Create expressive music on the go with Roli Seaboards

Roli with its team of engineers, designers and researchers created a musical instrument that is very similar to the classical ones by looks but allows musicians to be more expressive in creating their music. This includes three of Roli’s Seaboards: The Seaboard Block that has a piano-like keyboard allowing you to create music anywhere you go and the two MIDI controllers, Seaboard RISE 25 and RISE 49 that have even more control over surface responsiveness and offer over a thousand different sounds you can create.

Roli Seaboard Block

Seaboard Block is a keyboard with a pressure-responsive musical surface that allows the creation of expressive music. With hundreds of different sounds, it can create anything imaginable, especially with the help of the add-on Blocks that add even more functions to the keyboard.

The device looks similar to a piano keyboard with the 2-octave playing surface and 24 keywaves in total. Different movements such as striking, gliding, sliding, pressing and lifting the fingers across the silicone surface give different results due to the Five Dimensions of Touch (5D), all of which can be combined to create a music piece.

It can be used on its own, but it can also be connected to another Seaboard Block, or any of the other Roli Blocks which will expand the function of the device, up to 4 Blocks at the same time. These include the Lightpad Block M, as well as Live, Loop and Touch Blocks for performance, production and expression control respectively. Seaboard Block offers hundreds of different sounds with 8 NOISE Sound packs.

Easily portable, it is the smallest out of the three Seaboards and can be taken and set up anywhere. It is wireless and requires Bluetooth to connect with compatible devices. The battery life is up to 10 hours, which would be enough for a whole day of creating music.

Seaboard Block is compatible with Mac OSX 10.10 and up and Windows 7, 8 and 10. Additionally, it works with other Apple products through the NOISE app, but it still does not have Android support. It comes with desktop software Equator Player, Cypher2 Player, Strobe2 Player and Tracktion Waveform 8.

The price of the Seaboard Block is around $375. The Blocks that can be connected include the Lightpad Block M for $250 and Live, Loop and Touch Blocks for around $115. There are also different kits such as the Beatmaker and Songmaker kits which are a bit more pricey but are intended for more specific use.

Roli Seaboard RISE 25

Seaboard RISE 25 is a MIDI controller with unlimited control of sound through its touch-responsive surface. With the additional controls that allow adjustment of the responsiveness of the keyboard to the movement, RISE 25 can serve as a piano keyboard with minimized expression controls, or as a totally expressive playing surface with maximized responsiveness.

RISE 25 resembles a piano keyboard with 25 keywaves. Besides them, it also has an XY Touchpad, Touch Faders, Octave Shift and Preset Browser control, the additional controls that are very intuitive and work by touch, rather than turning knobs and pressing buttons like it is a case with other MIDI controllers. Similar to Seaboard Block, Five Dimensions of Touch (5D) allow different movements over the keywave surface to create many different sounds used for a music piece.

Seaboard RISE 25 is the second smallest Seaboard by the company, right after the Seaboard Block. It is also wireless which makes Seaboard RISE 25 easily transportable. It uses Bluetooth to connect with compatible desktop computers. The battery life is up to 11 hours, and it requires only 3 hours to be fully charged.

This MIDI controller is compatible with both Mac OSX 10.10 and up and Windows 7, 8 and 10. It is also compatible with other music production software, even though it initially already comes with a bundle of programs by Roli, including Equator, Strobe2, Cypher2 Player and Bitwig 8-Track.

The price of Seaboard RISE 25 is around $965. The additional flip case can be purchased for $125 and it protects the device and offers stability on different surfaces as it can be used as a stand as well. It comes in a variety of colors: gray, orange, yellow, purple and blue.

Roli Seaboard RISE 49

Seaboard RISE 49 is the second generation of Roli MIDI controller and the biggest of the three company’s keyboards. From serving as a classic piano keyboard to a more expressive and varied playing surface with maximized responsiveness, creating music is very easy and intuitive with over a thousand sounds just at your fingertips.

The design of the Seaboard RISE 49 is very similar to RISE 25, with the biggest difference being the number of keywaves as this one has 49 while RISE 25 has only 25. Next to the keywave surface, there are also the XY Touchpad, Touch Faders, Octave Shift and Preset Browser control for additional sound control. With Five Dimensions of Touch (5D), Roli’s signature feature of the Seaboards, creating a music piece is very simple through different movements of fingers across the Seaboard’s surface.

Even though it is the biggest Seaboards by the company, it is still fairly simple to carry around as there is a protective case that you can put it in. It can serve its purposefully over both USB and Bluetooth as it has a wireless option. RISE 49 can withstand up to 8 hours of continuous use, and it needs only 3 hours to fully recharge.

When it comes to compatibility, RISE 49 works with same operating systems as RISE 25, meaning that is can work on MacOSX 10.10 and up as well as Windows 7, 8 and 10. It comes with a bundle of software by Roli: Equator, Strobe2, Cypher2 Player and Bitwig 8-Track.

Seaboard RISE 49 is priced at around $1370. The protective case is additional $115 and it will keep the device from getting damaged on the go, with a strap for easier carrying around.