# Roli Seaboard Rise $799 U.S.



## synthpunk (Sep 18, 2015)

Interesting
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2015/09/14/bpm-2015-roli-rise-controller-in-the-flesh/


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## apessino (Sep 18, 2015)

Have one on order - very excited about it.


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## synthpunk (Sep 18, 2015)

Going to be really hard to decide on this or the Linnstrument.


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## Echoes in the Attic (Sep 18, 2015)

I'd like to know about plans to create a version with more octaves. I think the advantage of these piano key formatted controllers (as opposed to the grid style of the linnstrument) is that it's more comfortable as a two handed keyboard instrument in the traditional fingering approach. So I'd want at least a four octave version, preferably 5.


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## synthpunk (Sep 18, 2015)

There Grand Series covers the larger Octave formats already (but your going to pay for it) :
https://roli.com/products/seaboard-grand

The Rise series seems to be attempt to bring the cost down.
https://roli.com/products/seaboard-rise



Echoes in the Attic said:


> I'd like to know about plans to create a version with more octaves. I think the advantage of these piano key formatted controllers (as opposed to the grid style of the linnstrument) is that it's more comfortable as a two handed keyboard instrument in the traditional fingering approach. So I'd want at least a four octave version, preferably 5.


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## apessino (Sep 18, 2015)

aesthete said:


> Going to be really hard to decide on this or the Linnstrument.



Well, the Rise is still a keyboard, just an extended/expanded one. I can play keyboards...  The Linnstrument is very different and would require training - and I get a feeling not trivial amount of it at that. 

Also, the major advantage of the Linnstrument is the increased interval range you can cover with one hand (so, wider chords/bigger leaps) which honestly, I am not sure I care that much about. As far as expression is concerned it does not have as many dimensions as the ROLI instruments do (no release velocity, for example). Finally, the "keys" on the Linnstrument seem very small and packed together - I have big paddle hands, I can't imagine being able to play that board with any kind of precision. 

Anyhow, not trying to be negative on the Linnstrument (I am sure it is awesome in its own right) but for what I want (more expressive performance, especially when playing sampled/simulated instruments that don't translate directly to keyboard) the ROLI instruments seem more suitable. Only problem so far has been justifying the price - the Rise at $800 is a lot more appealing than the Grand at $8000 or even the 61 key Seaboard at $3000. I like that the Rise does not try to be an all-in-one, computer-less solution like the Seaboard with its built in sounds, etc. which I really don't care about, and they seem to have worked out the early nitpicks.

I will let you know how I feel about it when I get it in a couple of weeks...


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## FriFlo (Sep 19, 2015)

apessino said:


> Well, the Rise is still a keyboard, just an extended/expanded one. I can play keyboards...


Well, it is regarding the distances of the keys, except for the "black keys" being way lower, than on a conventional keyboard. I shortly played the Roli Grand on Musikmesse 2014. I also tried the Haken Continuum shortly before. While the Continuum misses the key (or rather wave) profile, it is very responsive to even slight tapping. The Seaboard (at least the Grand) is not. Applying conventinal piano technique a lot of notes do not get triggered. You need to apply more pressure, so fast playing is way more difficult! I have seen the gurus (like Jordan Rudess) play fast stuff, but not nearly as fast, as they play conventional keys.
That being said, I really like the concept of both of the Continuum and the Seaboard. I am looking forward to see, if the response of the Rise has been increased. But before buying it, I would always want to try it out intensively. I think we will soon see the seaboards in music shops around the world. That is what I will be waiting for! Also for a Rise with at least one octave more ...


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## apessino (Sep 19, 2015)

Fair points! I have not played either so I don't know, but they claim that the Rise is indeed more responsive than the previous models, where the occasional missed note seemed easy to get.

Then again, Jordan does not seem to have a problem...


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## Pietro (Sep 19, 2015)

I would definitely be interested in the hands on reviews. Even though I 'm in constant lookout for a perfect 88 keyboard (currently holding to the KeystTion 88es), this small thing with it's perfectly minimal design turns my gear lust on. Which is a rare thing!

And if it's good and works as I imagine it to work, I could find a nice place for it .

- Piotr


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## musicman61554 (Sep 19, 2015)

Such an amazing little keyboard. I would love to have one of these.


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## Echoes in the Attic (Sep 24, 2015)

aesthete said:


> There Grand Series covers the larger Octave formats already (but your going to pay for it) :
> https://roli.com/products/seaboard-grand
> 
> The Rise series seems to be attempt to bring the cost down.
> https://roli.com/products/seaboard-rise



Yes and regular keyboards cover larger octave ranges too. But the Rise is the one that I'm interested in. The grand series doesn't have the up/down expression, the release velocity or the other faders there. The point is that I (and many others I'm sure) would like to see THIS product (Rise) in a version with more octaves.


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## kurtvanzo (Oct 13, 2015)

Echoes in the Attic said:


> Yes and regular keyboards cover larger octave ranges too. But the Rise is the one that I'm interested in. The grand series doesn't have the up/down expression, the release velocity or the other faders there. The point is that I (and many others I'm sure) would like to see THIS product (Rise) in a version with more octaves.


+1, would jump on a 61 key Rise! Even at twice the price it would be worth it. Go Roli!


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## scarred bunny (Oct 20, 2015)

Sooo... has anyone here received their Seaboard yet?


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## FriFlo (Oct 20, 2015)

scarred bunny said:


> Sooo... has anyone here received their Seaboard yet?


Scared bunny, you go first this time!


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## apessino (Oct 20, 2015)

scarred bunny said:


> Sooo... has anyone here received their Seaboard yet?



Nope - not even shipped yet.


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## scarred bunny (Oct 20, 2015)

Strange, I was under the impression that early preorders would be given priority. I did preorder, but very late. '4-6 weeks delivery time' it said then, but I just received an email saying it'll be here within five working days. 

We'll see, I guess.


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## apessino (Oct 20, 2015)

Yeah, I ordered it when they first announced it, hoping to see it soon.


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## Leo Badinella (Oct 21, 2015)

Great. I was saving up for the 88 version, I think I'll try this one first.


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## Carbs (Oct 26, 2015)

I stopped by Sweetwater to grab a couple things and played around with one of these while I waited for my order. I don't think I could ever use one (disclaimer: I'm a guitarist, and though I can play the piano I am not a virtuoso by ANY stretch, lol).

It seems like a cool idea, but my fingers would sort of "catch" and sliding up and down the board was difficult for me. Not very smooth.


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## apessino (Oct 29, 2015)

Finally shipped! I should have it in a couple of days... anyone else got theirs?


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## scarred bunny (Oct 29, 2015)

Mine arrived this week. Initially I was a little bummed out because the slide sensor didn't seem to transmit anything - so I wrote to tech support to moan, and after two hours they responded saying it was a not-uncommon software problem and gave me a working hotfix, and assurances that a proper firmware update will be available shortly to address the issue. Pretty impressive response time. Everything seems to be running smoothly here now anyway.

I'm hesitant to write too much because I dislike overglowing honeymoon product reviews and I simply haven't had a chance to spend much time with it yet. But as far as first impressions go, I think it's really cool. The construction looks and feels pretty solid. You have a lot of control in three directions right underneath your fingertips and it feels very responsive, yet since it's basically laid out like a keyboard it's also pretty intuitive to play. Obviously it'll take some practice to get the most out of it, but this looks like it strikes a pretty good balance between inventiveness and familiarity, control and accessibility. 

I do have some initial complaints. Like Carbs, I also wish the material had less slightly less friction - I think it's perfectly usable as is, but could be better. I don't have words to describe how much I dislike copy-protection schemes based on limited amounts of online activations (I get it for the soft synth, but for the _editor_??). The Dashboard editor seems a little glitchy, and there are a few features that I'm missing (more and different sensitivity curves, tracking slide/glide as absolute values rather than relative offsets, not having to use Dashboard every time I want to change settings, etc). But many of those niggles probably can and will be addressed via software updates further down the road. And it's still plenty useful as is. 

Been playing around with Sample Modeling all afternoon. It works surprisingly well, and for me anyway, better and easier than keyboard + breath controller. 

All in all, very cool and interesting piece of kit, is my initial assessment.


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## apessino (Oct 29, 2015)

Great impressions - thanks!


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## Carbs (Oct 29, 2015)

scarred bunny said:


> Mine arrived this week. Initially I was a little bummed out because the slide sensor didn't seem to transmit anything - so I wrote to tech support to moan, and after two hours they responded saying it was a not-uncommon software problem and gave me a working hotfix, and assurances that a proper firmware update will be available shortly to address the issue. Pretty impressive response time. Everything seems to be running smoothly here now anyway.



Glad you were able to get a hot fix. This actually explains why I couldn't get that slider to do anything, lol! I was thinking..."well...something SHOULD be happening here" - turns out Sweetwater just hasn't gotten around to that fix. I didn't mention it before because I just assumed I wasn't doing something right. 

Thanks for your initial review!


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## scarred bunny (Oct 31, 2015)

Updates to the firmware and Dashboard were released last night, it seems, so the slide problem appears fixed - along with some other welcome fixes and updates (like being able to set the pitch-bend range to something other than +/- 2 octaves). Quite nice - they seem pretty dedicated to this. 

apessino, please do post your thoughts and feelings when you get yours. Hopefully it'll reach you soon.


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## Moduler (Nov 4, 2015)

Can't wait to receive mine. Thinking of testing it out with Chris Hein Horns Compact, but as of now I have no idea how to map the controller to Kontakt. So if any of you guys manage to get some cool stuff going on expressively with other libraries and could share I would be really greatful. 

Curious to see if more library developers are going to adapt or make scripts for the Roli Rise. One of the main reason I got it was to make interesting solos easier, instead of going in detail with the mouse on automations or recording just modwheel changes.


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## synthpunk (Nov 5, 2015)

Rise Review
http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=18085


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## apessino (Nov 5, 2015)

Finally got my RISE yesterday – only played with it for a few hours but here are my super quick impressions (typing quickly, please forgive the typos...).

- Overall great quality/construction.

- I found the thing beautifully playable from the first try. I was surprised by how sensitive/reactive the surface is. The slightest pressure of a finger is enough to register, you can be seriously light of touch with it and still have no trouble playing. I had no issues with the amount of friction or the sensitivity of pressure tracking, it all feels fantastic and intuitive for each of the 5 tracked “dimensions” (as they call them).

- It is not a keyboard, can’t really be played like one. It is best at playing lead, solo lines. Quick shifting chords become considerably more challenging (at least for now, maybe it’ll get better as I get used to it) – I tried playing with two hands, it is just not big enough to do so in a satisfactory way (I guess even a regular keyboard at this size would be a challenge to play with two hands). I honestly don’t think I’ll ever do that – at most I’ll hold a pedal note or two with the left hand, but most of the time it will be used for lead lines. I can’t imagine playing meaningful piano music with this, at least not at this form factor/size.

- Related to the above: the design is seriously clever and makes it much more playable/useful than you would expect. The faders/pad/switches on the left are integral to performance – for example, I can’t imagine this type of controller working nearly as well without the ability to constantly adjust the “Slide” sensitivity. Basically you are changing how aggressively the controller quantizes the pitch of the notes you play – it is super useful. Before long I was riding the faders with my left hand while playing with the right – it quickly became second nature. The fact that the previous models did not have that ability makes me glad I waited for the RISE before taking the plunge – I feel that this is where it all really begins for ROLI, it is all coming into its own now.

- Equator (the bundled standalone/VST synth) sounds surprisingly good, a few of the presets are mind boggingly expressive and really open your eyes to the possibilities offered by the extra control. I didn't spend much time looking at what it can do outside of factory sounds, but just playing the presets it was like a mini-vacation for the mind. :D

- I didn’t try much with other instruments (at 3am I was still playing with Equator – had to go to bed at some point!), but I did fool around with some of the new Audiobro/NI “Symphony Strings” and it was magical. Even just as a regular controller there is something amazing about the tactility of the continuous surface. The autodivisi legato cellos sure sounded incredible. 

- More on that, the RISE can operate essentially in 3 modes: 1) like a good old “traditional” controller (all data sent over a single MIDI channel, you can choose between channel or poly aftertouch for ressure tracking), 2) in a clever “multi channel” mode where each separate note is sent to a different MIDI channel (up to a settable range), this means you can populate an instance of Fontakt (for example) with multiple instances of the same instrument and then have each note automatically go to its own dedicated instance, so that you get dedicated per channel pitch bend, pressure, etc. even with instruments that don’t support polyphonic expression, and finally 3) which uses their dedicated “multidimensional expression” which has the ability to do all of the above over a single channel. If the thing catches on future VSTs will support this natively, for now I think only Equator does.

- So, option 2) above seems really useful. The RISE sends note on/velocity (“strike”), pressure (“press,” mono or poly, as described above), pitch bend (“glide,” per channel as above), vertical position as MIDI CC 74 (“slide”), note off/velocity (“lift”). The faders control the various curves, as described above, or at a tap of a button they can send a CC each (107, 109, 111 by default, configurable) and the X/Y pad can be used to send two CCs of choice (113, 114 by default). The +/- octave switch is also going to be used a lot – fortunately if you are holding a note and press octave +/- the notes sustains and releases correctly, the new octave is only used for notes triggered afterwards.

To conclude: I love it quite a bit – most exciting bit of gear I have used in a while, some seriously clever engineering went into this thing and it is obvious that musicality was the priority It feels like it opens up new ways of expressive playing, and with a bit of trial and error I think I will be able to use it effectively even with instruments and libraries not directly supporting it. I will continue to experiment for a while and see what kind of results I can get, but so far it seems like a fantastic bit of fun.


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## Vanni (Nov 22, 2015)

Dear all,
thanks for your impressions.
I was wondering whether any of you users could report about how the Rise performs with other VSTs, i.e. Kontakt and Omnisphere.
I understand there's a pretty complex setup involved and i would like to know if you have actually found some kind of easy workflow to use the features of the Rise with third party VSTs. Have you encountered any limitations?

Thanks,

Vanni


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