Roli Seaboard RISE

[zerocrossing]

I’ve also struggled with what to actually use these instruments for. I don’t make wub wub EDM or virtuoso jazz or anything where solo performance needs to stand out. What I’ve eventually settled on is simply small bits of musical gestures, which when combined as a whole, make for more interesting music than a traditional keyboard would give me.

Yes, I've struggled too, but with the reliability, and coherence of Roli. One thing that one can do with Roli (don't know if this particular treat exists on Haken) is whenever having a symphonic harp patch preset thrown in. On regular keyboard, when you try to impersonate a full "Harp strum" you can only strum on the white keys and do a glissando. On Roli, if you set the gaps to nil, not floating between the nots, you can glide underneath the actual keys, with the ribbon, and glide full chromatically up or down, just like a real harp patch, because a real harp strum, is chromatic, takes all the "white" keys and "black" keys in order. I used to cheat even with a piano patch set up on the Roli, people gets that little weird look, and frown with their eyes and thinks somethings wrong, or more right, because it doesn't sound "real". When doing gliss all over the white, black keys equally as swift... they get funny looks on their faces. The thing I want with that - a very narrow kind of piano music, and esoteric genre, is to impersonate the piano player rolls composition of avant garde composer Conlon Nancarrow (talk about rhyming with NARROW .. as his music genre was). You can go "ddrrrriiittt" in a second of all octaves, chromatic, at least on a Roli Seaboard Grand.

But it only works so far. But it works.

I would love to that if just Roli, and Haken had immediate touch on percussive instruments. Like skin contact response, that just by the contact of the "keyboard" it should react to playing instruments. It should be set. As it is for now, trying gamelans, hand-pans, hang, marimbas, steel pans, bells, it feels a little too sluggish to perform, as the silicon keyboard takes a while to press with enough force down. I guess this wouldn't be able without some metallic thread on the surface of the Roli/Haken and would be worn down quite quickly.

This is why I also have a regular polyphonic aftertouch keyboard. Not every type of sound is best suited for the Rise, but when it is, oh man. It’s awesome.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

If Bones doesn't understand the benefits of MPE by this point then he never will

Bones has also said that he doesn't understand why people would play basslines by hand, as opposed to using the piano roll or sequencer. And I might be wrong, but I think he also said he has no desire to play real instruments (Something like that). He is welcome to feel how he likes about such things, but I'd give his opinions on what he thinks other people do or do not want/need/use in an expressive instrument are not even worth the time it takes to read them

Personally, I have two hands with which to express myself. Roli affords me the ability to do so. And yes, I use 'lift' expression AND massage both hands (at the same time) deep into my Seaboard's silicone curves to elicit a slight or extreme vibrato(ry) response.

[zerocrossing]

Going back to the clarinet example, what I’ve found I enjoy the most is running these instruments through a looper. So for a clarinet or trumpet or solo violin line, I’ll keep overdubbing as I build up a whole orchestra section of individual players performing their parts. All that expression shines through and helps to create the feeling of a group of individuals playing together.

I’ve also struggled with what to actually use these instruments for. I don’t make wub wub EDM or virtuoso jazz or anything where solo performance needs to stand out. What I’ve eventually settled on is simply small bits of musical gestures, which when combined as a whole, make for more interesting music than a traditional keyboard would give me.

Not every sound needs some overt MPE style of expression. Sometimes just a basic pad with a little pressure and glide is enough to add a lot of life.

[deastman]

I don’t want to overstate my position. I don’t mean that MPE is NEVER suitable for chords, only that I feel it is BEST suited for making focused monophonic melodic statements. You can bend a guitar chord,but you’re more likely to put a lot of detail into slides, vibrato, tapping, hammer ins and pull offs when playing a melodic line on the fretboard. At least I am.

[pdxindy]

I understand the benefits very well. They are minor, at best, completely overshadowed by the benefits of the 5 dimensions of touch.

I get it, you are mainly interested in 5D as applied to monophonic patches. I'm just as interested in using it on polyphonic patches. Peoples interests differ. What for you is minor, is major for me.

I find MPE pitchbend musically useful. I can play a G, and slide the notes into an A minor. Not possible to do that with a regular pitchwheel.

But should be with polyphonic portamento, I'd imagine? And are you talking SLIDE or GLIDE? Because I don't find dragging my finger sideways across the keyboard to feel very musical at all. Not very controllable/ smooth on the Seaboard Block, either. When I use GLIDE, it's always from the top or bottom of the Seaboard, above/below the keywaves.

Portamento is again a pre programmed thing and not immediate and flexible to be controlled in realtime. With per note expression, I can do all sorts of things portamento couldn't do at all, let along spontaneously in realtime.

I use a Linnstrument or Continuum... there isn't slide and glide with them.

But even if one were going from G to A, it sounds different. With the pitchwheel, all 3 notes are locked in pitch. With per note pitch, there is a slight variation as each finger moves independently. It sounds richer and more nuanced. And of course I can purposefully lag one note behind the other 2 for effect. Beautiful stuff!

Yeah, same example someone else gave the other day (or maybe you did). Seems very specialised to me, not something you'd be doing with every chord change. Which is not to invalidate it, just to say that the use cases are specific and uncommon, where people carry on as though it's something they need for every part they play or record and they won't touch anything that doesn't support MPE. It's got to be putting people off.

I can give a dozen other small use cases. At any moment I can add vibrato to a specific note. Per note expression and note bends during arpeggiation. And so on. Sometimes I turn off the pitch quantization and play that way. It requires more precision in my playing but then every note has a slightly different pitch. I play the same chord 4 times and each one has variation. There is a natural characteristic such that when I play faster, it is less precise. Maybe a fast arpeggio I am playing by hand and one finger rolls a bit bending the pitch slightly. Sometimes I play a bit sloppy on purpose. All of it adds together to create a more nuanced and 'human' music that matters a lot to me. It feels more like a real instrument with all of its natural little 'flaws'. I love MPE!

I'm sure I am in the minority in my interest... and that does not make it any less important to me.

Even though it might be a 'mono' line, the previous note is still decaying when I play the next note. Cannot do that with regular pitchbend cause it will also bend the previous still decaying note.

But you could do it just by playing different notes, couldn't you? You know, the way you'd play anything.

I play a G... then play a C and slide it down to an A. Oops... because the G is still decaying, the G also slides down. MPE is necessary to handle that.

[Echoes in the Attic]

A few examples of things you can't do without mpe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ACZflVPPY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yzwoc1l5e0

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I don’t mean that MPE is NEVER suitable for chords

Fortunately, considering the Rise has been my only keyboard for 18 months*



*I do have a little 2-octave keyboard for articulation switching etc.

[pdxindy]

I don’t want to overstate my position. I don’t mean that MPE is NEVER suitable for chords, only that I feel it is BEST suited for making focused monophonic melodic statements. You can bend a guitar chord,but you’re more likely to put a lot of detail into slides, vibrato, tapping, hammer ins and pull offs when playing a melodic line on the fretboard. At least I am.

I like how it works for chords even when I play them exactly the same as I would on a non MPE controller. (I use a Linnstrument or Continuum)

MPE for chords makes lots of beautiful variations. Sometimes I turn off pitch quantization. Sometimes I set Y axis to absolute so depending on where I strike the pad on the Y axis, there is variation. Sometimes playing chords quickly, tiny little note bends happen. I find that all beautiful sounding.

[deastman]

I don’t want to overstate my position. I don’t mean that MPE is NEVER suitable for chords, only that I feel it is BEST suited for making focused monophonic melodic statements. You can bend a guitar chord,but you’re more likely to put a lot of detail into slides, vibrato, tapping, hammer ins and pull offs when playing a melodic line on the fretboard. At least I am.

I like how it works for chords even when I play them exactly the same as I would on a non MPE controller. (I use a Linnstrument or Continuum)

MPE for chords makes lots of beautiful variations. Sometimes I turn off pitch quantization. Sometimes I set Y axis to absolute so depending on where I strike the pad on the Y axis, there is variation. Sometimes playing chords quickly, tiny little note bends happen. I find that all beautiful sounding.

With the Continuum, I like to play with no pitch rounding and try not to even think about 12-tone intervals. I just let my ears guide my fingers. Is it microtonal? Is it just badly played and out of tune? Mostly I’m just going for an overall vibe and a sense of organic, human gesture. It might not be fair to say that I don’t do that for chords, especially because I’m often recording a dozen overdubbed passages on a looper, and the net result is often “chords”.

[Mats Eriksson]

oh dear...
This thread reminds me of the old statement made by legendary humbucker pickup designer Seth Lover (Gibson etc) made in an interview with Seymour Duncan quite some decades ago:

" I’ve heard musicians talking about things that are just bothering the hell out of them – complaining and so forth on this or that pickup – and I’d listen and listen and I couldn’t hear. At the same time I could hear things in there that were bothering the hell out of me and they’d pay no attention to them. I hear something they don’t and they hear something I don’t.

What are you going to do?"

[deastman]

I don’t see it that way at all. I only see healthy conversation about some truly fantastic expressive controllers which we’re all enthusiastic about. It’s amazing to have so many options these days to express one’s unique creative voice.

[zerocrossing]

I don’t want to overstate my position. I don’t mean that MPE is NEVER suitable for chords, only that I feel it is BEST suited for making focused monophonic melodic statements. You can bend a guitar chord,but you’re more likely to put a lot of detail into slides, vibrato, tapping, hammer ins and pull offs when playing a melodic line on the fretboard. At least I am.

I get what you’re saying, I just do those melodic statements in a way that’s polyphonic, or in relation to chords being played with my left hand. I’m often doing something where I have a chord playing and at the end of a phrase, I use pressure to crescendo the chord to meet the melody level.

[Jace-BeOS]

Anything new with the Seaboard/Rise product line?

[deastman]

Anything new with the Seaboard/Rise product line?

I’m sure there’s probably a Seaboard Rise mkII in the works. I don’t mean to use that as a straw man argument, but I appreciate Roger Linn stating that there is not going to be a LinnStrument mkII.

[Jace-BeOS]

Anything new with the Seaboard/Rise product line?

I’m sure there’s probably a Seaboard Rise mkII in the works. I don’t mean to use that as a straw man argument, but I appreciate Roger Linn stating that there is not going to be a LinnStrument mkII.

I hope so. I hope it is built more reliably (based on the inconsistent sensitivity described in this thread). I hope it has MIDI 2.0 on it, and actual independence from computers as a stand-alone controller.