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Roli is no more - not a deal


kevin H

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5 minutes ago, antler said:

Can't help but wonder if they would have done better if they priced their keyboards a little lower. I always had a slight interest in them, but they were far too expensive for me to justify.

My thoughts too.  They were just too much $$ for me to justify. Love the concept though.

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1 hour ago, antler said:

Interesting... Is this essentially a large multipoint touch pad with multiple overlays? Do the overlays do anything special other than offering a visual clue as to what's being pressed?

I looked into the Morph a while back. Looks a very adaptable touch pad, and the available overlays allow a lot of flexibility. However, I'm only interested in the two octave keyboard overlay. These items are all sold out and on back order from what I can see now. With Roli on hiatus,  the only other good MPE controller option appears to be the Linnstrument...

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I've been wanting to try a Seaboard for a while, but all these super-expressive controllers make me wonder how much would they actually add to the music.

The 'wow factor' is there and I bet they're fun to improvise with, but I'm not that convinced that they'd increase my productivity or creativity. I compose and design sounds mostly with intent and usually know what the sound/melody/rhythm etc. needs done to it without hearing it first. With all the expressiveness these controllers allow, I doubt actually molding the sound live can be done in a controlled enough manner to replace drawing automation curves with the mouse.

I'm also not sure whether this "multi-dimensional" touch control is at all better as a concept than separate knobs/faders/pedals for controlling the extra parameters. Sounds like the latter would give much better control considering how much challenge just controlling the whole dynamic range of a plain old acoustic piano can be. Besides, when you're creating such busy sounds and soundscapes, do you really need both hands anyway?

A friend of mine (a decent pianist) had gotten to try a Seaboard and found it awkward to play on. But he also said that when he saw someone else who knew the instrument play on it, it was pretty impressive. I'm not sure if the impression was of the musical, or just dazzling sound effect sort.

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