Roli Equator released

[werp]

bought the Equator upgrade yesterday. Woke up this morning to find an email from Roli giving me an upgrade code for free because of delays in shipping my seaboard block...sigh.
$pent $100 AUD I didn't have to $pend...

Have you looked into the transfer policy? Maybe you can sell your upgrade? At the very least I'm sure they'd refund it.

Yeah, it maybe worth an email. never know your luck.

[Echoes in the Attic]

To those who have equator already - How is it for bread and butter classic analog sounds? Most of the demo sounds and videos are full of interesting digital and hybrid sampled sounds, which is cool. But I'm curious if it does well at the lush analog pads and leads of vintage synths.

[Cinebient]

To those who have equator already - How is it for bread and butter classic analog sounds? Most of the demo sounds and videos are full of interesting digital and hybrid sampled sounds, which is cool. But I'm curious if it does well at the lush analog pads and leads of vintage synths.

From my view i would say it can do it pretty fine.
The OSC's can sound pretty juicy.
There are some vintage/analog presets which i really like.

[Astralv]

bought the Equator upgrade yesterday. Woke up this morning to find an email from Roli giving me an upgrade code for free because of delays in shipping my seaboard block...sigh.
$pent $100 AUD I didn't have to $pend...

Have you looked into the transfer policy? Maybe you can sell your upgrade? At the very least I'm sure they'd refund it.

Yeah, it maybe worth an email. never know your luck.

I had this happen several times. Contact tech support and they will refund you.

[dangayle]

To those who have equator already - How is it for bread and butter classic analog sounds? Most of the demo sounds and videos are full of interesting digital and hybrid sampled sounds, which is cool. But I'm curious if it does well at the lush analog pads and leads of vintage synths.

I was just fiddling around on my Push 2, with Sandman Pro doing some lo-fi mangling to a luscious string preset, when I realized it had been like half an hour doing nothing but basking in the sound.

For soundtrack work or synth wave type stuff, this would be perfect IMO. Pads sound really, really good.

[lastmessiah]

Equator is awesome for pads, you can get anything from retro analog pads to off-the-wall soundscape chords. Same story for leads.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Looking forward to trying it. I guess I'll be buying a seaboard block so I can upgrade the player. I really like the layout. Maybe later get another block if I like it enough. Pretty cool to have a four octave keyboard (especially with the 5D) that can fit in a backpack, as opposed to the full rise 49.

Something I'm curious about - when you have some kind of modulation on pressure, is it fairly easy to strike the keys at reasonably high velocity but not engage the pressure if you don't want to? That's one if the main issues with some controllers. Even my cme xkey is impossible to hit hard and not engage the pressure if I don't want to. I usually use either pressure or velocity as the primary expression. Or use. It's on the same target parameters. I'd imagine the linnstrument is similar.

I must say though, I find it an enormously stupider design decision to put the octave up and down buttons on different sides of the unit. This makes it impossible to quickly change octave up and down with one hand while playing with the other hand.

[lastmessiah]

Something I'm curious about - when you have some kind of modulation on pressure, is it fairly easy to strike the keys at reasonably high velocity but not engage the pressure if you don't want to? That's one if the main issues with some controllers. Even my cme xkey is impossible to hit hard and not engage the pressure if I don't want to. I usually use either pressure or velocity as the primary expression. Or use. It's on the same target parameters. I'd imagine the linnstrument is similar.

It doesn't play like a keyboard. The slightest touch will trigger a note while a hard strike will modulate according to your strike settings. Press sensitivity (and everything else) can be controlled and fine-tuned in the dashboard application so that it responds the way you need it to.

[Ah_Dziz]

I don't know what they are charging for equator on it's own but it is a great sounding and easy to program synth. Also if you have a host that supports MPE you can still program really neat stuff using the MPE parameters. The mod system is one of my favorites I've ever used and pretty much everything is a mod target so you can make pretty damned expressive patches even with no MPE utilization. How much are they asking for it anyway?

[Neon Breath]

Perfect - finally something to rival Alchemy

How? It doesn't even do granular synthesis, nor additive resynthesis, nor spectral resynthesis.

[dangayle]

How much are they asking for it anyway?

$79 if you have the player, $179 standalone.

[Ah_Dziz]

That's not too bad considering how versatile this thing is. About the same price range as one of the U-He synths and it's as flexible and cool as those guys. Also you get the added bonus of full MPE support even if you're programming it inside your daw. I don't bother much with MPE note expression stuff except for in Equator, Softube Modular, Strobe 2, and Cypher 2. The fiddling around with settings to get most other synths to respond properly is not worth it to me. It's extremely cool to play with though even without a controller. It makes synth lines come to life to add some cool multi note bends and poly modulations.

[dangayle]

Which DAW are you using for this? I’m still confused by the MPE thing since I use Ableton Live.

[Ah_Dziz]

Bitwig has the best integration so if I'm planning on using lots of MPE stuff that's what I use. Cubase can use its "note expression" for MPE and it works quite well. The editing is a bit less straightforward.

[Cinebient]

Which DAW are you using for this? I’m still confused by the MPE thing since I use Ableton Live.

Ableton Live is not useful for MPE.