An Introduction to the Seaboard RISE: 1.5 - First look at Equator Video Lecture | Introduction to Seaboard Rise: Advance Music Production

equator is a software synth that has
been specifically designed by Roli for
multi-dimensional expression to spiral
back to the metaphor of primitive and
highly developed alien life-forms having
conversations equator in the seaboard
come from the same planet and can
seamlessly have these elaborate and deep
conversations with each other I've used
a lot of different soft synths and I was
impressed with equator right off the bat
especially with the emulations of
stringed instruments in conjunction with
the five dimensions of touch for example
MIDI guitars are notoriously fake
sounding but as you play around with the
different presets you'll find the
complete opposite to be true
check out patch number 8 which is called
guitar overdrive mono lead
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the presets on equator have been
specifically designed to interplay with
the five dimensions of touch and you'll
find a really nice mix of synthesized
and acoustic sounds later on in the
course we'll take a closer look at
synthesis and how all the different
parts of equator work but to start off
let's open it up and take a look around
launched equator as a standalone
application for now equator uses a
combination of wave table FM subtractive
and multi sampled synthesis in different
combinations looking at the synth itself
we can see what's happening I'm going to
be using patch 110 glass dome bells to
showcase what's happening here the top
half of equator is showing the synth
panel where the sounds themselves are
being generated and the bottom half is
the modulation panel which is how the
sounds are being shaped on the upper
left-hand side of the interface you can
see the two sample is used to create
parts of the sound I can turn them on
and off by clicking on the icon on the
top left corner of each module here we
have a sample of a glockenspiel and
another called warm large strings we can
switch out other samples by clicking on
the arrow right of each samples title
the sample then runs through its own
dedicated filter which you can swap in
and out for another filter or turn on
and off like so and you can hear the
sound change as I click around in this
area
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moving over to the right we have three
oscillators right now we have three sine
waves selected each with slightly
different settings similar to the
samples we can swap out the different
waves tweak parameters and turn each
oscillator on and off on the far right
side we have the FM tool which isn't
generating sounds itself but does allow
you to set the frequency of one
oscillator to modulate the frequency of
another largely this will affect the
Tambor or tone of the sounds there are
only four configurations for you to
choose from so if you don't know much
about FM synthesis fear not for the
possibilities are limited lastly we have
a noise generator and two final filters
to the right of the filters we have an
audio FX chain which includes a bit
crusher distortion EQ chorus delay and
reverb this icon here to the left of
each title turns that effect on and off
on the bottom half of equator we're
seeing how these sound sources are being
shaped and processed each time we see a
yellow dot in one of the modules it
means that something has been mapped to
control something else in equator and as
we move through this section we'll see
this in action on the left we see the
rise controls which associate with the
identical sliders an XY pad on your C
board we'll take a closer look at how
these affect the levels of expression
and how to map and adjust them later on
in the course as I click on the
different controls here you can see that
different parts of the synth light up
yellow indicating to me which parameters
are mapped to them moving to the right
we see the five dimensions of touch
represented graphically as I click
through here you'll see how each
dimension is mapped to control other
parts of equator for instance slide is
mapped to the cutoff and level of sample
to the mix level of filter one and the
depth B on the FM tool as I slide up and
down the key waves you can see this
modulation in real-time
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to the right are to lfos which stand for
low frequency oscillators and down below
are five different envelopes which are
also mapped to other parts of equator if
you check out the amp envelope here you
can see how the volume of the sound is
being shaped when we strike a key it's
gonna rise quickly and decay almost as
quickly to practically silence and
sustain there now when I strike a key
you can see this envelope in action on
the level of oscillator 1 and 3 and
sample 2 much more on envelopes later on
on the very bottom we see a
representation of which note our notes
are being played this section which is
referred to as key tracking can serve as
yet another modulation control if you
wish a few other important things to
know about are the icons which run along
the top in the middle we have the name
of the patch we're currently running we
can switch between them by clicking on
the right and left arrows on either side
of the title or navigate through them
here on the Seaboard
if you click on the title you'll see a
drop down menu of the many presets
available to you as well this icon here
will allow you to compare and contrast
any changes you may have made on a
preset with its default settings here we
have a master volume setting for when
you're running equator as a standalone
app this is the midi panic button which
will remove any indefinitely sustained
or stuck notes you may encounter on the
far right you can access the settings
for equator and adjust the audio setup
if you're not getting audio out of
equator when it's running as a
standalone app this is probably where
the issue is equator and its associated
dashboard both of which came in the
download package with your eyes are
always being developed and tweaked in
order to make sure everything runs
smoothly make sure you have the most
recent version of equator and dashboard
running on your computer
sometimes since interfaces like these
can be intimidating at first glance but
hopefully that brief tour of equators
many parts and how they
all connected makes more sense in my
opinion equator is pretty slick and easy
to understand while still maintaining a
high level of user control at this point
I would suggest you take the time to
browse through all of equators presets
and watch the different parameters and
mapping switch as you go will speak more
on how to properly audition sounds a bit
later but for now just seeing how
everything is connected will be very
useful