I Bought A Roli Seaboard Rise

[bones]

I got the 25 key version kind of cheap which, of course, is a relative term. Over here they retail for Au$1400 but most places advertise them for just over Au$1100. One retailer was having an end-of-financial-year sale and had dropped it to Au$1011. On the last day of their sale, eBay added an extra 15% off, so I got it for Au$859, delivered, which is about US$670, including taxes. That makes it the biggest single purchase I've made in many years for what is essentially just a controller keyboard but with the bundled software it is really a whole lot more than that.

Using Roli's Equator synth as a standalone gives you amazing expressive powers even if, like me, you're not much of a keyboard player. I found I very quickly adopted a whole different playing style, where I basically rest my fingers on the keys and just press down to play. If I play like I normally would, the velocity response (which they call "strike") is too sensitive and you end up always hitting too hard. It's also very easy to hit slightly off-centre and get the wrong note, so resting your fingers sorts that out, too.

Once you get into it, it becomes totally mesmerising. Some of the things you can do are just mind-blowing. e.g. One patch gives you ensemble strings when you play a key but as you slide your finger up the key, the timbre changes to a male choir. OK, that's something you could set up with Orion's Sampler and a mod wheel, only this does it on a per note basis, so I could hold a chord with my left hand that kept playing strings while notes with my right hand could slide up to morph into the choir. And with the full-width controllers you get above and below the keyboard, you can create some amazing FX-scapes without hitting any keys at all. It is very addictive once you get into it.

Unfortunately, none of the magic works inside Orion, where you have to change the Roli's mode to normal MIDI to get it to work at all. When you do that you lose all the extra control you get from the standalone synth. That said, it's still a decent enough MIDI controller and it will play anything in Orion as well as any other controller. You can even assign MIDI CCs to the other modes of expression and get some response that way, although I am not at the stage of trying that out, yet.

At least I can run the standalone synth and Orion at the same time, by running one through my audio device's ASIO and the other through ASIO-4-all or the recently added Realtek ASIO driver for the on-board soundcard. It just means I have to change sounds on Equator manually but the Rise has patch up/down buttons so that's not a chore.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that it only has USB MIDI, so I can't plug it into my Rocket or Pulse 2. That works out OK, though, because if I am using the Rise and Equator together, I still need a controller for Orion anyway. Overall, then, it feels more like adding yet another new hardware synth than a new controller which is fine, given the hardware kick I've been on lately. (I will be selling the Minilogue and Monologue to pay for it, though.)

It comes with an 8-track version of Bitwig, which supports all the crazy controller stuff, so this might end up being a real motivator to move on from Orion, after around 17 years. As we start work on our next album, I am going to use Bitwig to see if I can make it work for us. The biggest hurdle will be finding a replacement for Wasp but I think DUNE can do it well enough, and Rocket can do it really well, so that might not be a huge hassle.

[Teksonik]

I've never even had the pleasure of touching a Roli. Looks like it would allow for a great deal of expression. Doubt I'll ever own one.

[Cinebient]

I prefer my Seaboard Rise over a normal keyboard any day now (but still the software has some bugs sometimes...but just with Roli´s own synths and software).
I´m not a good keyboard player as well but for my own surprise my muscle memory works much better with this kind of surface.
The good thing is i also can just use it in normal mode if i want or i use all the 5 dimensions of expression: Velocity, Velocity Release, Aftertouch, Slide and Glide.
The other good thing is that it´s very easy to set-up a MPE style thing also with Dune 2.
I just have to use one instance per voice/midi channel.
Assign the modwheel to the slide (Y axis) and using it per voice is awesome
I already wanted to sale my Rise 25 after some time because of some flaws but now i love it again.
Equator is really great and to get Bitwig 8 track and now Strobe 2 for free was a nice gift too.
I wish i could customize it much more via the dashboard and asked for more. But since they focus on iOS also and those blocks and whatever i´m scared the Rise is more of a side project anymore.
I hope i´m wrong. So it has pro and contra compared to other forms of input or controllers which would be too long to explain here and are also personal things but in general it is the best midi keyboard i ever used so far.
I do wish i have waited for the 49 version. I bought the Rise 25 short after the release.
But the 25 works better than i thought and i like my set-up as small and portable as possible.
They also released the new Seaboard blocks which you can put together but they come with limited set of software and features and i hate mini keys....too fat fingers.
I think i have to make some demos how Dune 2 can sound with MPE style set-up. If anyone would be interested....before soundcrap...ah soundcloud shuts finally down.

[Touch The Universe]

I have a keen interest in buying one very soon. Can't wait really, as it amazing. I'm very interested in trying out the blocks 12 keys version as a starter. If I love it as much as I think, I will go all out for the fullest version. Would be nice if I could try it out at a store but I'd have to simple order it and see how things go. Do any shops offer returns? I would need atleast a week to determine if I like it then go for the full version.

[bones]

I was lucky, I got to spend a full hour playing around with one at a shop late last year. Since then I had been trying to stop myself from spending the money but the 15% off eBay deal was too much to ignore.

I'm not too sure about the Blocks keyboard. It's a lot cheaper but you don't get the same software bundle and all the magic is in the software. You'll get a player version of the Equator synth but I'm not sure how much control that will give you. I'm also concerned that the mini keys might be too small, given how accurate your playing needs to be. And that's coming from someone who has been using mini-keys on a Minilogue, a Monologue, a couple of Roland Boutique synths and an Arturia KeyStep and loving it. So I'll be really interested to try one out when they finally show up.

The other thing with the Block keyboard is that you just get the keys, where the Rise has heaps of controls on the left side that you'll need to buy at least one other Block device, probably two, if you want all the functionality of a Rise. Don't get me wrong, it could be great but I don't see that it offers as much value for money as a Rise 25.

[Kriminal]

I just press the keys and sometimes use a MW. I never use AT or even VEL.

I associate products like this with ambient space age stuff

[bones]

When we play live, I use aftertouch a lot, although I usually have velocity dulled down to almost nothing. Aftertouch is a lot more controllable when you're jumping around like an idiot, as will some of the controls on the Rise. And with some of the Equator presets, you can get amazing background drone sounds out of it without playing a key.