that’s really good to hear!
Hopefully Roli has now found a good balance between affordable and quality!
did you / anyone look at the airwave?
the tech is likely ‘not much’ (leap motion in a fancy stand?), but these things are often more about how well the software integrates into a cohesive / easy to use system.
Im intrigued if the education side will be profitable for Roli, a difficult one to judge as it’s aimed (presumably) at the self teaching crowd… but I guess Roli already tried it with the Lumi and saw some success there?
I ordered the airwave, too. It is still in production though, fingers crossed it arrives soon!
The technology behind this seems to be leap motion indeed (they now even bought the company). Initially they seem to focus on three gestures (raise, tilt, glide), but under the hood they have full all-joints hand tracking. So hopefully they make use of that or expose it in some way. MusikKraken shows what is already possible with a simple webcam/phone-cam, so this might become highly interesting!
1 Like
yeah, the AR market has been doing a lot with hand / gesture tracking in the last couple of years.
I think the tricky bit is integrating this all so its not gimmicky…
we’ve seen things like MU Gloves, rings, and leap motion they are ok for experimenting with , but it kind of wears off after a while ( *)
I think this could be different if the software integrates more tightly with the keyboard - I think thats the vision at least.
but yeah, it all comes down to the software… what does it do? does it naturally add something?
the Osmose is a great example of that, forget the tech, what it does feels natural to (even) piano players (pb wiggle, extra pressure, pressure weighted slides). rather than tech solution looking for a ‘problem’ which can sometimes be the case?! ( ** )
( * ) ofc, there’s always a niche, some have based their whole ‘performance’ around it, thats why gloves were marketed towards peformance arts/ dancers, as well as musicians.
( ** ) in fairness, this is common accusation of any new tech… luddites rejoice 
Part of the challenge might be that everything tends to have to be zero learning path instant usability. It would be interesting whether something like a Theremin would still get a chance to be made today or whether it would instantly be rejected as unapproachable (=not instantly playable). And performances like this won’t come on day one.
That said, it will be interesting to play with the three expressions that Roli has chosen for now. They are instantly approachable but might still add to expressiveness (easy to learn, headroom for those who are willing to spend some time). We will only see with time what can be done with that and whether it will get tracktion.
1 Like
I missed that announcement!
That clarifies a few things, for sure.
That’s honestly also the only article I read about this. “Not long after, we started discussing an extensive partnership, and I found that many of the things I hoped to do by acquiring Leap Motion could be done through partnering with Tom and his team. Fortunately, ROLI and our new Airwave platform have grown into a core project for Ultraleap […]” doesn’t necessarily mean “we tacked one or two Leap Motions on a stand and called it a day”, but I guess they didn’t restart from scratch 
First (in this case sponsored) video reviews (or perhaps more demonstrations…) incoming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvYkZkiXUwY
Mostly about the Airwave, but the Piano also gets a slot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpWzITjAi6g
Sad to hear that many had to go 
I was convinced that this will have a major impact when I first played around with a Leap Motion. You have your hands always with you, how many input devices could be replaced by that. It didn’t happen though. Yet?
Fingers crossed they can make Airwave something great now!
Leap Motion was just so portable, in ways that Roli Airwave isn’t.
You can’t slip this in your laptop bag.
You even can’t mount it on your keyboard stand. Much less in a dual tier setup.
I do find it deeply ironic that after abandoning their core user base to focus exclusively on VR/XR, Ultraleap was purchased by someone with no interest in that market.
EDIT:
Do we have an Airwave topic? One for Leap Motion? Hand tracking in general? I’ve probably derailed this one. Sorry, mods.
I guess people who are interested in the Piano are to some degree also interested in the Airwave. Not much more to say about the Airwave anyways atm., as long as almost nobody has it yet.
I’m interested in the Piano, but still upset that Airwave requires it’s stand, and that it’s stand has to sit behind your keyboard.
Piano itself might work in your lap, but that’s without Airwave.
How many perfectly good keyboard stands do you have lying around? Doesn’t matter; you need a table.
That’s wild.
They could have built mounting holes into the Piano case, like Osmose has on the back of theirs.
Or designed their housing to sit on top of your keyboard, perhaps as part of a sheet music stand?
This wasn’t unsolvable.
(sigh.)
Maybe they’ll relaunch the portable version for DIY enthusiasts as Airwave M.
Good point. One might be able to come up with a custom attachment solution. But could have been there from the start, at least for Piano.
I guess for in-home use, folks can just put a small shelf on the wall, behind their keyboard stands.
On stage, folks are going to need something like this, I guess.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XStdTblTpSet--gator-frameworks-gfw-utl-xstdtbltopset-utility-table-top-with-double-x-style-stand
…but with something in the back to discourage audience participation.
(barbed wire, perhaps)
I don’t have a solution for lap use.
(maybe a TV tray.)
yeah, that’s a really good point…
though looking at pictures, it might be problematic to come up with a design that allowed it to work both with a stand and without (directly attached to roli piano), as the angle for the arms would have to be a bit different.
I suspect one strength of this stand, for the software is having a fixed position / angle.
also, they seem to be using it as a holder of sheet music/tablet, so has some utility.
I guess one of those cases where for a large percentage of users its a ‘non issue’, and so KISS. I think they have a pretty defined target market.
it seems its only ever picture with an iPad, to the point some may assume you’d need a tablet to use it.
Leap motion, I think they struggled for a while to find a market.
initially they had some success in the AR/VR market. Im a little surprised they weren’t bought out by one of the headset manufactures. but they all developed their own inside out tracking solutions… so no-one had a need for leap.
Im hopeful that Roli can find a subtle / natural way to include its use… as I dont think waving your hands around is ever going to be something most want.
sure… sure, the Theremin, but whilst enduring, and for sure loved by many, its not really mainstream - and has a reputation as hard to play. so not really a good example of how hand waving has a future
1 Like
For Roli Learn, their educational plattform the iPad isn‘t just a placeholder. It only works on iOS and Android atm., so a tablet is your best bet.
As a midi controller: Piano is (I think) usable as a generic midi device, (I already had the ROLI apps installed so I cannot say for sure). For Airwave (I also think) the application that is available for macOS and Windows has to run.
—-
Theremin is hard to play, yes. And violin, too. And pretty much every instrument when one wants to reach a certain level. The optimal case are perhaps instruments like piano and guitar which offer a more graceful entry (while still the sky is the limit on the other end).
Wouldn‘t write off the idea of handwaveium, let‘s see
1 Like
I honestly do think that Airwave is a useful accessory; just not for piano.
I think it makes more sense paired with a controller you don’t touch as often.
A step sequencer, perhaps.
Or a clip launcher.
Something with a bank of toggle buttons that don’t offer expressive touch, where you might not feel compelled to change a pattern once it’s running.
It could add so much in that scenario.
(it’s just sort of insane that Roli ran with “take your hands off the controller”, never considering that this might be antithetical to their whole deal.)
Good point. In most cases probably one hand this, one hand that. Or one person keys, one person waveing? That could come close to what John Lambert, the inventor of the Eigenharps had in mind with several people interacting to shape the sound together
(Only in his vision as far as I understood it there are not just five additional gestures but a whole note based configuration language that some persons could use to change a complex sound generation environment in realtime while other members of the group contribute notes and expressions into this system. And all that together creates the performance.)
2 Likes
this area was one of the focus on the MiMu Gloves, the software part was mostly about creating gestures.
I suspect the gloves are much more accurate for this, and perhaps more practical (less interference) in a full stage setup.
ofc, the advantage of airwave/leap motion is cost.
the real difference this time around (over geco with leap) is per finger tracking.
not general gestural control (which we’ve seen various implementations of)
my suspicion is that this is where Roli interests are, even if its mid-term.
add the X/Y axis support to the Piano via finger tracking rather than (expensive) hardware keyboard support.
(being able to use with other keyboards they’ve already stated is a ‘bonus’, not their main market / focus )
this makes sense to me,
it goes back to what I was saying earlier about having to be ‘natural’, like the pressure weighted glide on the Osmose - something you dont have to think about, that you dont have to adapt to, it just feels natural to do.
few musicians care about this stuff…
the most oft repeated sentiment on the Osmose release was - “you can just wiggle your finger to get vibrato, haven’t we all tried this on piano”
Yes, per finger tracking could be key!
After some thought: This system should pretty much be able to do most of the things that the Soma Flux does. The Piano is a reference system that shows above which note you are hovering. (The above part of the claviature has equidistant spacing between semitones for chromatic playing, the front part has equidistant spacing for diatonic tunings.)
In the simplest mode the index finger could be the reference which pitch is played, so one would have one voice per hand.
Or, given the full finger tracking, one would have “air key press chords” that would track several fingers, even allowing to play chords. The shapes would be intuitive - exactly the finger shape that would play that chord when one would move the hand further down so it would actually touch and press the keys.
Distance could be volume, horizontal axis is obviously pitch, y and tilt some timbres. Actually pressing a key could then be “aftertouch” and that fist gesture could switch between flux-like “air voice” and keys+air expressions like they have planned in now. (Could be switchable per hand, so one hand can play a melody in “air voice mode” while the other plays either accompaniment on the keys or adds extra expressions with the three default Airwave gestures)
I hope they will implement that I am almost certain that this would be cool!
(Or that that horizontal gesture at least provides an absolute high res CC value then one could do at least the voice-per-hand mode e.g. with a Max patch/GigPerformer script/small program etc.)