Issue

Dead or silent keywaves when playing the Seaboard with Equator or another VST instrument.


Solution

Check your channel range – make sure that the channel range set in ROLI Dashboard is the same as the channel range which your instrument is able to receive. More details here.


Check your pitch bend range – make sure that the pitch bend range range set in ROLI Dashboard is the same as the pitch bend range set on your receiving instrument. More details here.


Make sure that your DAW or instrument is responding to all of the Seaboard’s MIDI channels. In some DAWs for example, a MIDI track will only respond to one channel, which would result in most notes on the Seaboard seeming to be ‘dead’. We have set up guides for most popular DAWs here.


Example

Dead notes or silent keywaves are usually a sign that there is a mismatch between the channel range or pitch bend range of the Seaboard and the instrument you are using to produce sound.


The dead notes will usually move around as you play more keywaves or only happen when you play adjacent semitones.


The dead notes occur because each new note is assigned to a new channel as you play, and if the receiving instrument is not ready to receive notes on that channel, they will not produce any sound.


Or, when playing two notes a semitone apart, the Seaboard is intentionally producing one note with Glide. You can set that behavior with the RISE with the following steps:

  • Press the mode/power button so that the LED is cyan (a light blue).
  • With the LED showing cyan, you are in Expression Mode. Change the levels of the three faders to adjust the Seaboard’s response to Glide, Slide, and Press.
  • Set the left fader (Glide) to somewhere below the maximum, and now it will be possible to play adjacent semitones.


If the Seaboard uses a channel range of 1–10 but your instrument responds to channels 1–8 (like Omnisphere), notes sent by the Seaboard on channels on 9 and 10 wouldn’t be “seen” by Omnisphere and would appear silent when you play them.