Roland Showcases A Futuristic Concept Piano With Flying Drone Speakers

Having spent decades at the forefront of the music industry last year, Roland popped into CES 2023 in Las Vegas last week to show off its new 50th-anniversary concept piano. Designed in collaboration with Japanese furniture maker Karimoku, the new Roland piano is a decidedly futuristic, natural take on the classic grand piano with an outrageous aesthetic molded from Japanese Nara oak with a 360-degree, 14-speaker system including two speakers built into drones that hover above the piano and can be controlled by the player.

Roland’s rather unconventional and elegant instrument unsurprisingly attracted plenty of attention at this year’s CES tech show, not only owing to the odd form but the fascinating drone speakers. To my knowledge, this is the world’s first musical instrument to use such a feature as part of its design. And yet, it remains a concept from Rolan that, like many CES standouts, may never see the light of day.

Still, it’s a strong look into what’s possible in the coming years. The Roland piano’s smooth curves that flow at the sides have been stuffed with speakers to work in tandem with the drone speakers, which at CES were dangled from a pair of wires rather than flown (probably a safety issue).

If you want to see the drones being used, head on over to Engadget where the publication’s on-site reporter has taken a few more photos of the Roland piano in action.

The speakers within the piano remain connected to the drone speakers with a proprietary low-latency audio connection and Roland’s PureAcoustic Ambience technology, designed to create a flexible, natural reverb that mimics the wide soundstage you’d get from a proper concert hall.

You’ve got a large touchscreen above the keyboard that can be used to stream tutorials, live lessons and even run the Zenbeats software from Roland Cloud. This makes the piano double as a bit of a music studio, continuing Roland’s strong tradition of being at the centre of music creation for some of the world’s most notable producers. The designers have even included USB MIDI and Bluetooth connectivity for interacting with other instruments.

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It’s hard to say whether or not this Roland concept piano will actually hit the market in the future. In all likelihood, at least some of the features will be used in future instruments by Roland but I’d be surprised if we see this exact piano produced en masse. But that’s the nature of CES, really. Sometimes you see these really over-the-top devices, cars, and evidently now instruments, but they are typically just teased by these companies as a form of promotion.