Roland Lamb


Roland Lamb is a British entrepreneur, electronic instrument designer, and CEO of ROLI, a music technology firm. ROLI makes the ROLI Seaboard, a line of digital keyboards that use a pressure-sensitive, squishy surface instead of traditional keys, to provide more different types of responsiveness.

Early life and career

After high school, Lamb went to Japan, where he studied Zen Buddhism at Antai-ji. He then went to Harvard University, where he studied Chinese philosophy and Sanskrit philosophy. He founded ROLI in 2009 while a graduate student at Royal College of Art in London, an institution he graduated from.
His first prototype of the Seaboard was a response to the design limitations of the piano keyboard as a mechanical interface. As a jazz pianist, he wanted to create on a piano keyboard the effects of pitch and timbre that are often associated with string and brass instruments.
His concept of the pliable, continuous "keywave surface" was the technological foundation of the Seaboard and the firm's related instruments. After Lamb designed the Seaboard, he contacted famous musicians to get them to try it.
The Seaboard digital keyboard won the 2014 Swarovski Emerging Talent award from the 2014 London Design Medals.