ROLI Seaboard 25

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Wish me success with it fellows. Just ordered it the other day, due shortly after Christmas. Found a deal on a returned one.

Now I'll have my 88 key Keystation on the top rack, my mini-key 25 Worlde Panda on the left lower rack, and the ROLI Seaboard 25 middle lower rack to play. TEC Breath controller and Leap Motion, when I want it, and my Yamaha FC-7 pedal for nice wide control.

Getting pretty flexible here with gear! Hahaha!

God is good!
 
I mainly use the TEC with the SWAM violin. The SWAM's sound isn't my favorite for a violin, but the flexibility is the greatest. When you play it with something like the TEC, you can get really into the feel of the violin in a way you just can't with a keyboard alone. Also it is true that the SWAM violin sounds best played with a breath controller.

So the TEC is great! It's a lot of fun! I've only touched the tip of the iceberg of using it. I'm hoping that with the arrival of the ROLI Seaboard Rise 25 and its accompanying software instruments I'll have a lot of instruments that not only work great with the ROLI but also with the TEC.

I plan on getting the SWAM flutes in the future to use with the TEC as well.
 
I've been thinking about getting the Roli. I'm totally undecided between the 25 and 49. I don't need the full keybed really...it's just I don't know if I'll be sorry later on!

I'm definitely going to get the TEC breath controller. I wonder how SWAM's violin will respond to the Roli.
 
My ROLI's due in the mail day after tomorrow, so I'll try to give a mini review soon after. I have a lot of instruments I want to try it with.

I chose the 25 because it's a very nice size. I think I could easily sit it on my lap as well as a keyboard rack. I'll see if I miss the extra keys the 49 has or not shortly.

The TEC is just plain fun. I have no regrets getting it!

I have the 'breath and bite controller 2' version of it, it hangs neatly over your neck when you aren't using it.
 
Size and space is definitely a concern for me. That's the only reason why I'd choose the 25 over the larger one. Yes, it'd be nice to know how your libraries respond to this particular controller.
 
Yes I prefer 88 keys, but I feel like I am changing a bit as time goes by and it's less strong a preference, despite my playing the whole range a lot. I like to have convenient stuff to move around too and have every control in easy reach.. it's nice not to have to reach across the entire keyboard for the modwheel. So both an 88 key keyboard and some smaller stuff is good!

Nothing to report on the ROLI here, it's still in the mail, somehow surviving I hope as long as Fred's Ex doesn't toss it out the back of the truck. I feel like the Unrepentant Parcel Smashers would do a better job but this time Fred's Ex it is..

On the other hand I am very happy with the recent orchestra purchase from my wishlist. . .

Sublimely happy!

Glad I held out and didn't settle this time, I feel I am thoroughly set, and the woodwinds are wonderful.
 
Unboxed and started playing with the ROLI a few minutes ago.

This thing is great.. it is so much fun! There is so much control over each note!

More later. Right now I have to go back and play with the ROLI!
 
I planned on not downloading and installing the software at first in case I needed to do a return (and you can actually unregister the non-third party stuff). But that viewpoint vanished like a puff of air after a minute, and I installed everything.

Even without the software having aftertouch that is actually easily controllable.. it's very worth it. It is incredibly fun to use. Some people might not be able to adjust to the feel of it enough, but for my part it's so much fun I know I am getting the practice in to be able to use it handily.

I might've preferred the 49 for the extra range, perhaps I was too hasty installing the software, but couldn't afford one anyway at the moment. And the space saving of the 25 is very nice -- it's only about 2 inches wider than my computer keyboard, sits nicely on my lap, isn't heavy, but feels well made of metal.

The most fun I've had with it so far is using it with the CS-80 V. My Vangelis style patches now are really controllable with the aftertouch and it's just so much fun!

There's a lot of control I haven't gotten into yet. Some patches work well with using vibrato and some don't. My DAW at this time is Studio, and doesn't directly support MPE, so I have to have a track per aftertouch channel. It comes with Bitwig too, but I haven't adjusted to Bitwig quite yet, I prefer Studio.

I can't comment on the Noise app as I don't do Smartphone stuff, to my detriment I know. I think Equator could use more built in sounds too. I feel like this is still 'early' in the life of ROLI ready sampling.

I know I'm going to have a lot of fun for a long time with this thing. I don't feel it replaces a breath controller. I think they both have their strong points.

While I haven't tried the block, I think it probably is a great too for those looking just to dip their toe in. So far I haven't heard any complaints about the smaller keys of it.
 
I was gonna ask you some questions but you already answered most of them. I thought I had made up my mind about the 25 but now that you said that .....pfffff.

Do you have any orchestral libraries by any chance?
 
Seriously I like the 25 a lot, the only thing I miss is the ability to range further on it. I probably will sell it someday and move up to the 49, if I stay as into using this as I think I am, but I do like it a lot, and it is convenient. I got quite a deal on it price wise.

Yes, I just bought the Spitfire Symphony Orchestra for Christmas. I got the special Christmas wishlist discount. I'm still over the moon with it. A quite endless celebration is going on here.

I also have Auddict's Strings, they're great stuff. Then there's some other cheapie stuff but it's not worth mentioning really.

I've been spending part of my time seeing how to best get the Rise and the Leap Motion of mine to integrate with Konakt and it and all. Making some progress there but haven't got it fluid feeling yet.
 
Hmm I wonder if two 25s would work as well as one 49. There's a thought too. I wonder if two ROLI RISES can be set up to work properly at once on one Presonus system. It's complicated enough with Presonus Studio as it is, since Presonus doesn't support MPE directly. I have to set up an instrument track per aftertouch channel, to have poly aftertouch. Not hard to do though that. Heheh. Well there's a lot to think of. Like I said, in my particular case, the discount on the 25 I got made it worth it. I couldn't afford a 49 at the time.
 
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Good to hear about your positive experience. Did you try using it with the spitfire or any orchestral library at all? Strings/WoodWinds/Brass?
 
I think it's going to take me a few weeks to learn and evaluate how well it works with the orchestral libraries. If you still want to hear about it then let me know.

Preliminarily this is where I am at..

The way the ROLI's work is they record the strike/velocity of a key just like a normal keyboard, though the feel is different naturally, but also have a side to side finger slide which is sent as a pitch bend wheel MIDI message, and then an up down finger slide (up and down the key), which I can't get to work with Kontakt yet and have asked ROLI for help about how it works -- no reply yet. There's also the recording of the upwards release of the key, that I haven't fiddled with yet either in Kontakt and am unsure of how to utilize even when working, and aftertouch, which is basically a continuation of holding the key down more lightly or heavily as you please, I can get that to work in Kontakt and has its uses when tied to volume level in some cases. I think I'll be using that ability a decent amount in future.

Trying to get all of the ROLI to work with Kontakt is teaching me a lot more about Kontakt. I have mainly only used it in the past as an engine to run plugins, and not used it to tinker with sounds much at all.

Some orchestral bits work well with using pitch bend as vibrato, some don't, I think the strings tend to more. It's less of a realistic vibrato however to use the finger pitch bend rapidly back and forth than the built in recorded vibrato of a sample library. So it may be not be the best path with a realistic library or realistic music. I'd like to tie vibrato to the finger slide up and down motion, and that'll be great when I can set it up, but some libraries don't have a blend in vibrato ability, you can only key switch to it, so forget it.

The most fun I have with it is with the CS-80 V which is made for poly aftertouch after all in the first place. I haven't used Equator enough yet to evaluate the ROLI thoroughly either, I've only had it a couple of days, but my impression is Equator could use a lot more sounds than it comes with. If I used Noise I'd probably feel more fulfilled built-in sound wise.

To sum up at this point, after getting the ROLI, I am still picking up how to get it to work with Kontakt fully, and evaluating each of my library's samples to see how much they can be integrated with it. I had one test where I tried to set up multi track poly aftertouch with one of my orchestral libraries and it was too much for my rather high end system to handle and I just got distortion, so there're a lot of factors as to whether you can set up a ROLI to work fully with one library or another. :)
 
This is all excellent information actually! Yes, it'd be nice to read about your progress with various libraries and Orchestral ones in particular. Like you said not all libraries have their articulations and effects triggered the same way. I'll keep an eye on this thread for sure. Thanks!
 
I've decided to return the 25 (I was able to after all) and get a 49 instead. :) I think the 49 is a big investment for someone who hasn't used a ROLI before, so the block might be a way of 'trying it out' too to see if the feel works for a person.

Equator, the synth that works with the ROLI fully, has not enough sounds on it yet, and doesn't allow importing sounds into it, I hope they allow that in the future.

I managed to fully get Kontakt to work with the ROLI. The more resource taking orchestral libraries definitely couldn't work with poly aftertouch, though they mostly would work fine with normal aftertouch. I tend to be pretty happy with normal aftertouch as it is at this point, I haven't discovered many applications for poly yet, though that likely could be due to lack of experience as I know some people love it. Time will tell.

ROLI is getting boxed up to go back, and I'll be waiting on finding a 49 to replace it. I will miss it! The keys were a little tight for me, I would've liked them to be slightly larger, but the keys of the 25 and the 49 are the largest you can get with the newer slide function. The Grand besides being 3x as expensive, despite its larger keys uses older sensors so no up/down slide function. The Block has mini keys, but they're a different shape so it'd be interesting to try it. My local music store has one in stock so I may go and try it out too.

Spitfire's libraries worked better for me with the ROLI than Auddict's, they just have far more expression controls, vibrato, dynamics, etc. which Auddict is lacking, and so lacking mappable functions to the ROLI's controls. Also I can't map Auddict's library's microphone positions to the aftertouch and slide functions of the ROLI yet, only the touch modwheel substitutes, have to keep tinkering there and figure it out. I will experiment with both more in future.
 
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