ROLI & Yamaha have announced a new collaboration, Airwave x Montage M, that brings the gestural control of ROLI’s Airwave system to Yamaha’s Montage M synthesizer.
ROLI’s Airwave gives you gestural control of the Montage M, by tracking the movement of your hands above your keyboard. This means that a hand gesture can trigger crescendos, morph timbres, or modulate textures.
Sound designers Dom Sigalas and Marcus Levy-Chance have created 16 Airwave-enabled presets for the Montage M, that highlight the power fo the pairing, including:
- CS80 Conductor – a Vangelis-inspired synthetic symphony
- Orchestral Voyage – a hybrid of traditional and futuristic textures
- Horror Box – a cinematic evolution of the classic theremin sound
- EP Majestic – transforms from an electric piano into bold, brassy arpeggios
- 3D Analogue Bass – squelchy, saturated and irresistibly dynamic
Airwave x Montage M Presets Demo:
The new presets are available now to download from the ROLI site.
Wow! Fun!
One cannot play and modulate at the same time, unless the ROLI is placed on the floor to be used with the feet. That might make it interesting.
This reminds me of a comic strip I saw with a very DEVO-looking band from the future. The instruments were pretty cockeyed. In this case, it works. I’ve got poly AT and I’m slowly coming around to how useful it is.
The Airwave has obvious potential for stage use. Jarre’s laser harp proved that ages ago. I’m mainly about keys, but I’m leaning into the MPE idea. I look forward to the day people see an MPE controller on top of the rig as a casual thing, where organists used to have Pro Soloists and MiniKorgs.
The thing that makes the laser harp work is that an audience can see tangible cause and effect, plus it looks wicked cool. Friggin’ lasers!
The Airwave does not look functionally better than the gestural control you could get with GECO and a Leap Motion 10 years ago. It just has a marketing budget.
Agreed, I still have Leap Motion and surprisingly it still works as expected under latest macOS 26. It does everything Airwave does but I spent only $69 (new) for it…
It is also mega small in comparison to Airwave contraption…
another approach with the Airwave would be to control one single hardware or software instrument’s parameters. I guess this is possible, but haven’t seen a demonstration yet.
Aftertouch and expression pedal leaves you with two hands to actually play with… Total waste of time and money…