# Roli



## Phillip Dixon (Jul 27, 2021)

Does anyone know why you can't buy roli seaboard, or any roli product here in the UK..?


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## doctoremmet (Jul 27, 2021)

Apparently due to COVID production of new hardware has come to a standstill. Except for LUMI gear they do not seem to have any stock left, and this has been the case for over a year now. Also, this situation does not only pertain to the UK.


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## Phillip Dixon (Jul 27, 2021)

Thanks. I can't understand why they don't advise this on their site, lve been reading rumours that they have gone out of business


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## Markrs (Jul 27, 2021)

Phillip Dixon said:


> Does anyone know why you can't buy roli seaboard, or any roli product here in the UK..?


You can still buy the light pad and lumi


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## Phillip Dixon (Jul 27, 2021)

Isn't this some kind of learning tool


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## Markrs (Jul 27, 2021)

I have noticed that you pay more for Seaboard on the 2nd hand market now compared to a year ago. But I have seen that with a quite a few of audio related hardware


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## Markrs (Jul 27, 2021)

Phillip Dixon said:


> Isn't this some kind of learning tool


It can be but it is still MPE and looks pretty cool, but rather expensive


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## doctoremmet (Jul 27, 2021)

Phillip Dixon said:


> Isn't this some kind of learning tool


It is a professional grade little MPE board really. Lots of pros use it in their setups. It misses some of the capabilities of a Rise or Seaboard but it does obviously have the plus of having “regular” keys (at least for me as a pianist). Expensive? Absolutely. Learning tool? Like Mark said: it can be, but that’s not its entire “raison d’être”.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 27, 2021)

Phillip Dixon said:


> lve been reading rumours that they have gone out of business


Not to my knowledge they haven’t.


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## Markrs (Jul 27, 2021)

MPE is more popular than ever so plenty of growth potential, the issue for Roli will how much debt they are holding and whether servicing that affects the money the can put into the products and R&D.

I think they would be bought rather than disappear if the finances are not in good shape.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 27, 2021)

Markrs said:


> MPE is more popular than ever so plenty of growth potential, the issue for Roli will how much debt they are holding and whether servicing that affects the money the can put into the products and R&D.
> 
> I think they would be bought rather than disappear if the finances are not in good shape.


Agreed. Of course, regardless of COVID, one could argue that given the popularity of MPE there not being any Roli Seaboards for sale for over a year is an epic business failure - no matter what angle… so in that more narrow sense I am not particularly impressed by Roli as a company.


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## Markrs (Jul 27, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> Agreed. Of course, regardless of COVID, one could argue that given the popularity of MPE there not being any Roli Seaboards for sale for over a year is an epic business failure - no matter what angle… so in that more narrow sense I am not particularly impressed by Roli as a company.


Totally agree, it feels like they have dropped the ball and there innovator/early entrant advantage has now been lost.


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## Martin S (Jul 27, 2021)

I wonder how the Lumi would work with Infinite-series or SWAM? Although it’s expensive, it does have some really nice features; not to mention the portability and modular design


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## gamma-ut (Jul 27, 2021)

Markrs said:


> MPE is more popular than ever so plenty of growth potential, the issue for Roli will how much debt they are holding and whether servicing that affects the money the can put into the products and R&D.
> 
> I think they would be bought rather than disappear if the finances are not in good shape.


They're venture-capital funded: one thing happens a lot in that situation when a company runs out of cash is that a buyer only picks up the IP and kills off everything else. 

That could be a major issue for the software support. The one big drawback of the Seaboard and the Blocks is that they rely on computer support for some of their functions, so updates may be impossible if the company effectively disappears. Eigenlabs at least open-sourced their OS and client software for the Eigenharps.


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## el-bo (Jul 27, 2021)

gamma-ut said:


> They're venture-capital funded: one thing happens a lot in that situation when a company runs out of cash is that a buyer only picks up the IP and kills off everything else.
> 
> That could be a major issue for the software support. The one big drawback of the Seaboard and the Blocks is that they rely on computer support for some of their functions, so updates may be impossible if the company effectively disappears. Eigenlabs at least open-sourced their OS and client software for the Eigenharps.


At this point, I think that there should be some legal requirement that any proprietary drivers/editors become open-source upon product discontinuation and or company demise.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 27, 2021)

gamma-ut said:


> They're venture-capital funded: one thing happens a lot in that situation when a company runs out of cash is that a buyer only picks up the IP and kills off everything else.
> 
> That could be a major issue for the software support. The one big drawback of the Seaboard and the Blocks is that they rely on computer support for some of their functions, so updates may be impossible if the company effectively disappears. Eigenlabs at least open-sourced their OS and client software for the Eigenharps.


There’s no reason to assume Roli disappears any time soon, let alone there won’t be another shareholder in that fictitious scenario that wouldn’t be inclined to further invest in the software support. There’s a pretty large installed base, users who are buying Equator2 soundware etc, so no reason to feed any rumours at this point. I am receiving many updates still.


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## Technostica (Jul 27, 2021)

I got fed up with their software and sold my board. 
Pleasantly surprised by how much I got for it on ebay. 
At this rate they may become collector's pieces, but I am not interested in that.


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## ir99 (Jul 27, 2021)

The same is true of some other producers of MPE devices:









Sensel Morph Sunset


Ever since we sold out of Morphs in 2021, many of you have been eagerly awaiting updates about the availability of the Sensel Morph. Today, we can provide some closure and announce that unfortunately, Sensel will no longer be producing the current Morph. Like many of you, we feel like we were...




morph.sensel.com





But, I believe that the ever increasing interest in, and growing platform/VST/etc support for, MPE is such that, if these producers can hang on in there during these tough and unprecedented times for production, then they will only go from strength to strength. I can't wait to get my hands on one of them, yet to be decided. Hah! - perhaps I'll save enough for an Osmose! Er...no...


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## doctoremmet (Aug 12, 2021)




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## thatweirdsoundguy (Aug 13, 2021)

Have you checked out this new plugin? Apparently it upgrades any standard MIDI keyboard into an MPE device


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## doctoremmet (Aug 13, 2021)

thatweirdsoundguy said:


> Have you checked out this new plugin? Apparently it upgrades any standard MIDI keyboard into an MPE device



Erm… no. It doesn’t.


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