NAMM 2025: ROLI Piano is here, a smart keyboard that makes learning fun

ROLI products are the definition of svelte. Their small footprint and ease of use make them a great addition to any recording space, and their new Piano carries on that tradition.

It’s a 49-note light-up keyboard controller created to be used with ROLI’s Airwave hardware and piano educational software. It resembles a larger version of their Piano M, but there’s more going on here than just a larger keybed with additional octaves.

Full size, full-plunge depth keys add a level of realistic feel that other ROLI models lack. To round out that level of realism, each key offers pitch bend and polyphonic aftertouch.

Educational Features

Beginners will find it especially appealing thanks to a host of educational features that make learning not only immersive, but fun! AI Assistant is a generative model that makes learning the instrument “easier, more intuitive, and fun than ever [before]”.

Combine the Piano, AI Assistant, and the Airwave peripheral device and you get what the company is calling the ROLI Piano System.

By using the ROLI Learn app the keys light up so you know what notes you’re playing and when to play them within the context of the exercise you’re working with.

Innovative Controls

What’s more, you can further manipulate Piano in real time by taking your hands off the keyboard and performing gestures in the air like slide, glide, flex, and tilt. These can be assigned to whatever control parameter you want to use them to manipulate.

What you can fully do with the Piano in terms of recording obviously hinges on what plugin(s) you’re using it to trigger or use the ROLI Studio software. Regardless of that it’s a compact MIDI controller and so much more.

Piano is a next-generation educational platform that makes learning piano fun.