Tag Archives: seaboard
A kit for the musician on the move!
I’ve always admired what ROLI does for two reasons. ROLI’s approach to music making has been unconventional and innovative because A. you don’t really need to be proficient at an instrument to make music, and B. they design their products in a way where interaction is so universal, a piano can sound like a violin, so said product can cater to a pianist as well as a violinist. This fluid and experiment-encouraging approach makes ROLI’s products somewhat of a universal standard for musicians and music aficionados.
Take for instance the Songmaker Kit. It contains the three products that make up the ROLI catalog, merged into one super-product, like some sort of Power Ranger Megazord. Combining the functionality brought by ROLI’s seaboard and the power blocks, you can literally make music on the go by connecting the entire setup to your phone or tablet. More of a hardcore guy? The Songmaker even connects to your laptop/desktop, allowing you to leverage the freedom of MIDI with the power of your digital audio workstation. Because inspiration can strike anytime, so you should be able to too!
Designer: Roland Lamb (ROLI)
Roli Blocks makes its connectable music-making module more responsive
British music company Roli introduced an affordable, innovative music-making gadget last year called Roli Blocks. It's a set of modular synth controllers that can snap together and connect via Bluetooth to your iOS device. Roli is now updating the iO...
Roli expands its modular music gear with the touch-friendly Seaboard
Last year, Roli launched an affordable, modular music creation system called Blocks. At launch, the company sold a square Lightpad block (intended for tapping out melodies and drum beats) and two smaller blocks that let you adjust a variety of settin...
‘La La Land’ composer on electronica’s key role in the film
Damien Chazelle's La La Land might not have won that Oscar, but it did scoop up the one for Best Original Music Score. The man behind that score is Justin Hurwitz. Anyone who has seen the film will know that the soundtrack is largely divided between...
Roli’s quirky musical keyboard is now an iPhone app
When ROLI introduced the Seaboard -- a quirky interpretation of the musical keyboard -- it was hard not be curious. But, at $2,000, that's likely where you remained. Even the smaller, more affordable Seaboard Rise was a little out of reach for many c...
Roli Seaboard Grand up for pre-order, bendable music starts at $2,000
We were pretty impressed with what Roli showed off at SXSW back in March, and now the company's rubberized keyboard is up for pre-order. The instrument is built in a standard piano configuration, with a soft surface that allows you to directly bend pitch and add vibrato and other effects to the notes as you're playing them -- sort of like bending guitar strings. The Seaboard Grand comes in three price configurations that hit a pretty wide spread, starting at $2,000 for the 37-key Grand Studio, all the way up to $8,888.88 for the massive 88 key Grand Limited First Edition. Only 88 of the latter will actually be sold -- a vaguely superstitious pricing scheme, it seems. That one will be shipping in December of this year. The others will start arriving in fall of next year.
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Source: Roli
Roli’s Seaboard is a rubber-keyed piano that may redefine the way you play
Synths are nothing new, of course -- so what makes Roli's digital piano so novel? The instrument has a patent-pending rubberized surface that lets you bend and twist the keys as you play, freeing you from fiddling around with knobs, so you can directly, physically affect the way it sounds. Think of it as the difference between bending a string on a guitar, rather than stepping on the wah-wah pedal. It's the sort of thing you really have to see in action to appreciate -- thankfully, we've got the instrument's creator Roland Lamb giving us a demo after the break.
