NAMM 2025: Hear the word ‘piano’ and the chances are that you’ll visualise an acoustic or digital instrument with 88 keys that can be played without the need to connect it to anything else. ROLI, however, has other ideas: its new ‘Piano’ is a 49-note light-up controller keyboard that’s designed to be used with its previously announced Airwave hardware and piano learning software.
The ROLI Piano looks like a larger version of the company’s Piano M, which itself bears more than a passing resemblance to the Lumi keyboard that we first heard about way back in 2019. It’s said to feature “full-sized, full-plunge depth keys that feel and sound phenomenal,” though of course, the actual sound you hear will depend on which software you’re controlling. There’s also per-key pitchbend and polyphonic aftertouch.
Alongside ROLI Piano, we’re also getting a companion AI Assistant, a generative AI platform that promises to make learning to play “easier, more intuitive and more fun than ever before”. When these two products are combined with the Airwave, you get what ROLI is calling the ROLI Piano System.
The Airwave is a physical stand that looms over your keyboard and includes infrared cameras that track 27 points in each hand at 90 frames per second. It generates real-time feedback that’s designed to help you improve your hand positioning, finger placement and technique.
When you’re using the companion ROLI Learn app - and as with the Piano M - the ROLI Piano’s keys will light up so that you can see which notes to play and when to play them. And if you want to indulge in some real-time sound design, raising your hands off the keyboard will enable you to use air gestures - glide, tilt, flex and slide - to control the parameters of your choosing.
Once connected to your computer or tablet over Bluetooth or USB-C, ROLI Piano can be used with your choice of DAW and/or software instrument, but with the ROLI Studio software also included, you already have plenty of presets that have been designed specifically to get the most out of the keyboard’s features.
The ROLI Piano is certainly a hi-tech piano learning solution, and we don’t doubt that, if you buy into ROLI’s ecosystem - a ROLI Learn subscription costs £13 a month or £100 for the year (currently £80) - you’ll make some good progress. However, you’ve also got to factor in the cost of the piano itself: currently $399/£319/€399, but rising to $599/£419/€599 in due course.
If you want the Airwave as well, it’s available in a bundle that currently costs $648/£548/€648, rising to $948/£798/€948.
Our concern is that the 49-key size means that, at some point, you’ll probably want something bigger than the ROLI Piano. Four octaves might be fine to begin with, but as your skills progress and you start to play more expensively with both hands simultaneously, it’s probably not going to be enough.
Find out more on the ROLI website. The earliest shipping date for the ROLI Piano is May 2025, while the next round of Airwaves is scheduled to land at the end of June 2025.
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