what's up guys you've seen the Roli seaboard block and
the litepad block in many of my videos these are MIDI controllers that allow
you to get really expressive with your music they share a lot of features but
they also look completely different if you're on the fence about which one of
these things to buy or if you're just curious about what they do
today I'm going to list all the features that these two devices share and also
tell you about the benefits each one has over the other if you're new around here
I create videos about music production and music gadgets I've done tons of
videos about the Seaboard block and litepad block if you want to check out
some how-to videos on these devices or listen to some songs I've created with
them check out the other videos on my channel also don't forget to subscribe
so you can keep up with the latest of my music production videos and the latest
music gadgets so let's explore the similarities first between the like head
block and the Seaboard block both of them are MPE compatible that's
multi-dimensional polyphonic expression that pretty much means that they don't
just play like a regular keyboard but you can do extra things they give you
five dimensions of touch that's strike press so you can actually press harder
glide and slide and also they record lift
what makes all that expression possible is the texture of the material that
these are made out of so these are both made out of a silicon type of material
which allows you to do more than just press them like keyboard keys let me
show you on the light pad you can strike this but you can also press further down
you can also slide your finger around and you'll notice that on the light pad
you actually get light feedback now even though they're both made out of similar
material they feel a little bit different the Seaboard block feels a
little bit more sticky for the lack of a better word when you slide your finger
on this it feels like it grips the silicon material a little bit more than
the smoother light pad so when you touch the light pad it feels a lot smoother
but there are ripples here which actually feel really good to the touch
one awesome thing about both these devices is that they are Bluetooth
compatible which means you can connect both of these and play sounds without
any cords and the fact that their iOS compatible means that you can use these
with iOS apps like GarageBand or the noise app that Roley makes the noise app
is great for your phone or your iPad but I really prefer the really equator
player which allows you to use these on your computer and pretty much any DAW
that you use both of these give you two octaves to play with you can see it very
clearly here on the keyboard but when you configure the light pad as a melodic
player you can now play this like a keyboard so each of you light it up
squares here corresponds to a different note both of these give you the exact
same sounds whether you use the noise app or you use the equator player now
the sounds of equator player comes with our great to start out with but I highly
recommend that you spend a little bit more money and get the full version of
Equator because it comes with tons of other sounds which are so so nice the
price difference between both of these is about a hundred dollars the light pad
block is $200 and the Seaboard block is $300 if you plan to expand your Rolie
universe of devices they are they're all compatible they actually magnetically
net to each other so you can add multiple like pad blocks multiple
seaport blocks to extend extend your octaves and do a lot more all right
let's talk about the Seaboard block and what benefits this has over the light
pad so here are some reasons why you would love the Seaboard block first up
it's the familiar form of the keyboard if you're a keyboardist or a pianist
you're gonna immediately know what to do with this if you're used to playing
chords and notes you know how to identify the scales and chords right
away now in my opinion two of the dimensions of touch feel better on the C
board one of them is Glide and the reason I like glide more on the C board
is you have a lot more space to do a glide now Glide is really just pitch
Bend and when you hit a note on the Seaboard you're able to slide down here
and then glide your finger up and down to do a pitch Bend the Seaboard just
gives you more space than the light pad to actually do those pitch bed moves the
other touch expression that feels a little bit better on the C board is
vibrato what's really nice again this is kind of the pitch Bend feature of this
when you hit a note you're able to slide your finger back and forth in a vibrato
type of fashion as if you were doing this on a guitar or on a violin so when
you feel the raised notes and you're on one of these don't this just feels more
natural
alright what about the light pad now here are some reasons you would love the
light pad yet these are reasons that I really love like that
first of all just look at it it's tiny the small form-factor just lets you take
this everywhere you can honestly fit this in a pocket I take it everywhere
with me it's stealthy you could play it in a restaurant on a plane it's just fun
to take everywhere and I do take this anywhere I go next the lights the lights
just look cool and when you touch it and you're moving your finger it just feels
like something you want to play and touch and it's just inspiring to look at
something that's made so well next is configurability you're actually able to
configure this to do a lot of things with the software that Rolly provides
called the Rolly dashboard so right now this is configured to play notes in a
scale if I touch the lighted boxes so that's a 2 octave scale now I don't just
have to touch the light in two parts but I can also touch in between those are
the notes in between in that scale of I think see right now and I can also not
just strike I can also pitch Bend and also change the sound in various ways
this is the melodic block configuration I can also configure it as a drum block
now with my DAW I'm using Ableton right now I can play a drum kit you can have
the four by four configuration you can do a 2 by 2 configuration or you can
even do a 3 by 3 you can also use this as an Ableton Live Launchpad which kind
of allows you to do things that like the Novation Launchpad do or the Ableton
push not with all those features of course but it allows you to trigger
scenes and trigger Clips so if I trigger scene
and stop you can also make this an XYZ pad and as I run my finger around it you
can use this to control different plugins it's great for controlling an
auto filter when you want to control resonance and cutoff at the same time
I've done this many times in videos linked somewhere here so there you go
configure ability of the light pad you can't do this on BC board
now you could play drums with this just playing it like you do on a regular MIDI
controller keyboard but it just doesn't feel as good as having these nice drum
pads right here if you're not a keyboardist the light pad block does let
you have a little cheat sheet on playing scales and tunes so with the 2 octave
scale that you see light it up here it actually helps you play it's showing you
the notes that you can play so that your sound song sounds decent you can change
this to different scales as well now if you are a keyboardist although you're
gonna think that this is a natural way to go I really like the creative
possibilities with the light pad you know sometimes you sit at your keyboard
and you play the same chords that you do every single time I do this all the time
the light pad takes me out of that mode and forces me to take a different
approach and to even make mistakes but those mistakes actually lead to creative
results sometimes and I like this because it takes me out of my typical
approach of playing on a keyboard alright I hope this video helps you
learn a little bit more about these devices or maybe helped you decide which
one you want to buy honestly I can't live without both of them I like them
both for in their own ways and this one I just take it everywhere I go if you
like this video hit that like button and subscribe keep making the music that you
love I will see you guys later