Roli Seabord Block
£279.95
ROLI’s Seaboard range is unlike anything else on the market.
The flagship Seaboard Grand Stage (£2,799.95) is the top-of-the-range option, but unless you really need the full 61-key setup, the best value is to be had lower down the range, either in the form of the entry-level Seaboard Block or the slightly more expensive Seaboard Rise models (from £699.95 for the 25-key version).
The Seaboards are some of just a few keyboards on the market with polyphonic aftertouch, meaning you can control the expression of each note independently. That works well with Roli’s own Equator synth plugin, but you can also set it up to work with other synth plugins and hardware synth modules which support it.
The Block is our pick simply because it offers 90% of the fun of the Grand Stage for 10% of the price: you sacrifice some of the bells and whistles that you’d find on the Rise, but you still get to reap the benefits of the five-dimensional touch-sensitive keywaves.