First post here… I just bought a Block M, my first-ever Roli product, and I love it. As for this, I’m intrigued too, but I’m surprised by the emerging consensus here that this would be like a piano. I think the exact opposite: Roli is consolidating all of its previous offerings into a piano category, so this should be something entirely different. What I see from the reactions is that it’s pretty, sleek, and incredibly puzzling, so I don’t think it will look like any instrument we know. They mention a dialog, music “talking back,” and also blurring the lines between making music and learning music and “interacting with” music, which is weird: how do you “interact” with music apart from making it and listening to it? I suspect it should have a color visualization aspect (building on the Lumi, but much more sophisticated, informative, and expressive). I really do hope it’s not another one of those “sing into this box and it will turn it into MIDI” kind of products: even if they innovate in that field, it’s hardly a breakthrough they can claim as theirs.
I was wondering about Space Odyssey, and I can think of three possible things from that movie that could apply: (1) general retro-futuristic high-tech design, like the spaceships; (2) the trippy visuals near the end of the movie; and (3) the monolith. And I’m pretty sure it will be the monolith. Think about it: if it does end up looking like the iconic featureless monolith from the movie (which is a common form factor in tech these days, thanks mostly to Apple, although it would indeed be unusual in a music instrument) there’s no way they’d ever reveal it prematurely in the video, so they can never say “monolith” in it, so “Space Odyssey” would probably be the closest hint they’d allow. Maybe combine it with (2), and have the monolith visualize music in a new clever way, while also exposing an interaction interface? My guess would be something like that. Music is represented in a novel visual way, and the interaction wouldn’t only be touch-based, but maybe somewhat Theremin-like, as suggested by this patent filing from last year (which would correspond to their mention of a breakthrough “last year”): GB202308689D0 - Musical instrument player hand-tracking - Google Patents I’m not sure I’m reading the patent application right, but the various classifications make it look like it’s about using cameras and other methods to track the user’s hand in a musical instrument, so there’s that. Anyway, I’m really curious, and looking forward to the reveal!
Same for creating new music, basically making you a conductor of technology (which sounds like a dumb slogan, but you know what I mean: you wave your hands, and it’s not an orchestra that reacts but an array of plug-ins and patches and effects and whatnot, or maybe some entirely new construct they came up with). Or maybe you’ll just be a glorified theremin player… which I’d bet money some will dissmis this new product as if it’s anything like I imagine.
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