Peak Experience

After about a year with this midi keyboard, I could say that it has lasted and never gave me any problems! The idea of pitch shifting and changing modulation through the keyboard doesn't really work that well outside of the software made by Roli themselves, but other then that, I enjoyed using it on some of the songs I have worked on!

Innovative and useful but with issues

I bought the Roli Songmaker Kit second hand at a super low price, thinking to flip it, but first I wanted to try it out, perhaps sample sounds for later use. I'm a big fan of the full Roli Seaboard, particularly the 49-key edition. Shortly after buying the Songmaker Kit, I decided to take it as my main midi controller on a supposed 3-month trip to India, instead of my lighter XKey. It so happened I've been "stuck" here in Goa during global lockdown / home imprisonment, with the Roli Songmaker Kit. I'd have thought I'd use it more but it hasn't been nearly as handy as I desired, and feels less responsive than the bigger Seaboard.

Probably my main issue is that MPE is not presently compatible with Reason, even the excellent, recent Reason 11. Still, I use the Roli plugin. The latency is already super slow through USB - I can't imagine how slow it would be with Bluetooth. Reason also doesn't properly acknowledge the midi devices - sometimes it shows it, other times not. The Lightpad M and Loop Block have been nearly useless to me.

What I like about it is in the native Equator, it sounds nearly perfect and works most responsively. I've even used Equator while sampling it into another program, then importing the samples into Reason, though this process is a lot slower and less ideal. The Block keyboard itself is fairly useful in a general midi setting - but it's missing the high C note, which is highly inconvenient.

I love the portability of it, with the case providing protection for traveling. It looks great, it can sound excellent - I've used it subtly in all my productions so far in 2020. The Songmaker Kit as a whole I find difficult to recommend unless you're using a DAW that fully supports it.

Squishy

Such a cool instrument to use. It'd be great to add another block to for a few more octaves. The interface and integration to non-MPE programs such as Ableton can be a bit time-consuming and difficult at times however.

Best Midi Controller!!

i got this as my second midi device , since my first 61keys keyboard broke, this is great because you can express every detail you want in a song or performance, but i only use this for my production and songwriting process

Beautiful synth but....

The keys are a bit hard to adjust to from playing a full sized keyboard, in case you hadn't considered that. There is a bit of a learning curve to adjust -- I'm relearning scales.

The Future of Details

This one is 300$ which is a lot when it's actually NOT your job. But this can create amazing things, just adding some little details in a track with this give an interesting atmosphere. + it is pretty fun to mess around with the presets.

Very impressive.

It's a weird keyboard. It's squishy, for one. It's very expressive, with many ways to alter a sound. It's clever, and I'll sometimes use this while making music.