Roli new... something coming to Kickstarter. Soon. (LUMI)

[himalaya]

Here’s a little secret: this little keyboard supports polyphonic aftertouch. The key travel is also very nice so it can be played comfortably.

[Niowiad]

they already reached the funding goal basically

edit: by far exceeded in less than 2 hours. I'd have to guess they had no idea.

[Cinebient]

Not sure about Roli in general (i own a Seaboard Rise and i wished they would support it more and with some more options instead of releasing new toys).
However, the idea and modular thing looks not bad.
These might be sold in the apple stores as well in the future. Bling bling all the way and so

[pdxindy]

Not so keen on the whole lights thing... but depending on how it feels, it's kinda cool to be able to fit a 72 key midi controller in a backpack! And with PolyAT. Wish it had the Y axis as a control as well...

[KBSoundSmith]

So... Roli’s investors don’t want to ... invest in the company’s product development...???

Investors like making profits. If they already own stake in the company, but can crowdsource the funds of future customers, why would they risk their own money? The point of business is to take money out and put into your pocket, not the other way around.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Not so keen on the whole lights thing... but depending on how it feels, it's kinda cool to be able to fit a 72 key midi controller in a backpack! And with PolyAT. Wish it had the Y axis as a control as well...

Yeah surprising they didn't add Y as well but I guess it's a cost thing. I'm sure they are trying to keep it cheap for entry level people. Cool that you can snap blocks onto it though.

[Blaster]

I backed the Kickstarter and am getting one. I didn't have music lessons and would like to learn how to play songs anyway. Gamification of it works for me, so why not? I think it's great.

I'm also hoping the lights can be used in a similar way as the Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol keyboards for stuff like keyswitches in Kontakt instruments.

Also the blocks concept is amazing. You can get more keys when you need it.

[deastman]

My daughter has been wanting to take piano lessons, so I actually would have considered something like this. However, when the stated purpose of Lumi is to teach people to play, I find a 2 octave keyboard rather insulting and laughable. Naturally, they don’t offer an early bird discount on a pair of keyboards together, so it would end up costing approximately $366 USD for a 48 key cheap plastic light up keyboard. Thanks anyway, but I think I’ll make my daughter learn the hard way and practice on the Steinway or my old Kurzweil K2000 that she currently has in her room. There’s always other MIDI-based training software, in addition to a real teacher.

[JCJR]

There have been computer game-style music lessons and cheap little keyboards to go with them since commodore 64 era. Quite a few light-up keyboards. And guitars with midi-in connections which can LED light up fret locations under computer control for use with music lesson software or merely to light up "good note patterns to riff on" given a scale and key.

Maybe roli can make some money on it. Just isn't a particularly groundbreaking idea. Companies like Make Music (Coda) and the miracle piano lessons software and keyboard etc. Let's hope some of those many old computer music lessons + hardware endeavors made money rather than lost money. So maybe roli can pretend it's a new idea and make some money on it as well, who knows.

Over the years I was involved with a few software projects in that universe. Maybe it is a useful learning method dunno.

I have doubts but I can't stand computer games. Hooking a keyboard to a computer game it is still a boring game wasting time that could be used for something "more productive". Just attitudes, preference and value judgement.

There were lots of them. For instance the musical "duck shoot" game could be used with any midi controller. The little ducks come flying in from right to left on their notation lines and you shoot em down by hitting the correct note at the correct time when the duck is flying right over the "gun". Maybe that helps notation reading and timing skills or maybe not. Dunno.

If I would permit it, I could possibly become annoyed seeing roli pretend that they got something new and unique here

[reggie1979]

I think it's a joke. Roli tried to ignite the controller world with an ill-implemented requirement that makes their controllers much less useful for the vast majority of hosts. I don't know what this is or why I'd want it but I'm sure if it makes it it will be expensive and won't work properly to start (they are still trying to get blocks right and they are EXPENSIVE)

As far as music/more crap is concerned is, that is what the sheeples want. That song (though I liked it) is the same ol' same ol'. I can do that, most people can do that and they don't need to wait for kickstarter/production to do it.

Maybe you kids should get off my lawn but grow weary of "new" tech that doesn't deliver..... and I've spent a FORTUNE chasing my tail just to realize I could have spent that time using shit that works instead of new-fangled glorified garbage that just slows me down

[imrae]

2 octaves is a bit of a joke if the purpose is education.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Roli tried to ignite the controller world with an ill-implemented requirement that makes their controllers much less useful for the vast majority of hosts.

Roli took a gamble on technology that was ahead of a certain curve, at the time, but which will soon become the norm. That certain hosts haven't taken the idea of MPE seriously has led to many people switching to hosts that have; and that because Roli have managed to ignite the controller world.

And as to that so-called requirement? I probably spend more time using my Rise in standard singvle channel mode because MPE isn't always called for, and because it has become my primary keyboard. Even as a standard controller it can be set up to be extremely expressive. It's velocity response, velocity consistency (I've retired other drum controllers) and the general tactile feel when playing already justify the cost, for me.

In my 47 years, I've never come across another instrument that is so inviting to play for the sake of playing.

Regarding this new 'board: I have every faith that the quality will be excellent. The aftertouch and expandability make it a great portable proposition. However, the rrp would keep me from jumping at it.

[PeterP_swe]

I hope they succeed in creating a fun way to learn keys. I think there is a market for it. It's going to depend a lot on the software and song library they can put together.

Guitar has Rocksmith, but there is nothing comparable for Keys out there.

Rockband has the song library but is only available for consoles.
Synthesia is a bit too amateurish, fiddly to set up and doesn't have the song library necessary.

[monomaker]

I wouldn't like to learn to play on that keyboard when you can buy decent semi weighted full size light-up keyboards for a similar price.

Synthesia is a bit too amateurish, fiddly to set up and doesn't have the song library necessary.

Don't agree on any of these points, you can get up and running in under a minute and it takes MIDI files, so the potential song library is vast. Don't understand what aspect seems amateurish to you, I've only tried it very briefly but it seemed the complete opposite of what you're describing.

[Blaster]

I wouldn't like to learn to play on that keyboard when you can buy decent semi weighted full size light-up keyboards for a similar price.

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