you control the velocity and the volume at the same time (and every other parameter you want) via the Y axis on a ribbon kind of keys. So it works polyphonic too.
All this things would be possible with the Seaboard too......but Roli seems to think inside a box a little bit here for me.
Of course there are software tools where you can build your own controller to your likings....sadly they lack tactile feedback then.

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[quote="peter_neo" All of them need better ways to keep vibrato in tune. I believe the Linnstrument and Roli use some kind of pitch prediction algorithm to help players out.[/quote]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlgMw-aylAs

Have you played a stringed instrument? Vibrato is created by "wiggling" the string in an out of tune. I much prefer vibrato on the linnstrument as it doesn't operate like a modulation wheel.
Synapse Audio Dune 3 I'm in love

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