ROLI Seaboard

Seaboard
Three ROLI Seaboards
Manufacturer	ROLI
Price	BLOCK £329 Rise 25 Є849 Rise 49 Є1195 Grand £3299
Technical specifications
Filter	Low-pass, high-pass, bandpass, notch, comb, state-variable
Aftertouch expression	Yes[1]
Effects	Ring modulation, EQ, chorus, delay, reverb, bit crusher, distortion.[2]
Input/output
External control	MIDI in and out (I/O) via USB[3]

The Seaboard is a musical keyboard-style MIDI controller manufactured by the British music technology company ROLI. It has a continuous sensor-embedded flexible rubber surface for playing the keys instead of traditional lever-style "moving keys". Some models, like the RISE Seaboard Grand, have an onboard sound engine.^[4] It has what the manufacturer calls "5D technology" which consists of five types of responsiveness to player actions: "strike", "glide" and "press", front to rear movement "slide" sensitivity, and release–velocity "lift" (RISE keyboard only). These responsiveness tools can be used to play the Seaboard with microtonal pitch bend sounds (like a fretless bass guitar), by moving the finger from note to note, or trigger a vibrato effect into a string patch just by wiggling the finger, which would not be possible on a traditional MIDI controller using only the keys. The Seaboard also features polyphonic aftertouch, and a built-in USB- charged battery. There are three Seaboard models: the small minikey BLOCK (24 keys), the RISE (25- or 49-key versions), and the GRAND, an 88-key keyboard with an onboard sound engine.

ROLI calls the five responsiveness triggers "5D technology". The five ways that the ROLI senses the player's interactions are:

• Strike – The way the player makes contact with the Seaboard (velocity)
• Press – Pressure applied to the Seaboard key after first making contact with it (aftertouch)
• Glide – Left and right movements from side to side on a Seaboard key, sending pitch bend information (pitch bend)
• Slide – Vertical movements "up and down" (from the beginning of the key to the end) the Seaboard key (brightness)
• Lift – The speed the player takes their fingers away from the Seaboard keys (release velocity)

The unit supports wireless MIDI over bluetooth. ROLI reports that latency of the unit at 30ms using bluetooth and 24ms via USB cable. Sounds for the sound engine can be edited and created by using a ROLI software called Equator,^[5] which can be quite resource intensive.^[6] ROLI claims that it is the world's first purpose-built, multidimensional soft synth.^[7] Equator's synth sounds are designed to make changes in sound based on the Seabord's five types of resonsiveness. Effects units in Equator include ring modulation, EQ, chorus, delay, reverb, bit crusher, and distortion.^[8]

Seaboard is designed to work with non-Seaboard music software programs such as Ableton Live, GarageBand, and Native Instruments' Kontakt, among others.