Having worked with and played ROLI Lightpad M, I’m ready to write this review!

Starting out

The first thing you notice out of the box — ROLI Lightpad M has some heft. If Stanley Kubrick had invented a palm-sized talisman to take humankind to the next level in evolution, Lightpad would be it. It’s dark grey (light black?) with the DNA connector studs on four sides. Lightpad’s heft is due to its 2000mAh Li-po rechargeable battery. The extra weight has two advantages:

• Lightpad feels substantial like a “real instrument”.
• Lightpad does not skitter across the table when played, thanks to both the weight and rubber pad on the bottom.

Overall, it gives the impression of quality, not a cheapo plastic knock-off.

My Lightpad had been sitting idle on a shelf somewhere and the battery was fully discharged on arrival. Lightpad shows battery status when the mode button is pressed (when Lightpad is OFF). I charged Lightpad using the ROLI USB C cable and an Apple iPAD charge adapter. Lightpad needed four hours to come up to full charge.

Tip: Flip Lightpad over and look at the rubber pad. The pad is inscribed with icons indicating button operations and the USB C port.

ROLI Connect (under Windows 10) readily recognized and registered Lightpad. I downloaded a mess o’software including ROLI Player, ROLI Drums, and ROLI Dashboard via ROLI Connect (ROLI’s content manager). Separately, I installed the ROLI Noise app on iPAD (3rd generation Air, IOS 15.6.1).

I already described what it’s like to get started with ROLI’s software ecosystem. Here are some further experiences.

ROLI Noise app

I wanted to play Lightpad M and the ROLI Noise app seemed to be the fastest way to start playing. There are plenty of on-line videos and I won’t go over the same basic territory here.

Noise is a decent way to learn about Lightpad’s basic capabilities as a drum pad and melodic controller. Enable Bluetooth and turn Lightpad ON. Lightpad sweeps a blue arc across the surface signifying connect mode. Launch Noise, tap the power switch icon in the lower right, and follow the dialog boxes to complete connection.

I had watched enough videos to know how to use the two matrices on the main screen: “clip” launcher on the left and key pad on the right. The four small buttons under each column in the key pad select the column (drum and three melodic instruments). Use the voice picker at the bottom to choose an instrument for the selected column.

It’s all intuitive, simple and enough to start horsing around. Noise changes Lightpad’s configuration to reflect on-screen choices.

Tip: Drums come in two forms: drum kits and groove kits. Drum kits assign a voice to each pad and you tap out a pattern in the usual way. Groove kits assign a clip to each pad and should be struck and held. Not knowing this distinction, I thought groove kits were broken, i.e., I didn’t always get an immediate response when briefly striking a pad.

Tip: Pads in the 4×4 and 5×5 configurations are too small for accurate finger drumming. If you can, select and use a 2×2 grid in order to get MPC-sized virtual pads.

I recommend downloading and trying the Pharell “Happy” sound pack. It’s free and is the fastest way to instant gratification. I want to play darn it, not build a drum pattern from scratch. If ROLI revive Noise, they should provide more content of the instant fun variety. I can see why some users might lose interest quickly when they have to microcode everything from scratch using a not always intuitive user interface (UI).

I had the most fun jamming to and messing with the Happy sound pack. I especially liked playing a lead over slowed-down Happy. I messed with scales, chords, arpeggiation. The touch surface is balanced between soft enough and pleasant resistance. It’s just totally cool to play a line and then add extra pizzazz through pressure, glide, slide or whatever gesture you feel.

Tip: The playing surface ripples with so-called “waves”. The waves give a nice textured feel. Lightpad M has both the waves and an improved playing surface; the original Lightpad does not — something to keep in mind when shopping the used instrument market.

Tip: Use ROLI Dashboard and/or Noise to adjust pressure sensitivity. Out of the box, Lightpad is not as responsive to pressure as one would like.

For melodic instruments, notes are laid down on a 5×5 grid. Notes in the chosen scale are lit and non-scale tones are dark. Strangely, I began to recognize major vs. minor, etc. by sight and I could pick out melodies. I honestly didn’t expect that! Select Noise’s Seaboard simulator and Lightpad will follow notes played on-screen.

Noise is fun as far as it goes. In the end, Noise smells like a Web site that’s gotten a bit stale. Not surprising, because ROLI have neglected upkeep in recent years. There are a few UI widgets that don’t seem to operate anymore, e.g., “Hide Note” in the scale picker. Sadly, the SWAM sound packs cannot be installed — something to do with “not available in the AUv3.” Not my problem, ROLI.

ROLI Equator 2 and ROLI Dashboard

The tone gets decidedly “serious” on the personal computer side. ROLI Player and ROLI Drums run standalone and as plug-ins within a DAW or other VST compatible software tool. ROLI Player encapsulates the melodic software instruments Equator 2, Strobe 2 and Cypher 2. ROLI Drums holds up the rhythmic end.

In standalone mode, you can browse the presets while trying out different Lightpad configurations (scales, smart chords, etc.) OK, but not a lot of instant gratification a la the ROLI Noise app.

So, launch Ableton Live and try inserting ROLI Player on a MIDI track. Whoops, Live can’t find the ROLI Player plug-in! Drop into Ableton Live preferences and check the VST plug-in path. ROLI Player and Drums install into:

32-bit plug-in: C:\Program Files\Common Files(x86)\Steinberg\VST2\ 
64-bit plug-in: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2\ 

Darned Ableton Live supports only one custom path which I have already used. I copied the Player and Drums DLL files to the directory at the end of the custom path — a fast and sleazy work-around.

Ableton Live eventually found and created the ROLI Player plug-in. Choose a few funky loops, get the clips started, and now the fun begins, again. ROLI need to make the personal computer side as engaging as ROLI Noise on iPAD. None the less, if you have Ableton Live, you can groove away playing leads, bass lines, whatever in ROLI Player or Drums. The ROLI software bundle includes a download code for Ableton Live Lite, so you should be able to set yourself up.

Overall, in terms of playing experience, ROLI Lightpad M is best suited for leads. Finger drumming and bass require too much good timing and precision on my part. With all five touch dimensions going, however, you can positively shred.

In conclusion

I hope my comments convey the feeling of ROLI Lightpad M as a primary physical controller for synthesis. The experience is a similar to working in Akai’s MPC environment — triggering notes, chords and arpeggios with pads. Unlike MPC pads, Lightpad lets you mangle sound with gestures after the initial strike. It’s a worthy addition to a studio for no other reason than breaking out of muscle memory and mental ruts.

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski

Alright. I bought a cut-rate ROLI Lightpad M. 🙂 I spent the day charging, registering, downloading, installing, and updating. Over 3 gigabytes later…

I will eventually blog about the ROLI Lightpad M itself. For the moment, I’m going to ramble about the ROLI gestalt.

And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
 And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
 And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"
 And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"
-- Talking Heads, "Once In A Lifetime"

Starting out with Lightpad M feels like my first day with Akai MPK Mini. Lots of downloading and plenty of gifts to unwrap. Unboxing Lightpad is more “Apple chic” than “rack ’em and stack ’em.”

You first need to download ROLI Connect — ROLI’s content manager. Yes, yet another content manager. Plug in and ROLI Connect recognizes the Lightpad and guides you through registration. For some reason, ROLI Connect refused to show the Lightpad on its “Devices” tab. A minor quibble as the Lightpad magically appears after a reboot, etc.

You get a pretty decent bundle of stuff (Mac/Windows) just like Akai:

• ROLI Studio Player
• ROLI Studio Drums
• ROLI Dashboard
• Ableton Live Lite (redemption)
• Cycling MAX ’74 (3 month redemption)
• Melodics (3 month redemption)
• Tracktion Waveform (redemption)

I downloaded and installed Studio Player, Studio Drums and Dashboard, leaving the rest for another time.

Sound-wise, you get quite a few packs:

• 5D EDM
• Chillwave Drifting
• Cinematic
• Colours of India
• Elementak EDM
• Elements *
• Equater 2 Fundamentals *
• Experiments
• Giant Dubstep
• Modern Electronic
• Session Keys *
• Structure
• Synthetic Resistance
• Video Games
• Vintage Electronic
• World Colours

I wish ROLI Connect displayed the download sizes before starting the actual downloads. Equator 2 Fundamentals alone weighs 2.5GB. Begin sliding into the deep…

Hmmm, no free SWAM on Mac/PC. Somewhat understandable, as the full Mac/PC titles are tres cher. Still, I was hoping to try a few more SWAM instruments.

Fire up Studio Player and it recognizes the Lightpad M. All good.

And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"

That’s when you know you are in the deep. So, I tapped, swiped and pushed at random. Then spent the evening watching videos. 🙂 Although tedious at times, videos show me how other people use Lightpad and the ROLI software.

When you buy ROLI, you buy into the ROLI ecosystem. That may be a good thing; it may be a bad thing. This situation isn’t too different than buying into Akai’s MPC universe, Arturia’s Analog Lab, or Native Instrument’s Komplete, just to mention a few similar ecosystems.

An MPE ecosystem is not necessarily evil. Controller and synthesis need to be carefully matched as I discovered using Keith McMillen QuNexus with SWAM Flute. ROLI Studio Player incorporates Equator, FXpansion Strobe and FXpansion Cypher (all version 2). Studio Player has the patch browser and real-time performance tools (smart chords and multi-layer arpeggiator) which can be assigned to the Lightpad M.

Some punters have diss’ed the presets as all sounding alike or some such. Well, upgrade to full and make your own sounds. It’s a synthesizer. Buying a Lightpad may be a way to get full Equator for less. Do the maths and then go to work.

What you might not know (I didn’t) is that you can suck Studio Player or Studio Drums into Cubase as a VST, not just Live or Tracktion. You get a VST with superpowers like smart chords, arpeggiation, etc. Neat. A tool that embeds in a bog standard DAW? Now you have my attention!

The ROLI ecosystem is all well and good, but I want to use Lightpad as a controller to add the touch missing from Arturia Keylab Essential. [I will surely try this and blog about it.] Lightpad has an XYZ touch pad mode which is configured through the ROLI Dashboard. The Lightpad is small enough to fit into the upper left corner of the Keylab Essential 49 (above the pitch and mod wheel). I expect to do a lot of tweaking to SWAM Flute (Cello, etc.) to adjust parameter sensitivities, ranges and so forth.

I think ROLI/Luminary have focused wisely during their re-birth from bankruptcy. Keeping Lightpad was a good business decision as well as letting Studio Player make friends through the existing VST mechanism. Ditching the control BLOCKS (Live, Loop and Touch) was sensible, too. The control blocks were rather expensive key pads that sent control messages to Studio (or Noise). Not super necessary given the capabilities in Noise and Studio Player.

In the long run, I wonder how Lightpad M and Lumi Keys will relate. Lightpad M seems to be technically reliable, but I see negative comments about Lumi Keys on Reddit that give me pause (e.g., not charging, Bluetooth connection issues, etc.) Luminary still have a way to go in their recovery.

Luminary want to make money through Lumi subscriptions (lessons and songs). This is a dubious business decision. People are wise to the subscription scam. A subscription makes sense only if it delivers genuine value to the end user and keeps delivering value over the long run. I would rather see Luminary (any company, really) focus on reliable products sold and bought once — not promises.

Next up, I’ll try Lightpad M with Noise on Apple iPad — a good way to fill in the commercial gaps while watching football.

Copyright © 2023 Paul J. Drongowski