Roli, the company behind a new breed of keyboards and MIDI controllers, has announced the acquisition of Blend, a music-collaboration platform designed to connect musicians around the world to work on new projects.
While at first glance it might seem like an odd pairing, considering the fact that Roli is geared more toward music hardware, while Blend is geared more toward music collaboration, the companies suggest that they share an ultimate goal of making it easier and faster for musicians to work on new projects and work with other musicians. Not only that, but Roli is looking toward helping musicians at all stages of music creation, making Blend a purchase that makes a lot of sense.
"At Roli, we are passionate about delivering the best possible experiences for music creators. Many aspects of music making have remained fractured and poorly integrated, in part because few companies have been in a position to innovate across a complex chain of different disciplines and product categories," said Roli CEO Roland Lamb in a statement.
The acquisition will position Roli as a go-to company for all aspects of music creation. Users can use the Roli Seaboard line of keyboards for their part of the creation process, and then use Blend to find other musicians with whom to collaborate.
Roli also recently purchased Juce, a C++ framework used by a number of big audio companies, including the likes of Pioneer, Arturia, M-Audio, Korg and more. This acquisition helped Roli expand its compatibility with a range of third-party software.
The announcement comes at the same time as the U.S. launch of Roli's latest keyboard, the Roli Seaboard Rise, which is a 25-key controller that is aimed at making Roli's keyboard line more accessible, coming in with a price tag of $799.
Only time will tell if this signifies more purchases to come by Roli, however, in the meantime, Roli users will be pleased at the growing toolset at their disposition.
Source: Roli
