Seaboard

[Trapezium Artist]

Interesting, if rather obviously hyped via "exclusive" previews to journos at the BBC, Guardian, and doubtless half a bazillion others:

http://www.weareroli.com

//http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8n-bEy9ISpM

From the very short demo, it would appear to be rather geared to a certain kind of lounge jazz sound (which left me pretty cold, I'm afraid), but I wonder if the underlying technology could be used to make a lot more interesting music in the hands of certain creative professionals. Cough.

Well, if you can get one: only 88 are being made at the outset and doubtless at daft cost. All part of the hype again, I'm sure.

But I must admit to be particularly tickled when I went to the "Our team" link, especially after having watched the rather amusing Sonic State podcast earlier in the week, when a certain Movies-Played-in-Your-Head-While-Asleep-in-the-local-House-of-Thespians keyboard player was humorously pinged for being all too ready to lend his name in endorsement of new gizmos  8-)

[FreeThoughtTH]

Looks very cool, but I'm getting kind of sick of these super-high end limited-edition products that companies keep showing off at expos like NAMM, etc. Why don't they just make a product we can all buy and enjoy?

The board looks very very cool though. Had a look through the (annoyingly constructed) website and couldn't find any specifications on the board itself though. Is it a MIDI controller only, or does it have built in sounds?

[owen]

is that the one that JR dragged Jem to go and play with? I vaguely remember seeing a tweet about that. It looks exactly like something Rudess will be demo-ing. If it is I thought that they were coming up with different sounds for it

[E.S.]

JR is shouting about this all the time. Billion notes per square inch and square wave based lead in 5....4....3...

[BrendanGee]

"JR: Head of Music Experience"....interesting.  

Makes me wonder if this may be the instrument that will be used in the new F*** album?

All in all, it looks pretty cool. Hope there will be more sound options for it though.

[Jem]

I did indeed go with JR to ROLI labs to give it a spin. It is an interesting idea, but I'm curious to see if it will actually ignite people's imaginations.

Nice idea about JR playing one on 6MIS. I'll ask him if he fancies that.

[FreeThoughtTH]

I did indeed go with JR to ROLI labs to give it a spin. It is an interesting idea, but I'm curious to see if it will actually ignite people's imaginations.

Nice idea about JR playing one on 6MIS. I'll ask him if he fancies that.

I fancy that! Sounds like an excellent idea