ROLI Seaboard M

Last updated: 6 September 2026

What happened to the Seaboard Block

This page carried the Seaboard Block for five years, and the name has since changed twice. ROLI answer it directly in their own FAQ, so there is no guesswork involved:

Seaboard M is the new name for Seaboard BLOCK M. The M, as before, stands for "Modular," "Mobile" and "MIDI" (owing to the new MIDI Out port). Seaboard M and Seaboard BLOCK M are the same instrument, and are functionally identical.

So anyone who already owns one owns the current instrument under an old name. Nothing needs replacing and nothing has been dropped. The company behind it is now Luminary ROLI Ltd, and the wider range has been tidied up at the same time: LUMI Keys became Piano M in the same reorganisation.

Five dimensions, which is the whole point

A normal MIDI keyboard measures one thing per note: how fast the key went down. Everything else is bolted on afterwards through a mod wheel or a pitch bend strip, and both of those apply to every note you are holding rather than to one finger.

The Seaboard M measures five things, per finger, continuously. ROLI call them strike, press, slide, glide and lift. Strike is the speed of the initial hit. Press is how far you push into the surface once you are down, which maps to what an orchestral player would do with breath or bow pressure. Slide is moving up and down the length of a single keywave, so a violinist's vibrato becomes a physical wobble of the fingertip. Glide is sliding sideways between notes, which gives you portamento without a wheel. Lift is how quickly you release.

That is the MPE standard, and it is why the surface is silicone rather than plastic. You cannot slide your finger along a hinged key.

The size, and the trade it makes

Seaboard M is 282mm long, 141mm deep and 25mm thick, and it weighs 650g. That is roughly a hardback novel. It fits in the outside pocket of a rucksack, which is the argument for owning one rather than a full-size controller.

The keywaves are 25% narrower than a standard piano key. ROLI describe them as suited to average-sized hands, which is a fair way of saying they are small. Two octaves are under your fingers at any moment, and octave shift buttons take you across a full seven. If two octaves is not enough, the magnetic DNA connectors on either edge let you snap a second unit alongside a first, and up to four will join into one instrument of 96 keywaves.

What plugs into what

USB-C handles both connection and charging. There is a 2.5mm TRS MIDI output with an adaptor in the box, which is the port that earned the instrument its third M, so it drives a hardware synth without a computer in the room. Bluetooth 4.2 covers wireless MIDI, and the ten-hour battery means a laptop and a Seaboard M is the entire rig.

ROLI Studio comes with it rather than as an add-on. That is a pair of plug-ins carrying more than 200 MPE presets, an arpeggiator built around the five dimensions, and chord tools. Buying the hardware and then discovering you need software to hear anything is a common annoyance with controllers, and it does not apply here.

Airwave, if you want to go further

Connecting the separate ROLI Airwave adds five more dimensions above the instrument. It tracks your hands in the air with a camera and turns gestures into control data, so a raised palm becomes a swell. It costs £299 on its own, the same as the Seaboard M.

What ROLI's bundles actually save you

ROLI sell eight bundles and only one of them saves any money. The rest are priced at the exact sum of their parts, so the word "bundle" is doing no work. The arithmetic is below.

Only the last line is a real bundle, and it is the only one ROLI mark with a saving. For everything else, buy the pieces you want in the order you want them. Starting with one Seaboard M and adding a second next year costs exactly what the two-unit bundle costs today.

The 20% referral, and what it does not do

ROLI run a refer-a-friend scheme through Mention Me. Our link gives a new customer 20% off, which ROLI's own landing page calls its best introductory offer. It is not a click-and-save link: you enter an email address on ROLI's site and they send you the voucher.

The conditions are narrow. The discount applies to a first order only, you have to be new to ROLI and over 18, and the voucher is valid for one month from issue. It cannot be combined with another discount code in the same order, and it is revoked if you later request a refund on that order. Mention Me process your data as part of running the scheme.

On a £299 Seaboard M that is £59.80 off. The discount applies to whatever is in the basket, so it works on a bundle just as it works on a single instrument, which means it is not an alternative to the table above. The bundle arithmetic still decides what to put in the basket, and the referral then applies to it.

Get 20% off your first ROLI order

Who it suits, and who it does not

It suits somebody who already plays and wants a way into expression that a weighted keyboard cannot give them, and somebody who works in more than one place. Sound designers and film composers are the obvious readers.

It does not suit a beginner learning to read music, because the surface teaches you nothing about a piano keyboard and the narrow keywaves teach you the wrong hand shape. That job belongs to Piano M, which lights up and comes with lessons. It also will not suit anyone who wants weight under the fingers. Silicone gives, and pianists used to hammers often dislike it on first contact. Free 30-day returns exist for exactly that reason, and are worth treating as part of the purchase rather than as a safety net you hope not to use.

ROLI Seaboard M FAQs

Is the ROLI Seaboard M the same as the Seaboard Block?

Effectively yes. ROLI state that Seaboard M is the new name for Seaboard BLOCK M, that the two are the same instrument and that they are functionally identical, with the M standing for modular, mobile and MIDI. The MIDI out port is the addition the third M refers to.

How much does the Seaboard M cost in the UK?

£299 direct from ROLI, with free shipping, free 30-day returns and a two-year warranty. A first-time buyer using a referral link pays £239.20 after the 20% introductory discount.

Do you need a computer to use it?

Not necessarily. It has a 2.5mm TRS MIDI output and ships with an adaptor, so it will drive a hardware synth on its own. For software you need macOS or Windows and about 13GB of disk space for ROLI Connect, Dashboard and Studio.

How many can you connect together?

Four, giving 96 keywaves, joined by the magnetic DNA connectors on either edge. A Seaboard M will also connect to a Piano M, although in that case each keyboard keeps its own selectable range rather than forming one continuous run.

What is MPE?

MIDI Polyphonic Expression. It lets a controller send separate expression data for every finger instead of one stream for the whole keyboard, which is what makes per-note vibrato and bends possible. Most current DAWs and many soft synths support it.

Is ROLI Studio included?

Yes, with the instrument, along with ROLI Dashboard. Studio carries more than 200 MPE presets and an arpeggiator built for the five dimensions.

How long does the battery last?

Ten hours from the internal 2,300mAh cell, and four to five hours to charge over USB-C.

More from CoolCuration

• ROLI Piano M: the light-up sibling, and the one to buy if the aim is learning rather than producing.
• How Music Works, David Byrne: the book to read about why any of this makes a sound worth hearing.
• Gifts for audiophiles: the full guide, for people who care what things actually sound like.
• Artiphon Orba: a much cheaper handheld take on gestural music-making.
• Service guides: our plain-figures write-ups of subscriptions and sign-ups, including what they cost after the first year.

Prices, stock and offer terms change. Everything here was checked on 6 September 2026 against ROLI's own Seaboard M page and the ROLI creator collection, which is where the full price list lives. The referral terms come from ROLI's own offer terms, administered by Mention Me. This page contains a referral link and CoolCuration may earn a reward if you buy through it, at no extra cost to you. Read our affiliate disclosure.

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