ROLI's writing on the wall happened

[machinesworking]

I just came to post the same thing.. will repost since your link may not be clickable as a new user:

https://roli.com/stories/roli-reforms-a ... ed-to-know

"Does ROLI still exist as a company?

As part of the restructure, ROLI Ltd has gone into administration. The new company, Luminary, has taken over all the IP, staff, products, brands and assets of ROLI. However, the ROLI and LUMI brands will continue as before, including roli.com, playlumi.com and their associated social media pages.

Seems like just a name change after all.
rsp

Read between the lines a little. Any press release like this is carefully worded, and the word used for Roli, Equator, Cypher etc. is "support". This is the key difference, only Lumi product get the word update. Quoted with bold to show what I mean here:

What will happen to my ROLI products?

All existing ROLI products will continue to be supported as before — including the Seaboard, BLOCKS, LUMI Keys, Equator2 and ROLI Studio. FXpansion synths Cypher2 and Strobe2 will also continue to be supported.

Your LUMI products will also continue to be supported — in fact this new investment ensures that we will continue to update LUMI and bring you more of the music, lessons, and games you love.

We will continue to honor all ROLI and LUMI products in warranty and provide support and technical assistance through the same channels on playlumi.com and roli.com.

Only Lumi is guaranteed to be updated. So it's not any stretch to imagine something from the Roli line is on thin ice.

[ThomasHelzle]

I find velocity also annoying, no matter what setting I use.

I do not think I can change the sensor calibration, can I?

it sounds to me as though the seaboard hardware has a problem. i don't think there's a way for users to alter the sensor sensitivity thresholds, just the user curve in the dashboard app. if this is across the board, it might be an issue in the controller rather than the sensor. when i returned my first one it had a dead sensor, but that only affected part of the keyboard - just one keywave iirc. from that i assume there are multiple sensors arranged across the seaboard so to have them all doing the same thing sounds like it's either a firmware thing or there's a single converter that multiplexes between the individual sensors that isn't getting the right readings because of a dodgy resistor or something.

either way, it's a tech-support issue.

Possible, but that just shows how badly the whole system is designed.

It would be simple to have an advanced tab in the dashboard and allow for more intricate settings, like a lower threshold, an upper threshold and then a curve in between.
There could also be some kind of testing tool built in, if the unit is inside specs.
The unit at least behaves the same across the whole surface.

I can do some adjustments on the Midi level, but then the data is already down to 7 bits and for most of the issues it doesn't help (I tried a lot before I gave up).

How is the user to know if his/her unit does what it's supposed to do with a controller like this?

Cheers,

Tom

[machinesworking]

The bottom strip of the Rise is perfectly playable and bump free for slides. Takes practice to get pitch right, but so does any fretless instrument.

Anyway, YouTube is chock full of great Rise performances. I’ve heard one good Linnstrument performance during it’s entire lifespan. Only one. While I’ve never had the chance to play one, I can’t ignore that evidence. Even Roger Linn can’t play it well. I’ve heard many great Eigenharp and Continuum performances.

I have no idea what your parameters are for a great performance are, but on a purely technical level I would reverse this, most Roli performances online even from official sources have sharp or flat initial strikes, it's simply much much less conducive to playing to play a "fretless" piano than a fretless bass or guitar. I have a Block and it's cool but I gave up on thinking it was going to be a precise instrument when all these super pro demos from Roli all mostly have sharp and flat notes occasionally.

If you're talking about the style of playing then I get where you're coming from, Linn like old school music, so all of the demos are emulations of real instruments and soloing, in comparison to Roli's focus on modern sounds.

[Ploki]

I play mosty bassed with my Rise25.
Slight snapping settings, it feels like a fretless with just a tad bit of fret lol.

But larger rise has a different- smoother mould and larger surface, its much easier to play.
Also keys are bigger so more room for pitch.

[vurt]

that will be why he looks so sad
.

Screenshot_2021-09-03-19-37-44-405~2.jpg

[gaggle of hermits]

now I feel old

[masterhiggins]

It looks like they didn’t mention Geist in that quote.

[digitalboytn]

Read between the lines a little. Any press release like this is carefully worded...

This is the story about the meat and the sandwich

[Angus_FX]

Some of my stuff is registered with FXpansion, some of it with Roli.

They said don’t worry about it we’re going to merge everything soon.

That was approximately two years ago.

Not sure what’s best to do now.. would be good to have a statement from Angus/FXpansion as well.

Judging by how they abandoned Guru/Tremor etc.. I don’t have high hopes.

I'm a little wary of posting from this account, since the "_FX" identifies me with FXpansion, which I no longer have any connection with or say in.

Which leaves not much to say beyond, I don't have any say in what happens to FXpansion's products.

In the event that the servers are shut down and the company no longer exists, there is a mechanism by which I could release an universal unlock tool, to allow unlocks forever without a working server. It's a couple of days' work with the right information. There are four or five other devs out there with access to the same knowledge and information, should I get hit by a bus (a non-zero probability for someone who cycles miles around London every day in a vain - in both senses - attempt to keep the desk fat under control).

However, right now as far as I can tell the business is still operational - the web site is still up, the shop is open, the company is still registered, the underlying IP (source code and trademarks) remains the property of FXpansion or Luminary ROLI, I don't know which. Releasing the unlocker while they're still selling the products would obviously damage their business, so there's no way I'm going to do that.

Geist2, Strobe2 and Cypher2 were all updated shortly before I left. The latter two have native Apple Silicon support. Geist2 does not, because of dependencies on the REX Shared Library and Intel's math libraries - it could be updated, but whether or not it'd make economic sense for whichever company owns it to do so, I couldn't tell you.

Sorry not to be able to be more helpful, and I wish you all well.

[pdxindy]

Sorry not to be able to be more helpful, and I wish you all well.

As helpful as you could be... thanks for the update!

[zvenx]

......


they got the name wrong: Hewlett not Hewett. he’s now at image-line.

My bad, sorry Hewlett indeed.
rsp

[elxsound]

Sorry not to be able to be more helpful, and I wish you all well.

Best of luck with the new gig!

[masterhiggins]

I hope IL isn’t the next company to s*** the bed.

[bmanic]

Geist2, Strobe2 and Cypher2 were all updated shortly before I left. The latter two have native Apple Silicon support.

Sorry not to be able to be more helpful, and I wish you all well.

This is awesome that you reminded us! I didn't know Cypher 2 was Apple Silicon native! Just installed it and it works brilliantly.

Wish you all the best for the future.

[machinesworking]

meetings notes from a former employee.

https://github.com/ArnoldBalm/ROLI