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Purple Rain being played on a ridiculous instrument called a "Seaboard"

jett

D-Member
So I stumbled upon this video which kinda blew my mind and also introduced me to this crazy MIDI controller called a Roli Seaboard, which instead of regular keys has a sort of continuous foamy touch-sensitive board with five dimensions of sound, so you get stuff like vibrato, sliding and modulation effects individual to every "key". The precision with which you can reproduce the subtleties of a guitar is just mind-boggling. Anyway, it's just beautiful performance either way, with a single guy reproducing every element of the song (uh except the singing).

This is what it looks like
Code:
[IMG]https://www.long-mcquade.com/files/64852/lg_1170afaa8ddb646bcd14e4d1bf93ff5c.png[/IMG]

I don't play keys, but
giphy.gif
 

Kas

Member
I swear Ryan Gosling plays one in La La Land at the big concert, plus I saw this ball that could sort of do the same thing years ago.

Glad to see the tech is still being used. I love the idea if literally molding music using your own hands.
 

Dhx

Member
This is great. I kept waiting for the true test and it delivers 7 minutes in. The slides are dirty as hell, and the bends aren't perfect, but synths and MIDI have sure as hell come a long way from only replicating a few instruments well.
 

jett

D-Member

dejay

Banned
So it's a keyboard with aftertouch with some other gestures as well?

Doing a search, it's actually not that expensive. Maybe one day...
 

Tadaima

Member
I can't play an instrument and know next to nothing about music theory but the light block units seem really fun. I don't mind dropping a few hundred bucks if it is a suitable starting instrument (the seaboard seems too complex).

Any advice?
 

sarcastor

Member
I can't play an instrument and know next to nothing about music theory but the light block units seem really fun. I don't mind dropping a few hundred bucks if it is a suitable starting instrument (the seaboard seems too complex). Any advice?

try their iphone app for free first? it's basically the light blocks. on your phone/ipad I think.

https://roli.com/products/software/noise


This is great. I kept waiting for the true test and it delivers 7 minutes in. The slides are dirty as hell, and the bends aren't perfect, but synths and MIDI have sure as hell come a long way from only replicating a few instruments well.

holy shit, that guitar solo is ridiculous. considering its done on a keyboardy thing.

damn i should have started playing 20 years ago...
 

Ionic

Member
Apparently I was completely unaware of the state of electronic music emulating physical instruments. Wow.
 

Alucrid

Banned
I can't play an instrument and know next to nothing about music theory but the light block units seem really fun. I don't mind dropping a few hundred bucks if it is a suitable starting instrument (the seaboard seems too complex).

Any advice?

try the korg volca series
 
So I stumbled upon this video which kinda blew my mind and also introduced me to this crazy MIDI controller called a Roli Seaboard, which instead of regular keys has a sort of continuous foamy touch-sensitive board with five dimensions of sound, so you get stuff like vibrato, sliding and modulation effects individual to every "key". The precision with which you can reproduce the subtleties of a guitar is just mind-boggling. Anyway, it's just beautiful performance either way, with a single guy reproducing every element of the song (uh except the singing).

This is what it looks like
Code:
[IMG]https://www.long-mcquade.com/files/64852/lg_1170afaa8ddb646bcd14e4d1bf93ff5c.png[/IMG]

I don't play keys, but
giphy.gif

Check the price on these things first.
 
Holy shit the fact that it can do such a good guitar solo is amazing. I'll echo the people saying the Jimi Hendrix performance is better though, that was borderline witchcraft.
 

dsp

Member
What is the difference between this and the Haken Continuum, other than the keyboard layout? The Continuum has been around for a good while now.
 
"What is the difference between this and the Haken Continuum, other than the keyboard layout? The Continuum has been around for a good while now."

A cool 2-4 grand.

Feature-wise, it's very similar, of course. Same with the Linnstrument and the Madrona Soundplane.
 
I could barely even tell it was Purple Rain. Sounded like some generic Vangelis track.

the first half was like vangelis remix. but nah you heard purple rain when the guitars kicked in.

dat buildup and layering of instruments, sounded so nice. it looks like a pain in the ass to use, but its cool that there's some pros out there doing shit l ike this.
 
I've seen this around for some time. The joys of following the Jordan Rudess social media presence I suppose. I've played keyboard for many years at a super casual level using the free trial for Microsoft's Acoustica/Mixcraft (whatever it is) and would love to mess around with a Seaboard. Instrument demos are a pain sometimes. Half of that shit won't be possible out of the box. You'd need to get the sounds from some other company that plug in to it and all sorts that goes over my head.

Just give me a Roland AX-Synth (pictured in avatar) and let me play out my days in peace.
 
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