ROLI's writing on the wall happened

[Amberience]

meetings notes from a former employee.

https://github.com/ArnoldBalm/ROLI

I read one, then I read all five. The Glassdoor we've always wanted.

lol 'Lambsplain'

Yeah, that had me howling.

This has probably been asked, but you don’t have anyone you can talk to about rehoming Geist/tremor/bloom/etc. do you? Or is that impossible because of the bankruptcy?

Unfortunately I don't no. I would love to get them all and update them and do a sweet bundle or something but there are limits to my power.

[epiphaneia]

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).

Here´s hoping you don´t get hit by a bus, but I wondered about that in the other thread, so it´s good to know /you/ thought of that, as I have zero trust in Roli that they´d care enough (of course they might just shut down the auth server without permitting anyone to publish such a tool, but hey, things sometimes suddenly appear on the internet...).

whether or not it'd make economic sense for whichever company owns it to do so, I couldn't tell you.

I know I´d consider switching DAWs (or adding a 2nd one) if there was a Geist 3 plugin in FL

[pdxindy]

I know I´d consider switching DAWs (or adding a 2nd one) if there was a Geist 3 plugin in FL

That would be horrible... alive, but forever out of reach!

[vurt]

one of the fxpansion lot, sshould steal the code, rework it, then release it free, as "heist"


(its a joke on geist, im not advocating corporate espionage. unless you want to do it, then ill happily say "good lad! just like robin hood!")

[machinesworking]

I know I´d consider switching DAWs (or adding a 2nd one) if there was a Geist 3 plugin in FL

That would be horrible... alive, but forever out of reach!

This is what Alchemy users experienced when Camel was discontinued as a company and it was integrated into Logic.

[machinesworking]

One thing I feel should be pointed out, nobody should like watching an innovative company flounder like this. Reading the github meeting notes, I get the impression that Roli wanted to be Apple, but missed the whole schtick that Apple does, they take all your money for sure, but you get solid product, everything is fairly well integrated etc. it feels like a whole ecosystem. Roli started just shooting from the hip it seems, and as an outsider looking in you could get this impression, super "intuitive" prepackaged systems but in some ways the exact opposite of the Seaboard idea, geared towards making people feel like they "created" a beat by tweaking an interface that changed a loop etc. It's just such a huge gap between the two possible customers iMO, made it hard to think about what the market was? who are they serving?

It's just always disappointing when this happens, I own the Seaboard Block, Cypher, Strobe, Geist, Equator. I'm not happy about any of this, basically another possible depreciated group of great plug ins and hardware. These types of "restructuring" moves are common before a company just folds.

[digitalboytn]

one of the fxpansion lot, sshould steal the code, rework it, then release it free, as "heist"

[Greenstorm33]

These types of "restructuring" moves are common before a company just folds.

I honestly don't see how this will end any other way. At the end of the day it's the same people selling the same products. If they couldn't make it selling a fairly innovative controller I don't see how pivoting to focus on an overpriced light-up keyboard with an integrated subscription service that you need two of to actually play is going to end any better. Apparently it's worth 5 million GBP though

[machinesworking]

These types of "restructuring" moves are common before a company just folds.

I honestly don't see how this will end any other way. At the end of the day it's the same people selling the same products. If they couldn't make it selling a fairly innovative controller I don't see how pivoting to focus on an overpriced light-up keyboard with an integrated subscription service that you need two of to actually play is going to end any better. Apparently it's worth 5 million GBP though

Ugh! I really like Cypher 2 and Equator 2..

[masterhiggins]

one of the fxpansion lot, sshould steal the code, rework it, then release it free, as "heist"


(its a joke on geist, im not advocating corporate espionage. unless you want to do it, then ill happily say "good lad! just like robin hood!")

On the plus side, Roli probably doesn’t have enough money to hire any lawyers.

[Echoes in the Attic]

These types of "restructuring" moves are common before a company just folds.

I honestly don't see how this will end any other way. At the end of the day it's the same people selling the same products. If they couldn't make it selling a fairly innovative controller I don't see how pivoting to focus on an overpriced light-up keyboard with an integrated subscription service that you need two of to actually play is going to end any better. Apparently it's worth 5 million GBP though

And the Lumi keyboards are much worse products (quality-wise) than the seaboards and light blocks.

[BONES]

or you could just develop software for the native instruments keyboards and avoid having to flog hardware entirely if all you need are light-up keys.

You're assuming Roland Lamb's only desire is to make money but I imagine he has a lot of personal investment in Seaboards and Blocks.

if you are going to expect to teach piano, you need a lot of those lumi modules and the keybed in the ni keyboards sells far more widely.

You cannot possibly know that .I have never, for example, seen an NI keyboard outside of a shop, except in YouTube videos. I don't know anyone who has one, I've never seen one on a stage. I think it's very likely Arturia sell way more keyboards than NI but even that would be dwarfed by the likes of Korg, Yamaha and Roland.

unless the lumi can magically detect bad technique (which might be possible through some of the sensors i think are in these machines), this has as many problems as zoom or any other remote-teaching technique. but realistically, the only thing that can help on the technique side (posture etc) is a video camera or physical presence.

Don't be ridiculous. I managed to learn how to play keyboards without ever thinking about "posture" or worrying about anything as arcane as technique. Have you seen Lumi in action? It's like a PlayStation game (Rock Star or whatever its called) - it's an opportunity for people to play along to some of their favourite songs and pretend like they can play, I can see it being very successful if they can get it out into retail stores. It would sell up a storm if they had 'em in Apple Stores, for example.

the big problem now is what happens to the dashboard software for the seaboards.

Who cares? My stuff all works now and I've just bought an extra Lightpad as a spare so I'm fine. It's not like this day hasn't been coming for a year or more.

Well deserved fail. Burning investment capital while doing stupid things and not listening to customers is the classical "startup" killer.

And in what way, exactly, were they not listening to customers? I reckon Equator 2 is pretty much completely about what customers asked for and the Seaboard Block clearly addressed a lot of customer's issues with the keywaves on the original Seaboards. That's being a lot more responsive to customer feedback than I've ever seen from Korg, Roland or NI.

I still can’t make sense of purchasing one of their Lumi keyboards other than it looking cool. I once was considering it for portability, but never pulled the trigger because the price point didn't make sense.

Have you ever used one? I thought the same as you until I got to play one in a shop. After that, price was no longer a barrier for me, although I did wait until I could get one a little bit cheaper that retail.

Here is hoping the fxpansion/equator 2 stuff keeps working for a while.

Why wouldn't they keep working forever?

[elxsound]

I still can’t make sense of purchasing one of their Lumi keyboards other than it looking cool. I once was considering it for portability, but never pulled the trigger because the price point didn't make sense.

Have you ever used one? I thought the same as you until I got to play one in a shop. After that, price was no longer a barrier for me, although I did wait until I could get one a little bit cheaper that retail.

The Lumi keyboard or the Roli Seaboard Blocks?

I don’t see usefulness of their Lumi keyboards at their current price.

The Seaboard block and Light Blocks, I have both.

[BONES]

Lumi seems OK, it's a lot cheaper than a Seaboard Block and you can connect them up. I wanted a Lumi so I could attach it to my Seaboard Black so I'd have two octaves of squishy and two octaves of normal, but Roli still won't sell me one. (I had missed that you were talking about Lumi, originally).

[gaggle of hermits]

or you could just develop software for the native instruments keyboards and avoid having to flog hardware entirely if all you need are light-up keys.

You're assuming Roland Lamb's only desire is to make money but I imagine he has a lot of personal investment in Seaboards and Blocks.

if you are going to expect to teach piano, you need a lot of those lumi modules and the keybed in the ni keyboards sells far more widely.

You cannot possibly know that .I have never, for example, seen an NI keyboard outside of a shop, except in YouTube videos. I don't know anyone who has one, I've never seen one on a stage. I think it's very likely Arturia sell way more keyboards than NI but even that would be dwarfed by the likes of Korg, Yamaha and Roland.

unless the lumi can magically detect bad technique (which might be possible through some of the sensors i think are in these machines), this has as many problems as zoom or any other remote-teaching technique. but realistically, the only thing that can help on the technique side (posture etc) is a video camera or physical presence.

Don't be ridiculous. I managed to learn how to play keyboards without ever thinking about "posture" or worrying about anything as arcane as technique. Have you seen Lumi in action? It's like a PlayStation game (Rock Star or whatever its called) - it's an opportunity for people to play along to some of their favourite songs and pretend like they can play, I can see it being very successful if they can get it out into retail stores. It would sell up a storm if they had 'em in Apple Stores, for example.

i’m wondering whether you ever read anything you reply to. or do you just hammer away on the keyboard regardless?