ROLI Airwave – A Vision Into The Future?
Has ROLI Revolutionised Music Making Again?
3,3 / 5,0 | 
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
ROLI Airwave · Source: ROLI
The new ROLI Airwave is more than just a new controller. It’s the start of a multi-faceted ecosystem designed to revolutionise the way we interact with instruments.
Some Backstory
When ROLI launched the Seaboard, it was hailed by many as one of the most innovative updates on the traditional piano keyboard for many years. Its unique use of silicone enabled players to express in ways never before seen in keyboards.
A number of versions followed, along with some financial issues which saw the original incarnation of the business go bankrupt, only to rise (pun abso-frickin-lutely intended!) again with the brand under a new umbrella organisation, Luminary.
Introducing the ROLI Airwave
Things have been quiet on the ROLI front for a while, but today, we can see what they’ve been working on, and it has the possibility of shaking up music-making once again. Let’s meet the ROLI Airwave.
ROLI Airwave, when combined with a ROLI keyboard, is, so ROLI claim, “the world’s first intelligent practice assistant that can see your hands, hear your voice and give you precise feedback as you progress“. However, write this off as just another novel educational tool at your peril. ROLI has bigger plans for Airwave.
True to the ethos of their other controllers, ROLI Airwave is also aimed at people who want to bring expression control out of the keyboard and into the air, as the product name suggests! But it doesn’t just stop with gesture control. Airwave responds to your voice too.
Piano AI
The ROLI Airwave uses 3D infrared cameras and their own proprietary Vision technology to “see” your hands and to capture and interpret precise finger movements and gestures as you play. This ability to capture your hands in 3D can bring a wealth of extra capabilities to any ROLI keyboard
When coupled with ROLI’s new Piano AI technology, it combines language models with the innovative hand-tracking and can understand and respond to your natural voice commands. This gives you real-time assistance and makes for a more natural learning experience.
Ask Piano AI to show you a chord, demonstrate a full piece of music, offer advice and help to improve your playing technique and ROLI promises you a more immersive and rewarding learning experience. Because it can “see” your hands, it is able to offer advice on posture and hand position, as well as tutoring on harmony and melody.
ROLI Music Intelligence Platform
The ROLI Airwave is built on and powered by the ROLI Music Intelligence (MI) platform. It is ROLI’s intention to use this platform as the basis of a new roadmap of intelligent products, of which Airwave is the first. So welcome to a world where you may have to move the breakables out of the way as you wave your arms around and explore the likes of Air Raise, Air Glide, Air Tilt and more interactive gestures.
More Information
There are some caveats when considering buying into this platform. Firstly, the ROLI Airwave and ROLI Learn software are compatible with iPadOS 17 and Android 10+ devices. You will need a minimum of 5th Gen iPad Air/Pro, Galaxy Tab S7 or above or a Google Pixel tablet. You will also need a ROLI keyboard.
Airwave is set to retail for $299 USD/€299 EUR/£249 GBP. Piano M will retail for $249/€229/£219 and a year of ROLI Learn subscription will be $99.99/€99.99/£79.99.
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3 responses to “ROLI Airwave – A Vision Into The Future?”
YAWN. I have done the exact hand tracking and music control with sub-$100 leap motion controller for almost a decade now.
Yawn. This is old technology that has been around for 10 years. The leap motion controller. i’ve used one in my midi studio since 2015 and it works flawlessly. It’s also 3″ long, as opposed to this gargantuan mess 🙂 It can also be bought used for under $100. Roli is just trying not to go bankrupt a second time with this nonsense. Their marketing was ‘this changes everything’. It would have been more accurate if it were ‘This changes nothing,’ CHEESY.
I’m curious, how does the leap motion controller compare to the Wave? How do they both work for MIDI and hardware control?