I am above all a guitarist. Playing with keyboards and synths has always felt a bit unnatural from a physical standpoint. A keyboard does not respond like a fretted instrument. This is not surprising, nor a bad thing. It’s just not what I’m used to. After almost a decade of my journey with synthesizers, I still find myself wiggle my fingers as if it will create vibrato, or try to “bend” one note while keeping the other grounded to create shifting harmonies.
I’ve tried my share of MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) controllers, which can capture some of this nuance. But the Roli Seaboard Rise 2 is the first one I’ve played that manages to deliver all that expressiveness without also being an absolute pain in the ass one way or another. This is probably my new favorite MIDI controller. But I still have a hard time recommending it to most people.
The immediately obvious problem is the price. $1,399 East a lot money for a MIDI controller. Some MIDI controllers come close, but they generally have more generous software packages; more extensive controls (including faders, buttons and pads); transport controls for your DAW; integrated arpeggiators or sequencers; and screens to view settings and navigate presets.
Of course, what these controllers usually lack is MPE functionality. And it’s not like Coastal climb 2 is not a premium device. It’s constructed almost entirely of metal, save for the silicone keyboard and the small selection of controls to its left. It seems extremely durable and I’m pretty sure I’d have to go out of my way to cause significant damage to it. Despite this, it is surprisingly thin and light. At around 33 inches, it’s slightly longer than your average 49-key controller, but it’s less than an inch thick and weighs just a hair over 12 pounds. This is despite a battery that can last eight hours when connected via Bluetooth. For comparison, the battery-free model from Arturia Keylab 49 MKII measures nearly 3 inches thick and weighs 14 pounds.
I wouldn’t hesitate to call it portable, but it’s certainly transportable. I’ve moved it around my home studio quite a bit and it seems pretty easy to drag it to a gig, especially if you grab the $100 soft case.
However, you don’t buy the Seaboard Rise 2 for portability. You are here for the “Keywave2” continuous surface. And let me tell you, once you get over how weird that sounds, it’s pretty amazing.
It’s important to note that I never played the original Seaboard Rise. But I’ve used many other MPE controllers, including Roli’s Blocks line. They all had significant defects and the Roli blocks were borderline unusable. Almost everything I’ve tried has made me feel like a novelty or one prototype, rather than a product ready for consumption. (The two exceptions to this rule being the latter Ableton push and the Expressif E Osmosis(although they are very different devices with their own drawbacks.) So while I am fascinated by MPE and think there is a lot of potential in this technology, I approached this review with expectations quite weak.
But the Seaboard Rise 2 appears to be the first time a company has gotten almost everything right in a standalone MPE MIDI controller. The subtle “precision frets” make your keyboard navigation much easier. I’m not a talented pianist or keyboardist who performs lightning-fast runs based entirely on muscle memory. Still, I welcomed their addition. They made it much more obvious when I needed to stop a slide and helped me make sure my keystrokes were centered on the keys so as not to sound out of tune.
The squishy silicone keyboard also provides excellent feedback. Most other MPE devices I’ve used have very little, if any, travel. Might as well try playing on a coffee table. Not the coastline. The “keys” (if you can really call them that) protrude, giving you an idea of where to put your fingers. The surface gently resists and bunches up under your finger as you slide, providing much-needed tactile feedback. There is also a lot of depth on the surface; it’s not just a thin skin of silicone placed on top of some sensors. It’s not as satisfying as feeling a key bottom out beneath your fingers, but it’s actually easier to extract nuances from velocity and aftertouch than on more traditional controllers.
This ability to achieve subtle changes in timbre, tone and pitch is what makes the MPE, and the Seaboard in particular, special. With the right combination of hardware or software, each note played can have its own expression. A simple example is controlling the filter cutoff of a synth patch with the slide parameter on the Seaboard. This means that when you move your finger from the bottom of the control surface to the top, the filter opens to create a brighter sound. But in this case, you can increase the cutoff of the higher notes just to emphasize the melody, while keeping the lower register muffled and buzzing.
Give each note its own velocity, cutoff, etc. can add incredible depth to even the most simplistic performance. In a more advanced example of how this could work, imagine a software instrument based on orchestral strings. On something like the Seaboard Rise 2, quickly pressing the keys and immediately removing could be used to play pizzicato for stabbed chords. But light pressure on the silicone surface would produce a slower attack, allowing you to play languid melodies over sharp harmonies. Sliding your finger up could add a slight vibrato to emphasize particular notes, and sliding it left or right would produce realistic slides that are normally only possible on an unfretted string instrument, not on a keyboard .
I highlight this example because the Seaboard seems particularly suited to notation work. While it’s perfect for playing your typical lead and bass patches, it separates itself from the pack once you start exploring slower, more evolving sounds. The slight dissonance I could introduce by moving just a finger slightly in the center of a key created this frightening atmosphere in which I constantly got lost. Maybe it was just the season I was doing most of my testing, but all I could think about was how much I wanted to score a horror movie.
Clearly, Roli knows this is a strength, as many of his presets Ecuador 2 softsynth seems geared towards soundtrack work. Normally the plugin costs $249, but luckily it’s included for free with the Seaboard Rise 2. It easily does the best job of showcasing the controller’s different powers. The unfortunate thing is that only a little over a third of the presets are MPE compatible. And while it’s certainly a powerful instrument, Equator 2 has a number of quirks that keep it from feeling entirely polished.
Perhaps the biggest of these problems is that when you first install it, many of the factory presets are completely broken and non-functional. This is because you need to install two additional libraries. But these are in a drop-down list, and there’s no indication that anything else is needed until you actually open the app and it repeatedly tells you that files are missing. I uninstalled and reinstalled Equator and all of its preset packs, hoping that would fix the problem. It was only after some Googling that I discovered that other required downloads were hiding directly within the Roli Connect app.
The Roli dashboard at least feels a little less sloppy, and it’s arguably a more essential part of the experience. This is where you’ll do all the necessary configurations, like choosing whether the Seaboard is in MPE or standard MIDI mode, selecting the MIDI CCs controlled by the XY pad, and adjusting sensitivity levels for things like dragging and sliding. Basically, you’ll always want the dashboard to be open because, the sad truth is that MPE is still a bit complicated. Non-MPE compatible instruments and plugins may not function properly if you do not switch the Rise to single channel mode. I found it a bit tricky to get MPE compatible plugins working properly in Ableton Live 11.
Even when you pair an MPE-compatible instrument (hardware or software) with a controller like the Seaboard Rise, you’ll likely need to make some adjustments to get them fully in sync. For example, you’ll need to make sure the pitch bend range in the dashboard and everything else you control matches. If the Seaboard is tuned for a range of 48 notes, but, say, Pigments is tuned for just two, the slides will never land where you expect them to and even just missing the dead center of a key will result in painfully out of tune chords.
But when it all works, it’s pretty special. THE Coastal climb 2 is easier to play and more versatile than any other MPE MIDI controller I’ve tried. This is probably the most successful demonstration of what is possible with technology.
Sure, it’s expensive, it can be difficult to set up, and there are limited options for instruments that take advantage of its full expressive capabilities. But MPE-compatible software synthesizers will likely only grow in popularity over the coming years. Most people should probably wait and see what the reviewers’ consensus is on the most affordable price. Block M of the coast. But if you just want the best MPE MIDI controller you can buy right now and don’t mind shelling out for a high-end device, the Roli Seaboard Rise 2 is for you.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/roli-seaboard-rise-2-review-i-wish-i-had-a-horror-movie-to-score- 150028305.html?src=rss