hello, ujiie here! the roli seaboard grand! now this is something that you don't see very often! the seaboard itself, well, here, i wonder if the video will do it justice... like this right here, i mean this, uhh, well, the frame is made of some hard material. but the middle part here is like felt, some soft material.
ok? see it? by pushing or mashing it in, it'll make a sound. look closely here. c, d, e, f, g, a, b, ok? right? if you think, why is it doing this? it's set so that aftertouch makes it sound. in other words, when it senses pressure, or aftertouch,
that's when it sounds. seen from the way a conventional keyboard works, when a key is pressed, a hammer or some such thing is activated, striking or pulling or something. but this is not like that. even if you touch it, it will only sound when it senses pressure. ok? the point here, the entire surface is like a ribbon controller. so for example we can go from c, sliding your finger like so,
and smoothly transition from note to note, ok? you see these spaces at the top & bottom of the keys? see how it works? here too. so basically the whole thing is a ribbon controller, activated by aftertouch, uh, and kind of with pitch bend engaged at all times. in terms of midi, of course it utilizes polyphonic aftertouch. polyphonic, so it can sense a number of positions,
where aftertouch is actually being applied. what that means is that there is a huge number of midi cc data being handled at any one time. so naturally, ok? you can play it like so. but the point of it all, is that this isn't uh, it's not pitch bend! the note data is being made by using the ribbon controller thing. a really neat thing though, check this out.
ok? everything is moving in different directions here! this is amazing! in essence, what's going on is that every sound is acting almost like an individual instrument on its own channel, with one per each note that is played. that's why each note can move in different directions. this is just, well, it's revolutionary! so to speak. i mean, it's... well, like this. you can add vibrato like so.
wiggle it. look at the dial here. you use this to select the sounds. right? here's the next sound. yeah, this kind of ambient sound is nice! fantastic. it's easy to hear how aftertouch affects this sound. or this. it's got analog synth type sounds too.
this is really cool, don't you think? kind of a string plus synth sound? you can play around with the pitch, likemaking it unstable on purpose. you can get some really "ethnic" sounds this way. good isn't it? ah, if you really press down on this one... ...you get some really unusual modulation. what a fantastically good sound! this is fun.
good. very good! fantastic. so expressive! with the roli seaboard, you've got access to a level of expression just unheard of until now. and i'm not exaggerating! it's like a whole new instrument has been born! and new sounds. i think it's awesome! next, let's take a look at how sounds are made on the roli, with the editor here.
have a look! right? uhh, if i play some keys here... a variety of controller information is being transmitted here, you see? this is the keyboard down here. basically, it has synth parts, and uh, samples, right? you can use samples. two sample oscillators. and then wavetable oscillators, uh, three of those.
fm as well. then there are three filters. a noise source too. effects: eq, chorus, delay & reverb. then you've got your bender and various modulation sources, such as envelopes and what not. put it all together and out comes a sound. so to speak. well why don't we use just the oscillators here, and see what it sounds like?
there. oh and of course there are a variety of waveforms. noise too. right? lots of stuff here. fm too. turn on sample 1. you can make a bunch of sounds here with the editor, tailoring them to your individual style and needs. i used the dial here to change the sound i was playing. as you'd expect, the computer follows the changes.
of course, the roli will function all by itself, but you take care of editing sounds here on the computer, uh, arranging the sounds here on this screen, which corresponds to the dial behavior on the main unit. so you can decide what sounds to have in which order, simply by dragging and dropping them just like i'm doing here. and that's all there is to it. arranging sounds into the order you like is possible.
that's pretty nice, right? just one thing you can do with this. and... you can construct your own sounds too by using the editor. i think we can expect a load of new sounds for it in the near future. and of course, even though this may be a bundle of ribbon controllers massed together, it can still be used as a normal controller.
let me show you some of the more interesting features. this is the polythru application. now what this does, you can use a variety of different sounds, and play them. what synth am i using? i'm using omnisphere. if the synth can't handle the uh, multi pitch bend,
it'll just work with the usual pitch bend range. ah! it worked! opposite directions. so that means it's working in a kind of multi mode, thanks to being controlled by the polythru application. let's try out a different synth. let's try it out with the cs-80v. it's working properly. great. the roli seaboard grand. i'm just coming to grips with the thing myself.
but, i'm gonna cook up a ton of sounds with it, and i hope to play the thing live for you someday. right, so we're not done with the seaboard grand yet. i'm using a 61-key version, but there are also others, like the new seaboard rise, a 25-key model. it has number of controllers across the top. and, something they really just released, is this right here. an app for the iphone. the noise 5 d.
one look and you can see the screen here mimics the roli keyboard. same manufacturer after all. it's a free app too! the app copies the physical aspect of the keyboard, like how you can mash the keys down, or smoothly slide like so, on the phone itself. same kind of movement here. and instead of aftertouch,
if you move upwards, you get the effect. the same things are possible. like moving in two directions simultaneously. this is neat! i mean, as opposed to a 'normal' pad, it's a keyboard, and what's more, it even gives you the same effect as when you push it, with polyphonic aftertouch and all. right? the seaboard grand is great, no doubt,
but the noise 5 d is awesome as well! check it out! translation & captions by:swcreativejapan.
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