Roli Lumi announced

ROLI
41

Yeah. The worst thing about the Christmas promise is that they only made this promise after their original schedule of October had already slipped. Now they had to apologise for making that promise.

I was an early backer who ordered more than one, and some cases, so I feel aggrieved. Still not a huge blip in the wider Kickstarter scheme of things, but typical Roli. They eroded a lot of goodwill over the years (I think some aspects of their operation were always outsourced to grey box providers and it shows) and their financial situation always looked completely out of whack with reality. The lofty world of tech startups was their model, and it doesnt take that long to burn over a hundred million in VC funding when you want to go around pretending you are like Apple. Speaking of Apple, the financial plight of Roli compared to richer times is even obvious with the packaging that early Lumis have been sent in - gone are the fancy thick ‘Apple-esque’ boxes with separate lid.

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42

Since I’m probably going to be waiting over 2 more months for mine, I just hope that sometime soon someone who has received one will post a video that gives me some sense of whether the aftertouch on the LUMI is actually any good.

Oh dear the Kickstarter comments section for this project finally got wind of the article about the state of ROLIs finance so now there is a whole new angle of ugliness there.

43

The example that jumps to mind was a mishandled group buy on the pre-lines monome forum, forever ago. Kickstarter didn’t exist yet, and those norms hadn’t been established.

Regardless, I don’t know how true that is. We only talk about shipping order when a project runs super late. But I have to assume most campaigns where it isn’t mentioned ship to their own country first, before they take on the additional complications of international shipping.

Granted, this isn’t Roli’s first product, and they should have thoroughly established supply chains by now.

But, yeah. When it hits that point of “we have to clean up this mess NOW”, that means pacifying as many people as they can, as quickly as possible.

(You made a good suggestion in the campaign comments, of eating the shipping cost to send one unit to each backer now, and send the rest later. But from their perspective, I think we’re a group of people who would still be upset with that solution, so making someone else actually happy is probably a better use of resources.

I don’t like it, but I see that perspective.)

And then, re: cost-eating solutions…

Yikes.

Could be worse, though.

Imagine how bad it would be if they didn’t actually have any units in backers’ hands when that dropped there. Or if those backers had reported any kind of disappointment with the interface.

But, yeah. I think it’s important that the article actually went live a few weeks ago. And that Roli’s demonstrated some real forward momentum in the span between.

The obvious fear is that investors will pull the plug on us, but we can actually see that they get the importance of this launch, and are continuing to push forward.

(Hopefully, that remains true in the midst of a mass exodus. But I’m also hopeful that enough of us won’t panic now.)

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44

anyone got theirs?

I’ve jumped shipped, it was a great idea - but starting to hear talk of quality issues including stuck keys, scratched surfaces - and more concerning uneven pressure/velocity.

its a pity, as i need a keyboard controller esp for my modular.

but coincidentally, just as I’d told them I wanted a refund, and had decided id have to settle for a Arturia Keystep … Arturia released the Keystep Pro , which has loads of CV on the back - bit pricy, but lots of functionality :slight_smile:

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45

Hm, perhaps I should do the same then… Wanted a portable 88 key stage piano. A well-working one that is… Wah! (Have a Kawai MP series stage piano - which is awesome from a playing perspective. It’s bulky and about 30 kg though, my back says no to carrying that around…)

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46

yeah finding a nice keybed on small portable keyboards seems pretty difficult - last year I walked around Superbooth trying loads, and didn’t find anything i really liked (including keystep)

I’d hope Roli given their focus on playing experience in the past were looking to target this.
but, increasingly as campaign went on - I felt they were primarily focused on ‘teach yourself keyboards’ , where the software was more important than the hardware… and probably where the majority of the budget was going.

that’s ok, that’s their choice - but just didn’t really fit with my plans…

the keystep pro still is not a great keybed, but its cv connectivity is excellent.

(a bit off topic :wink: )
admittedly, i don’t really need another sequencer or midi to cv interface as I’ve a hermod,
but I’ve been thinking recently on the modular front to use my Hermod as a modulation source (recording cv, automated cv etc). but then I require an extra midi to cv module.
but… with a keystep pro, it can bypass midi and just output cv … and I suspect it can also be used as a midi to cv interface.
so expensive… but less than the price i would pay for 2 lumi + another midi to cv module :wink:

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47

Recent comments in the campaign chat reveal…

There was a video a while back, I want to say from Superbooth, where they were showing the software to an interviewer and it was the first time any of us had seen it. At one moment, the rep is about to snap two of them together, but stops himself and says something along the lines of “the app doesn’t like that yet, but this will be possible by launch.”

Apparently, whatever was wrong then is still wrong now, and this is at least partially to blame for multi-unit orders being pushed back to February.

We knew for a month now that the songs in the app were all one-handed at launch, with multi-unit content being a concern for later. But apparently there’s a wider issue affecting software Integration on mobile and desktop.

…which is odd, because this functionality is thoroughly proven on Lightpad and Seaboard Blocks. It’s not a new development, or even new to them.

Anyway. I’m still in. Gonna make it work. Gonna script things in max, for nobody. It’ll be good.

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48

I havent given up on these yet so I will wait (im)patiently for another month or so for mine to arrive.

They just did a long kickstarter update message to their backers about they stuck keys issues. They think they have identified the manufacturing issue, think they’ve sorted it now, and think it affects about 2% of Lumis produced before now.

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49

This is reassuring. They also wrote that the problem shouldn’t occur with newly fabricated Lumis and that all affected people can get a replacement.

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50

They had at least one pair working together this week.

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51

I bailed weeks ago. While I was waiting for those stinking keyboards to get finished and shipped, no fewer than three alternatives popped up, and I finally decided that someone was telling me something. So I got a refund, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and now I can sit back with popcorn and a soda and watch the unfolding disaster movie in peace…

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52

What alternatives are you considering?

53

Well, keep in mind that when I say “alternatives popped up” they weren’t necessarily identical solutions in terms of the technology included, but rather alternatives to the role I wanted the LUMI to fill originally. So this answer will be more right-brained than left-brained, for which I will apologize now.

Originally I planned to use the LUMIs (I ordered two) either in the role of a small but still 4-octave keyboard for use in my portable desktop rig or put in a 3D printed cradle to use as a keytar (hey, multicolored glowing keys on stage, why not?). During the wait, I had time to really get comfortable with playing my LinnStrument, which now fills both of those roles beautifully, so the LUMI was no longer relevant.

The keyboard itself seemed intriguing, because I’m an old-school MIDI Key Pressure Message guy (“polyphonic aftertouch” for you guys raised on Yamahaspeak) and there haven’t been many alternatives in recent years, except in unusual keybed styles… e.g. the CME Xkey line, the KMI K-Board Pro 4, ROLI Seaboards, etc. As a former owner of a Prophet-T8 and a couple of Ensoniq boards, I wanted actual keys that moved and gave me that kind of touch response, and at the time of the Kickstarter campaign the LUMI was pretty much the only thing out there that did that. I could live with the keys being a bit smaller than usual, if it felt good. But then it took longer and longer to ship, and in that waiting period I got to play and fall in love with the HydraSynth keyboard and learn about the Osmose, and once again the LUMI stopped being relevant.

So: hands washed, money back, and once again, the path to Enlightenment and Serenity begins with those four magic words: No Longer My Problem.

3 Likes
54

Makes sense.

Similar to your keytar idea, I originally wanted to fashion mine into a sort of melodica. (add a breath controller, with some digital glue to merge the signals and tie CC2 into the LED feedback)

I mean, the battery is a problem, adding cost and weight. But I can dream.

55

Actually, a lot of what I wanted to build in max for it, they’re already including in Roli Desktop. So I’m not entirely sure what my ambitions are at this point.

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56

It’s been four months since I got my hands on a Hydrasynth, at Synthfest. Since then, in the UK at least, we’ve been waiting for that slow boat from China…

57

I would have thought they were shipping from the UK, primarily.

58

ASM is a Chinese company. There’s no UK involvement, as far as I know.

59

Ah! ASM, yes.

I misread that as you having already had the Hydrasynth for four months, since purchasing it at Synthfest. And then, completely losing sight of context, I thought we were talking about Roli again with the slow shipment.

(To be fair, Roli is synonymous with slow shipment right now.)

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60

By the way, the LUMIs are assembled in Mexico.

As for the Hydrasynth, I did manage to get the desktop one in the UK about 3 weeks ago, but only because the store I used also had a warehouse in Sweden which I presume got its goods from a completely different distributor to the one used in the UK. The UK distributor (Source) has certainly ramped up its marketing efforts in the last 5 or 6 weeks (eg Mylar Melodies works for Source and has featured in various UK retailers Hydrasynth promo videos in this time period) and if they havent had a batch in yet, it should be imminent. The size of the batch I cannot estimate, and in general demand is outstripping supply for the Hydrasynth all over the place.