- Applying the "survival of the fittest" maxim to technology designed for music-making shows that, for all of the hype around new products, certain formats, approaches and protocols have withstood the test of time. Think of a performance MIDI controller and the image of a keyboard will likely come to mind. That the keyboard remains the note input method of choice for most musicians is perhaps unsurprising, given its evolution from synthesizers and, before them, the piano itself. But it's not necessarily the most intuitive choice. If you're programming musical parts for strings, drums, wind instruments, brass or any other instrument that doesn't feature a keyboard, it won't make for the perfect fit. In some cases, using a keyboard for programming actually makes life harder.
To tackle this specific issue, Roli announced the Seaboard Grand more than a year ago, and it won awards both for its design and its musical intuition. Featuring a silicone playing surface, the five-octave Grand allows for a series of musical gestures that a regular keyboard simply can't match. As well as using the surface to trigger notes, it's possible to perform gestural commands along the length of a key as your finger drags up and down the surface, as well as performing vibrato effects by waggling your finger from side to side. Just as importantly, the Grand features truly note-by-note levels of performance, with its equivalents of aftertouch and note pressure responding individually, even when playing a chord. Though the keybed also allows for more traditional keyboard playing, it encourages experimentation in the performances it generates. The Grand also provides ribbon controllers all around the keyboard playing area—performance enhancers for notes played on the keyboard or generators in their own right, without the keyboard being used at all. They're perfect for sweeping, non-chromatic performances. But at considerably over £2000, the Grand may well be beyond the reach of most of us.
Enter the Seaboard Rise. It's a two-octave version of the Seaboard experience at less than a quarter of the Grand's price, with a smaller but otherwise similarly featured playing surface, both in terms of the keyboard and the surrounding ribbon strips. Just as importantly, additional performance-enhancing MIDI controls are included, expanding its remit considerably.
Let's look at the full line-up of features. To use Roli-speak, the key-bed offers 25 "keywaves," the official term for each individual rubberized playing pad. Unlike the Grand, the keyboard now features a white strip along each of what would be its black notes, which help identify the right notes in low-light conditions. Each keywave allows for a range of gestures representing different ways of generating and manipulating sounds. These gestures are strike, glide, slide, press and lift, and each can be mapped to different parameters within the second part of the Rise package, the Equator software. Rise is bus-powered and connects to your computer via USB, though it also features a wireless Bluetooth option. To compensate somewhat for the smaller keywave allocation, octave switch buttons are provided to allow you to jump up or down at a moment's notice.
Rise's bundled Equator software can run standalone or as a DAW-hosted plug-in. It's very much the software heart to the Rise's hardware brain. A preset browser provides a way to test drive both sides of Rise's remit. Equator does work, albeit in a more limited capacity, if triggered from more regular keyboard controllers, too. The upper section of Equator provides three synthesis oscillators, one noise generator and two sample modules that let you load waveforms from within Equator's own library database, rather than bring in external ones. Once you have configured all of the modules to taste, multimode filters and effects lie in wait. The latter section features bitcrusher, distortion, EQ, chorus, delay and reverb modules, with a pleasingly broad range of parameters on a per-module basis. However, the real fun lies beneath, where the gestural commands within Rise can be mapped. You'll find separate graphs for strike, glide, slide, press and lift, which let you map the weight, length or strength of each gesture to the synth settings of your choice. This is beautifully explained in a short walk-through when you first launch Equator, so you'll get your head around how to configure settings to specific parameters quickly. For instance, you might decide you want the slide gesture to manipulate tone but with inverted movements which lessen brightness as you slide upwards. Or you might prefer a V-shaped command that goes from bright to dull and back as you slide from top to bottom. Click on a gesture and then push a parameter setting to configure an assignment and range—it's that simple. Equator's modulation list is the section to explore when you want to get more heavily involved in routing a wider range of controls to individual parameters. Here, you can map not only the gestural commands from keywaves but also assign the Rise's extra controllers, including the XY pad and the three, fully-configurable sliders. It's also worth noting that you can step through sounds directly from switches on the Rise hardware, great news for those looking to integrate Rise into a live set.
The Seaboard Grand made a significant splash when it was introduced, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Rise is the model which turns Roli into a major player within the industry. The whole Seaboard concept is excellent, from the quality of the build to the extraordinary performance capability offered not only from the unique keywaves, but from the ribbon controllers surrounding the playing area, too. The extended performance possibilities offered by the control section on the instrument's left are a significant development, however. The Rise is considerably more affordable than its big brother, and while it compromises on the number of provided keywaves, it offers more in the way of immediate control to compensate. Better still, it's exciting to imagine how the Seaboard/Equator combination could further develop in the coming months and years. I'd love to see Roli expand Equator to allow users to bring in their own samples and offer a range of sampling approaches—including granular, for instance. The two-octave keybed may prove compromising, so a middle option, offering three or four octaves, may well find favour, too. It'll be equally interesting to see how software developers respond to this new, revolutionary control surface. I can't be the only one who would love to see Omnisphere 2's sounds directly mapable to Seaboard's controllers, to name but one example. Indeed, there's a very real chance that we are witnessing the arrival of a new heavyweight in our industry. For me, the Seaboards are the most exciting instruments I have played all year.
Ratings:
Sound: 4.2
Cost: 4.5
Versatility: 4.8
Ease of use: 4.4