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For non-ROLI sounds you can use MidiFire to remap CC74 to CC1 mod wheel. (Midiflow would probably also do it, but this is one of the situations where MidiFire is simpler.) Noise, though not Seaboard 5D, thoughtfully routes CC1 to CC74 as well, so that you can access the slide dimension with both ROLI and non-ROLI controllers.
But should CC1 not be mono and should be bound to a master channel (mostly 1 or 16). So you have a polyphonic modulation and on top you still have a global modwheel.
I agree mostly, really agree with MPE changing stuff on the fly, and own a lightpad m. I’ve tried loads of these instruments from te days of the eigenharp to the sensel - neither of which I like much. I don’t like the seaboard rise at all, I find the material sticky and impractical for slides and don’t like the way it gives mushily, for want of a better word. It’s all personal preference though. The lightpad is much better for me - emphasis on for me!- a bit firmer with a response I prefer and the material is much smoother - fortunate in my case that it’s so much cheaper. I also prefer the grid layout as I find an old fashioned piano layout a really odd choice in a next gen interface, when it was only ever a necessity of design, compromising expression and playability as little as possible.
I was just curious how velocity kb compared its after touch, and if you could have the push release dimension somehow. Through finger area maybe. I’m really not too bothered about other hardware having used the lightpad, as I find it mostly to be overpriced, with design choices I find obsolete - I mean,as a pianist I think all seaboards are unplayable when it comes to piano, they’re all over the place with horrible mushy response for that percussive instrument, so I use a good digital piano. But it makes the layout very very strange for me. All this is just my personal take. It’s not just usability, with the obviating of chord layouts etc, but I find the aesthetic really horrible and clashing, the old and new concepts. Kind of like a keytar
I have to say the lightpad is the single greatest thing I’ve used or owned musically and miles above anything else as an experience with the swam packs, except real piano and guitar. This is the first time there has been a proper leap in adding the dimension of touch to these sounds and approaching acoustic instrument playability which is really excit8ng for musicians in terms of proper musicality and feel in electronic or synthesised music. The best I can do otherwise is play automation musically.
I think all material have their upsides and downsides and it’s best to work with them. I haven’t used one but suspect I would find the continuum hugely underwhelming for touch playing. I could be wrong.
Having tried And owned a lot f mpe stuff and other interfaces I’ve come to the conclusion that for me the best combination is a good digital piano, and the lightpad for expressive instrumental parts. I think I would also like a a smaller keyboard with a nice springy weighting for organ stuff ideally but the above two are the main things. I also have a k board as pads but that’s because I’m greedy.
Yes, when there is one thing i hate on my Seaboard (beside some software limitations and that it has always a quantized pitch, even at 100% glide) is when i push it to hard, move my fingers and the rubber material build up.
It is sometimes weird to play but otherwise i like the feeling of it. And it is really build like a tank. After a nuclear war it might still work
What I don’t like about the Lightpad is that you are very limited in gliding between notes because you have so few notes in a row. This is the advantage the Block has over the Lightpad. I also prefer the feel of the Block! Different strokes for different folks I guess, haha.
Linnstrument, ftw. 😉
Haven’t tried the Linnstrument, hopefully some day
Yes, that's fine if you have a Rise; a Seaboard Block doesn't have any sliders, so you have either to have a separate hardware device or do the remapping kludge. It's more useful in the other direction: I mostly use an Artiphon, which I find more sensitive and expressive than the Seaboard and has a very responsive and elegant accelerometer-based CC1, but it needs remapping to CC74 to be any use with Equator or Seaboard 5D.
I understand. I mean it is really fantastic that there are so many great new ways today to make expressive music
I would like to try that too. I saw it also has a lot settings you can do on the fly.
I think indeed that Velocity Keyboard apps looks almost close to it, also how it works.
I guess the Linnstrument is also the best for guitar players?
Oh and while all the amazing soft- and hardware controllers are great sometimes it gets really just in the way and a simple mono line with pitch bend and modwheel is all you need
I often see videos where they really overdue these polyphonic pitchbends and vibrato and it sounds really fake then. At least if they really try to recreate an existing acoustic instrument.
Use it like spice here and there. Beside that you really need to be a very good player to get it right and i even find it often over the top if fantastic players showcase these MPE controllers/apps.
New roadmap says GeoShred releases March 20th. Not sure if that’s when the full version comes. Fingers crossed.
As a linnstrument owner, Linnstrument is at least 10 times superior to the roli seaboard. It's so much better you can't even really compare it. One is an experiment gone wrong the other is an instrument. Its One one of the reasons its frustrating that roli always get mentioned when it comes to mpe controllers and linnstrument never gets mentioned. Not once does it get mentioned. It's the most programmable performance oriented keyboard ever built. I think the expressive e osmose might surpass it though.
Anyway, I just gotta say the amount still confused by the difference between y axis, celocigu, and after touch after we already described it multiple times in this thread, is too damn high
And yes, velocity keyboard is an excellent practice tool for the isomorphic keyboard layout when you dont have your linnstrument
I've never handled a Linnstrument (much as I'd love to), so can't compare – but the Artiphon essentially is a guitar fingerboard, or rather an MPE keyboard using the layout and touch-navigational affordances (ridges to simulate the grid of strings and frets) of a guitar fingerboard. It has many other modes as well, but the tap guitar mode is by far the best.
As you say, though, I'm not sure any of these controllers are exactly in competition with one another; the Seaboard range are a great route into MPE for keyboardists, and the Morph and Linnstrument have their own distinctive place in the ecosystem. Where ROLI absolutely kill it is in their software, especially Equator. (Also, their in-house chef is extremely good…)
Yeah, I love my seaboard in comparison to a non-mpe synth but it has been a frustrating experience in many ways. I would definitely love to get my hands on a linnstrument and see how it feels.
Agree with @sclurbs that the Linnstrument is an instrument. I've sent all the roli stuff packing. I keep my Sensel morph around as it's quite versatile but it also doesn't compare to the LS. I do wish Roger could figure out how to offer something in a starter price range package so more people could enjoy the experience.
What I’d like is a Linnstrument that put out cv.
Would be curious to hear in more detail from you both (and others) what problems you found with seaboard and what advantages you found with Linnstrument. I absolutely adore the whole idea of mpe so would definitely not be averse to buying a linnstrument or other controller if the benefits were significant enough.
I'd also be interested in hearing what your workflow is on ios. Are u dawless? Or using cubasis? Does the lack of mpe daws and sequencers hold you back? Do you just use audio rather than midi?
@Gavinski These things are so subjective to a musician's background and goals with technology. I come from a background playing stringed instruments, although I can find my way around a keyboard comfortably (certainly not a virtuoso). While I enjoy some EDM music I certainly am not making music that most EDMers would consider mainstream electronic music. The ROLI stuff to me just felt harsh and not very instrument-like. It felt like technology somehow. Did it work? Yeah, it produced the tones that you'd expect but I didn't really feel joy when I sat down to play.
The Linnstrument surface feels much better to me ("softer" and more responsive) and the layout works due to my background with stringed instruments. I have plenty of range with the number of octaves I have, even with the "short board". Further, almost all of the settings I need to change when playing are right there on the instrument itself and are clearly marked. I don't have to spend time diving into apps to find the settings I need when I'm "in the flow". Note that I'm not trashing the ROLI stuff at all--I can see how they would work perfectly for some musicians and some contexts.
I am DAW-less and I don't like to fiddle with MIDI during the creation process. I think the imperfections and happy accidents are the best part of music-making so I go straight to audio in any recording I do.
Thanks! Yes, the lack of control on the seaboard itself over slide, glide etc is really a pain in the arse. They sacrificed a lot in terms of functionality by getting it to look like a piece of hardware that Apple would want to sell in their stores. And so once again, the inferior product comes out on top, it seems. I personally love the feel of a seaboard. But in the actual playing, the responsiveness can be weird, especially regarding velocity. I also hated the lack of the last ‘c’ on the keyboard so much that I ended up buying two. Definitely it seems the linnstrument gives you a lot more options. Really looks great. Still, I am glad to have an MPE instrument, vastly prefer to non-MPE.
Yes, this is definitely the one problem with the lightpad. Actually I also think it is slightly less sensitive by default than I’d like but slight enough in my unit that I can’t be bothered to adjust. I asked them if it was possible to extend slides etc or glides or whatever by attaching multiple pads but it’s not. This was why I got the sensel, but in reality it’s just a load of hassle and not very tactile. In reality, I find the limitation on gliding very rarely causes a real limitation as played parts of use in mpe don’t tend to run up and down the octaves, particularly when orchestral instruments have better sounding ranges for each instrument, imo.mso its a small trade off for me, and better than the ones on any other mpe instrument. It’s more, for me, a limitation in theory than practice.
For you perhaps, but is all subjective and for many people anseaboard, which I don’t like, may be infinitely superior to a linnstrument. They are too different in design and so open to personal preference to make an objective comparison. I understand frustration at its lack of mentions, but I had the same with eigenharps. The cold truth is they’re miles and miles too expensive for most people and enormously expensive f0r what they are and do. I don’t for one moment think the price correlated to the difference in quality, even slightly, when a lightpad is much much more musical to me than for example, an eigenharp. The issue these instruments have is the size of the comoany producing them, the scale on which they were produced, demand, and then the fact that linnstrument and eigenharps I believe came very early in the development of post midi expressive instruments. I think there’s a bit of Betamax going on with them.
I say that but wish them all the best in succeeding because I like the idea of eccentric pockets in electronic music being deep and broad enough to sustain niche instruments, which seems to be the case.
I also think te osmose is uninteresting, and in the same harsh way you describe roli seaboards (and I have no love for roli as a company just the lightpad) I think the osmose, is poorly designed and a Frankenstein monster musically and ergonomically. I feel the same, though less so about the keyboard design of seaboards.
My personal conclusion having tried lots of these things, is that like all instruments and aspects of music, the quest for the one perfect or best instrument is complete folly. Nothing plays piano properly for a decent piano player except a piano or good digital piano. The same applies for other instrument types. For me, my primary use for mpe is as an expressive controller for individual instrumental parts, whether they’re orchestral like clarinets etc, or trumpet parts in jazz, or expressive electronic instrument sounds, synths etc, in similar lead parts. The lightpad is almost perfect for that. For others, with different uses that may not be the case. I find for instance that in 99 percent of cases, midi keyboards are awful, for me. But for controlling organs hammonds etc, a good properly weighted one is the best instrument, due to design choices. You make an instrument one way, it lends itself to one thing and not to others. I ended up keeping my k board because it’s different enough in design and feel that it’s superior for a few sounds. I think the same might apply for the x key air but I find it so horrible and unmusical to play I’ll get rid of it.
Horses for courses and all that.
That’s interesting,I did actually wonder if you came from stringed instruments. I think your background in that means you probably prefer softer surfaces than me (coming from piano and guitar, I really like a kind of inbetween feel).
Im curious if you find te linnstrument/lightpad design a problem when trying to change how quickly you play strokes in Bowes sounds - for instance when you bow more quickly back and forth in those tremelo (?) sounds, on the hardware you have to do this by retruggering notes, striking, and its not really possible?I did once contact roli because I thought with te lightpads a better way of playing stringed sounds would be to have two and use one for bowing and the other for notes. Or even just play the notes in an app. I gave violin a brief go and that felt closer. Does te linnstrument have anything like that?
@lukesleepwalker Do you get accurate control of velocity on the linnstrument even at very low velocities with extremely gentle pressure？This is the biggest problem with the seaboard I'd say, when you press very gently you often get no response. Even after adjusting in dashboard this can be difficult. And if you want to get max velocity you often have to press far too hard.
Sorry, I know you weren’t asking me, I just happened to read a linnstrument review yesterday from an owner who really loves it but who aso said I doesn’t detect low velocity touches which is annoying and that it has almost no travel distance so cam feel like a screen. I wouldn’t know as i dont own one but thought I’d mention.
Ah, certainly no need to apologise, this is very welcome input. Good to hear this opinion!! Could perhaps also be that the person hadn't adjusted the strike settings? Perhaps it is like the seaboard, you need to adjust for different patches? If not, the search for the perfect mpe controller continues, I guess!
Indeed, wouldn't surprise me if velocity keyboard turns out to be the cheapest and best solution
It was a review on thomann for the 128 key version (which I think looks better).
i quite like reading the negative points on positive reviews, or vice versa. Think it gives a more balanced take on stuff that might matter to you.
My opinion on mpe controllers is that at this point it’s really just a matter of layout and material and which you prefer or is most useful to you. Travel distance is significant for me, as I love mpe for touch playing. There are positive and negative points to all of them.
Yeah, problem is you never really know which you prefer til you spend some time playing with it. Same with apps, unfortunately $$$$$
I have owned a seaboard rise, own 2 blocks, and played (admittedly only one short session) on a linnstrument. I found velocity keyboard to be much more responsive and customizable than either of the others with regards to velocity. The problem is after touch. 3D Touch works beautifully on my iPhone, but the finger pad sensing thing as a replacement is very insufficient. I think it only gives 3 or 4 levels of “after touch” type sensing.
If Apple hadn’t discontinued 3D Touch, and had brought it to iPad, I would have sold my blocks and used iPad exclusively as my MPE controller. Unfortunately I’m in the minority of people who loved 3D Touch and used it regularly.
An accurate and naturally playable after touch is probably the most important parameter when using SWAM instruments, even more so than velocity.