The ROLI Seaboard surface undergoes constant revision, and there are several āgenerationsā that have different construction, playing feel, and response. The Grand is the oldest, the RISE is the second, and the Block is the third. I have been on stage with an ensemble where all three were present, owned by three different musicians, and because the setup procedure for the concert was so relaxed (it was a Skies event, so we were writing music for the concert onstage for several days before we actually performed), we had a chance to set them up side by side and play them.
The consensus was that there was a definite improvement over time, with quality inverse to cost, and that sticking four Blocks together and attaching them to a laptop running Equator would provide nearly everything a Grand could do at a small fraction of the cost ā even if the laptop was bought bespoke to run Equator and nothing else. The one sacrifice was bends of over two octaves.
Glass half full: ROLI is constantly improving its tech over time and passing on both quality improvements and cost streamlining to its customers, which would be expected of pretty much any tech company. You donāt become an early adopter in expectation of the builder never improving on what you bought.
Glass half empty: ROLI turned its early users into beta testers, and that policy really hasnāt changed much over the years. I got a refund on my LUMI halfway into the Kickstarter, after about the third time they moved the goalposts, and I have never looked at a ROLI product since. My lone Lightpad M has been in the hands of a coder friend for a while so he can help me roll my own littlefoot configurationsā¦ he hates the dev platform so much he canāt bring himself to program it, and I donāt miss it at all. Iāll probably just sell it.
