£299, roli.com

I recently tested ROLI’s Airwave as part of its Piano Learning System, but the hardware controller also works with any MIDI setup, using the same technology to enable expressive MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) control rather than teaching you to play the keyboard. In this context, Airwave operates alone and you don’t need a ROLI keyboard—they do recommend one for the extra MPE features they offer, but any MIDI keyboard will do for playing notes. The idea, as will be familiar to Seaboard users, is to allow greater expression than regular MIDI gives you. In this case it’s not pressure that generates it, but movements in the air.

• READ MORE: ROLI on the Seaboard BLOCK M: “MPE has become accepted in many producer’s workflows — MIDI 2.0 will be another big step forward”

The Airwave looks sort of like a music stand and indeed, in other configurations is used to prop up a tablet. In standalone mode you arrange it to point its multiple cameras down at the keyboard, which means positioning it as you would a reading light. Plug it into the mains using its power supply and then into your computer over USB-C and it becomes a MIDI input device and also an audio output— a 3.5mm headphone jack is available as is a dongle for a sustain pedal input, though a pedal is not supplied. Actually a computer will power it over USB-C but, if you want to also connect a ROLI Piano magnetically, you’ll need to use mains power.

Registering the unit online unlocks access to the software downloads you will need in order to set up and use it. ROLI Airwave Control is a lightweight app that lets you change modes and recalibrate the sensors while the Airwave Player is a standalone and plugin instrument specially developed for the hardware, with a 6 GB sample library.

On first run the software will ask you to calibrate the hardware based on whichever MIDI keyboard you are using. Up to a full 88 notes can be tracked with the cameras, but you’re likely to be using gestures in a more central zone of somewhere around 49 keys. The software wants you to move your hands around a few times during calibration but the process is incredibly quick and simple.

After this, the five ‘air dimensions’ that the cameras track are shown separately in the Airwave Player and tagged by colour to make them easier to see:

The first thing you will probably want to do is play some of ROLI’s own sounds in the Player, since these have been created to respond to the multiple control channels generated by Airwave. There’s an impressive selection covering a range of types of sound from conventional to experimental, with an emphasis on morphing and changing sounds through gestures rather than necessarily playing overly complex keyboard parts.

As ROLI’s videos demonstrate, you will find yourself playing MIDI keys then using hand gestures to experiment with changing the sound, perhaps holding notes with a sustain pedal or with one hand while creating movements with the other. It’s a little bit like a Theremin, though much more advanced. The visual feedback is invaluable too, with the six dimension sections showing you in real time how your hand movements are being interpreted.

Of course this all takes a little practice—these are largely new ways of interacting with sound and the presets all respond differently, so some time is required to get the hang of it. Like the Seaboard it’s also very much of a style—fairly experimental, not necessarily something you’d use on all your tracks. But still, the camera tracking is incredibly accurate and also without latency, so everything feels pin-sharp. Some dimensions end up being used more and others a little less by their nature and although the hand gestures initially feel strange, you acclimatise quickly.

You can set up Airwave to work with most leading DAWs by following instructions online. Some like Cubase, Logic and Live natively support MPE MIDI. Reaper and FL Studio are also listed, with more limited support for MPE. When using Airwave as a controller for third-party plugins you need to change its mode since by default it sends constant MIDI data, which would overwrite existing MIDI clips.

Follow the setup instructions and you can use the Airwave Control app and MIDI Learn or mapping mode in your DAW to assign individual dimensions to specific parameters inside a plugin or instrument. As a process this could be a bit smoother but it’s not really ROLI’s fault – indeed, custom mapping MIDI channels from any hardware into plugins is usually a multi-step process and often DAWs won’t save that mapping globally either.

The Airwave Player is an innovative and expressive software instrument that, as you’d hope, unlocks the power of Airwave’s hardware. Sadly, at present Airwave isn’t fully compatible with ROLI Studio Player or Studio Drums for MPE (only via manual MIDI mapping), which is a great shame. There may be a technical reason they’re not compatible but I’d hope to see the developer expand the existing instrument offering and potentially add more that work natively with Airwave too.

A few other movement-based MIDI trackers do exist but though cheaper, none approaches the sophistication of Airwave. Leap Motion, Kaos and AirBending rely on iOS devices, phones or webcams to work and are less powerful—often significantly so. At £299, Airwave is reasonably priced for a pretty unique kind of controller with a solid build quality. It’s debatable whether you’re going to use it all the time—what it does is far more expressive than a regular MIDI controller but also maybe something best used for effect. At the price though it’s probably a controller you can add to your studio for just such occasions without breaking the bank.

Key features

• Expressive controller
• ROLI Vision hand-tracking camera
• 3.5 mm TRS headphone output
• 3.5 mm TRS pedal input (including 6.35 mm dongle)
• 2 USB-C ports (data and power)
• Magnetic USB port for use with compatible ROLI hardware
• Class-compliant MIDI over USB

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