The Seaboard Rise: It looks like a keyboard, sounds like anything you want... but could it make other musical instruments obsolete?

3301 days ago

It looks like an electric keyboard – albeit one with sleek, rubbery ridges instead of keys. But it plays like, well, pretty much any instrument you want.

And that’s why the Seaboard Rise could be on the brink of revolutionising music.

Roli, the London-based tech company behind the Seaboard, first revealed their innovative new take on the midi controller with the Seaboard Grand – the Rise’s older, bigger sibling that will set you back a hefty £2,399.

The Rise is the cheaper (well, £549 – cheapish) new instrument, and it fits right in your lap. Here it is in action.

So how exactly are they getting those insanely varied sounds out of something that looks like a fairly bog-standard keyboard?

Roland Lamb, the founder and CEO of Roli, explains that the Seaboard concept is based on “intuitive gestures”. The idea is that it merges the ”fine touch” of acoustic instruments but allows you to “modulate in real time” like electronic instruments.

It can just be played like a real keyboard – there’s a piano mod built in.

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But you can also use the touch faders at the side to introduce new sound elements.

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By sliding up and down the keys you can introduce a glide (or glissando) from one pitch to another.

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Along the top of keyboard you can play around with the pitch some more or add some vibrato (a regular pulsating change in pitch)

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And by applying pressure you can modulate sound, adjusting the amount of pressure for different sounds.

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“Some of these sounds you could create with a traditional acoustic instrument. Other sounds you could probably create in post-production. Some sounds you might be able to produce with a lot of knobs and sliders,” said Lamb.

“But those methods don’t work in terms of being able to produce multiple notes in an acoustic, organic and real-time way.

“So the Seaboard takes all of that technology – whether it’s built into a computer or a synthesizer – and it reduces and distils it down into a beautiful, elegant playing surface which you can learn how to master and become a virtuoso.”