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Pharrell Williams will co-own Roli's modular instrument business
There's no question that Pharrell Williams has had at least some fondness for technology (his Daft Punk collabs and gold-tinged smartphones were big clues), but now he's taking that appreciation to Will.I.Am levels. Roli has revealed that Pharrell is not only becoming its Chief Creative Officer, but will invest in and take co-ownership of the modular instrument startup. He'll have a vested interest in Roli's success, in other words. The company hasn't outlined the terms of the deal, but the superstar will help develop "revolutionary" digital instruments that are accessible and "iconic."
Joué's MIDI controller adds tactile fun to music-making
The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) arrived in the '80s to help digital instruments communicate with each other. Nowadays, with much of the action on computers, a new breed of MIDI controllers has emerged. Many of today's designs include built-in pressure sensitivity to provide a semblance of analog expression when played, but Joué is a bit different. It was developed to free digital music artists from the lockstep confines of keyboards, button rows, glowing displays and marching lights, while providing modular flexibility and, above all, fun. The name Joué, translated from French, literally means "play" or can be interpreted as "I play," and the company would like you to approach the device with an open and creative mind. It's a USB-powered pressure-sensitive board that works with a variety of soft -- and occasionally squishy -- pads that are detected and uniquely identified through embedded RFID tags. You map portions of each pad to any MIDI-capable program like Ableton Live, Apple Logic, Garage Band or iPad apps to help bring your music to life. They're swappable on the fly, and the tactile interfaces offer an alternative to high-tech distractions. The device is currently on Kickstarter; the company is raising funds to move from industrial prototype to final product, and as usual, early bird deals are available. You can buy a Joué board and starter pack of pads for just over $300, with the eventual retail price expected to be under $500.
The Seaboard Rise is Roli's more affordable rubber-keyed piano
British startup Roli has launched a follow-up to its reimagined keyboard with a continuous, rubberized exterior: this one, however, is quite smaller and a lot more affordable. The Seaboard Rise was designed to be the more portable version of the company's Seaboard Grand instrument released a couple of years ago. It only has 25 keys -- Roli calls them "keywaves," because they do look like waves on a black surface -- whereas the smallest Grand iteration has 37. Thanks to that, though, it will only set you back $800, which sounds more reasonable than the cheapest Grand ($1,999), especially if you just want one for a home studio.
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.
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.%Gallery-181387%
