Roli, the British maker of expressive music instruments including the Seaboard and Roli Blocks, has entered administration, leaving customers seeking updates on purchases and support for existing equipment. The company emailed users on Monday to say that two licensed insolvency practitioners had been appointed joint administrators on October 20. This is the second time Roli has entered the UK insolvency process.
Customers have posted on forums, Facebook groups and the r/Roli subreddit about orders they say have gone unfulfilled for months or years, and about not receiving responses or refunds. Roli has not publicly explained its plans for the business. The company and founder Roland Lamb did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment, according to the publication.
Owners are also concerned about the future of their instruments. Roli products rely on proprietary launchers and companion apps for connecting devices and configuring sounds and settings. The hardware still works, but users fear that a loss of software support could eventually make some equipment unusable.
The company’s financial difficulties predate its latest insolvency. Founded in 2009, Roli gained attention after investments from musician Pharrell Williams in 2017 and Sony’s Innovation Fund in 2018. It later received support through the UK Government’s Future Fund during the pandemic, but entered administration in 2021. It then relaunched as Luminary Roli, focusing on music-learning products such as the Lumi keyboard and Airwave.
Customers had also reported communication problems and delays before the company’s latest collapse. Lluís Gerard, a longtime Roli reviewer who posts as WasabiNoise, told WIRED that customers had often been left without clear explanations when orders were delayed.
Roli helped popularize MIDI polyphonic expression, or MPE, a technology that lets musicians vary a note’s pitch and timbre through touch and movement. But its instruments served a specialized market, and the company struggled to keep up with orders during pandemic-related supply chain problems.
Some users are now working to keep the devices functional without Roli’s software. Sam Hocking, a UK audio engineer and owner of several Seaboard Blocks, shared tools on GitHub and the Roli subreddit that allow Roli’s Grand, Rise, Airwave and Block devices to operate without the company’s launcher. Other users have contributed fixes and modifications.
Sources: WIRED.