ROLI

ROLI is a London-based music technology company known for the Seaboard, BLOCKS, and other high tech musical instruments. It was founded by the American-born musician, designer and entrepreneur Roland Lamb in 2009. Its first instrument, the Seaboard, is based on the piano keyboard. The Seaboard has a continuous surface of pliable silicone rather than the hard, discrete keys of a piano. The instrument introduced a way for musicians to play "in between" the keys of a standard piano, bend the pitch of a note by making vibrato-like sideways movements, and manipulate sound in other ways through touch. The Seaboard's expressive touch technology was adapted for BLOCKS, a mass-market music-making device, in 2016. The company develops both hardware and software. In addition to its musical instruments and devices it created the NOISE app and the Equator software synthesizer. It also owns the C++ audio coding framework JUCE and the social music-sharing platform Blend.

In 2013, shortly after the device’s release, the ROLI Seaboard GRAND was awarded the People’s Choice Award for “Best Instrument” at the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. This was followed in 2014 with the Design the Year award from the Design Museum of London, and the Swarovski Emerging Talent Medal presented at the Celebration of Design Awards at the London Design Festival.

The ROLI Seaboard RISE 25 is the company’s most awarded product, with the device receiving seven awards. These include the Consumer Technology Association CES Best of Innovation Award and a Popular Mechanics Editors’ Choice Award.

In 2016, the ROLI Seaboard RISE 25 was crowned ‘Product of the Year’ by FutureMusic.

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