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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 settings or record and loop your music. Users can snap together as many Blocks as they want and hook them all up to an iPhone or iPad to create and record music. I spent some time playing with Blocks earlier this year, and while there's no doubt they're a fun and unique tool, the Lightpad's small size introduced some challenges when trying to create precise compositions. Roli's looking to fix that today by taking its flagship musical instrument, the Seaboard, and shrinking it down to Block size. The new $300 Seaboard Block is a small, two-octave version of its larger Seaboard instrument, but it retains all the unique touch-sensitive features you'll find in the bigger and more expensive versions. (The Seaboard Rise starts at $800, and Roli sells a variety of other sizes that range in price from $1,110 all the way up to over $8,000.)
Roli Blocks is an affordable, modular way to make electronic music
British music-gear company Roli is mostly known for its attempts at reimagining the piano. The full-size Seaboard and smaller Seaboard Rise may bear similarities to traditional keyboards, but their rubberized, touch-sensitive buttons let you modulate, pitch-bend and slide between notes in a way that's far different from what you can do on a standard keyboard or synthesizer. However, price is a big barrier to entry -- the Seaboard Rise starts at $800, while its full-size counterpart will set you back $2,000 or more. But Roli has been working on a way to bring its unique music-creation tools down to a much lower price point, and it's taking the wraps off those efforts today. Roli Blocks are a set of modular synth controllers that snap together and hook up to your iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth. They're tiny and inexpensive: The main controller, called the Lightpad, is a small square (less than 4 inches to a side) that sells for $179. That's significantly cheaper than Roli's other products. And while you can't play the Lightpad like a keyboard, the short time I spent playing with it and the other Roli Blocks convinced me that it's still a powerful, flexible and fun music-making tool.
