ROLI acquires fxpansion -- unexpected industry move

[waxman]

For the most part, I bailed on BFD 3 when Dave Polich got me using Superior Drummer 3. It's well... Superior to BFD 3.

[Michael Canavan]

Ah yes, I should point out that Cypher 2 may be the first soft synth to FULLY exploit MPE. I don't yet own a ROLI controller, but am becoming more curious (a lifelong friend from childbirth onwards, who specializes in Indian instruments, has one and loves it).

Even without MPE, Cypher 2 is a serious synth, as was pointed out, since it gets into semi-modular (if not full-on modular) territory. The upgrade price was minimal for loyal customers, but I feel it is reasonably priced at all levels of entry, considering the competition.

I bought a Seaboard Block to get my feet wet, so no real version of Equator. Before buying Cypher 2 I went deep into Falcon and MPE. Although it can be argued that Falcon is a little harder to program MPE for, it fully supports MPE as well. If you buy any Roli gear you will get a 50% off offer on Cypher 2. Cypher 2 is freaking great!

I'm much more of a guitar player than a keyboard player and I'm pretty sold on the Seaboards. I will eventually get the Rise 49 I bet, a friend has one and I need to visit him and see if what was reported on Sonic State holds true for me as well, (the reviewer thought the smaller keys were an advantage when it came to individual slides etc. compared to the full size keys), because if that's the case it's the difference between $1150 and $300, since you can use two 24 key Blocks to make a 48 key range.

I do not think Roli is going the way of M-Audio, they're definitely branding themselves like Apple do, and Ableton. The only fear is the dumbing down of features, but that's incredibly counter intuitive to the concept of MPE.

[Prime Mover]

Color me completely unsurprised. They've been working together quite closely for a while now, and I guess decided to make it official. I'm more surprised that Roli hasn't acquired Audio Modeling yet. One of the guys works for both companies, and they've put out quite a few joint products and branding. I was expecting Roli to integrate SWAM before FXpansion, but I suspect that this purchase is just the beginning, and AM will be soon to follow.

Not disappointed.

[mhschmieder]

Eric, I'm expecting the same. Maybe it'll still happen. Certainly it led to the split with Sample Modeling. I will be interested to see where MPE goes with the Audio Modeling stuff though -- especially with regards to wind controllers, which ought to be able to handle MPE if one combines all the available parameters in certain ways.

[Michael Canavan]

Eric, I'm expecting the same. Maybe it'll still happen. Certainly it led to the split with Sample Modeling. I will be interested to see where MPE goes with the Audio Modeling stuff though -- especially with regards to wind controllers, which ought to be able to handle MPE if one combines all the available parameters in certain ways.

I'm not really sure why you would need MPE for a wind controller? MPE basically uses one CC (74), aftertouch, velocity, release velocity, and pitch polyphonically. Those are all available with regular MIDI right now monophonically.
I guess if you're talking about soft instruments then yeah, MPE support in a plug in is going to make it easier on people wanting to use wind controllers and other exotic MIDI devices since it means the plug in itself will be designed with those 5 controls in mind...

This all brings up the hope that the next version of DP is MPE compliant. You can make a Folder with 16 tracks in it for MPE instruments, but it's a PITA, it's not one and done, and you have to do it for each instrument you want MPE support for.

[mhschmieder]

Yep, that's what I meant. Pretty sleep-deprived these days; four hours last night, and no more than six max for going on two months now, including weekends. I try to rewrite stuff when I'm more coherent.

[Prime Mover]

You may have not meant this, but AFAIK, Sample Modeling and Audio Modeling (despite their names being similar) were never a single entity. SM was AMs distributer while they were getting going. But it was only a matter of time before SWAM completely overshadowed SMs Kontakt-based products and approach. I don’t know for sure Roli had anything to do with their falling out, but it’s a pretty good bet.

I’m not really much of a business person. It may be financially beneficial for Roli and AM to keep themselves separate at this point, even though they may be (in fact) merged in all but legal status. Roli is British, AM is Italian. FXpansion was British too, so I’m sure it was legally much easier for that acquisition to occur.

Not to get political, but it would very much surprise me if Roli doesn’t acquire AM before Brexit.

[Prime Mover]

Hell, I had this weird thought that Elon Musk would up and buy Roli. He’s dating Grimes, one of their top endorsers, and it seems up his alley. But that’s silly, and bad, and probably makes no business sense, so ignore my ramblings.

[Houndman]

I own a bunch of ROLI products.
RISE 49, Seaboard Block,Lightpad Blocks etc.
Equator is an amazing synth.
The expression via MPE is stunning.
The fx synths are way cool as well.