If you produce music, chances are you very likely use a MIDI keyboard in some part of your workflow. If that's so, then you know the technology traditionally works really well for simulating what it's like to play a piano, but sometimes it can be frustrating to try to "play the guitar"—or really any instrument besides a piano or synth.British start-up ROLI took those concerns into account when they produced the Seaboard GRAND earlier this year, but while that was a bit out of most consumers' price range, they've followed up with the Seaboard RISE, even adding more MIDI controls in its reduced-price package.The RISE allows you to customize sensitivity to match your own playing and map sound parameters to unique gestures, meaning that the keyboard is capable of coming alive in a very specific way for whatever you want it to do. They accomplish this through a highly dynamic set of five main functions: strike, glide, slide, press, and lift. It also comes with Equator, a "custom-built multi-platform software [synthesizer]" designed for real-time modulation. RISE is less than an inch thick, capable of working through Bluetooth, and is also battery-powered.Get your own here, and watch their video demonstrating its capabilities below; the text section below the video on YouTube gets it most succinctly, we think: the instrument "lets musicians touch and shape sound."Follow Alexander on Twitter.