Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
RIP Roli
Doesn’t say what’s happening to the Seaboard and Block, just that the new company, Luminary, will be focusing on the beginners light-up Lumi keyboard and learn-to-play subscription software.
Comments
Many saw this coming but what happens to JUCE
Juce has already been sold to PACE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JUCE
So the Noise app will die? That’s some really good software (SWAM rip-off excepted).
They made a serious contribution popularizing MPE MIDI protocols. I do love Noise and bought a lot of those sound banks. This is a sad announcement but understandable given the focus on hardware products when most of us just use IOS touch UI's or cheaper MIDI controllers and don't pay for MPE or
even aftertouch.
That’s a shame. Might be a nice idea if Apple were to buy off their IP.
I have mixed feelings. During a pandemic when the hunger for musical instruments is thru the roof and folks wait months for keyboards... and no one really wants a Roli? Maybe cause they are totally unfun to play...IMO. Now 300 smackers for a two octave gadget. Give me a break. Roland was gonna replace the QWERTY keyboard with a squishy version that went deep.... guess not. He was a pioneer, granted, just not a very good businessman. And 40+ million in losses kind of demonstrates that.
To boot, NOISE became flukes with Cubasis. Never use it anymore.
I had a few ROLI devices and never liked them. Well, I liked the Light Block, but it was such a pain to configure I sold that too.
Its not actually dead btw. All apps and hardware will be supported by the new company. I still have access to all my roli apps on desktop like equator 2.
Shocker.
Just bought equator 2 one months ago…
I still own two lightpad blocks (mostly used together as a very small, very portable 4 octave midi controller), and I spent the last year or so trying to buy a third. They were forever out of stock. I’ve heard similar tales of people wanting to get a rise 49. Simply unavailable. I think the direction the company pivoted to, while seeminly leaving behind their existing customer base is what lead to their demise. Sad to hear it.
Also got the feeling it was headed this way, sad for them given the pioneering effort even if the business never panned out. That said i sold my lightpad block ages ago because it never quite worked properly and then the dashboard software stopped working…
so i guess there were a number of execution problems too but i feel a lot of that came from not being able to grow to fund a big team (i know this chicken and egg problem from experience - you need customers to build a big team to make a quality product, but you need a quality product to attract customers… or you move to the usa where nutters will pour millions into companies that have never sold a single thing
)
Are you in the UK?
Same here. But it's a great synth. Glad I hold off on buying those packs :-)
S..t, Roli acquired one of my favourite desktop plugin developers a few years back (FXpansion). Really hope this hasn't put the kibosh on FXpansion too. They acquired FXpansion so that MPE could become a central point of difference for FXpansion's popular line of synth plugins.
https://fxpansion.com/news/fxpansion-joins-roli/
I use Geist2 (their 'Beat Production System',), Cypher2 and Strobe2 (those two are a pair of virtual analogue/FM synths) on a regular basis and have been using FXpansion creations going all the back to DR008 their drum synthesiser/sampler.
Pretty similar here I know BFD was acquired by InMusic.
quote "We had our eyes set on hypergrowth" ...gross.
The language mauling of venture capitalists…
Roli had no sense of loyalty towards their customers, I’m betting neither will the new outfit.
I was thinking of selling my light pad block
M because I dont use it as much as I thought I would. It’s a very cool device, but just hasnt figured into what I do like I thought it might.
I guess that market may be gone. Or if not, Then I guess I better do it soon.
As others said, not even a little surprising. It feels like this was already kind of the state of things. I felt really ripped off too by the lack of care for even basic maintenance of Noise. No love for iOS for sure.
But I was always really rooting for Roli because of how much I loved and still love my seaboard. Such a story of untapped potential. That device was so uniquely special, and inspirational, at least speaking for myself. The SWAM releases have been a great reminder of that.
The article said the reorganized company may re-release the seaboard. I hope they do. Maybe the support will be better…good chance with a low bar. RIP Roli 😎
What do you mean “no sense of loyalty”?
This is the official ROLI statement: https://roli.com/stories/roli-reforms-as-luminary-what-you-need-to-know
Also this from the forums: "I can confirm that we are planning to bring the Seaboard RISE back into stock in 2022. We are also continuing support and further development for Equator2 and other software."
Peter Kirn has posted a characteristically thoughtful analysis at CDM:
https://cdm.link/2021/09/roli-hits-reboot-files-for-administration-as-it-shifts-to-beginners-and-subscriptions/