Doctor Mix Gets Hands-On: ROLI Airwave’s Futuristic Flex

Doctor Mix wastes no time unboxing the ROLI Airwave and ROLI Piano, treating us to a parade of shiny connectors and slick packaging. The excitement is palpable—he calls it a “futuristic piece of synthesizer technology” and you can tell he means it. The Airwave isn’t just another controller; it’s a leap into Minority Report territory, reading your hand positions and translating them into real-time MIDI control.

From the jump, it’s clear this isn’t your average MIDI box. The Airwave’s camera tracks every twitch and wave, mapping your gestures to musical parameters. Doctor Mix is visibly impressed, hinting at the wild creative consequences this tech could unleash. If you’re tired of the same old keys and pads, this is the kind of gear that makes you rethink what’s possible in a live rig.

The Airwave isn’t just about waving your hands around like a wizard—it’s got a full arsenal of gesture modes. Tilt, glide, slide, flex, and grasp each trigger different musical responses, letting you shape sound in ways that would make a mod wheel blush. Doctor Mix runs through these modes, showing how each movement gets mapped to a control parameter, from filter sweeps to wild modulation.

It’s not just a party trick. Each gesture mode feels deliberate and musical, giving you expressive control that’s way beyond what you’d get from a row of encoders. The demo makes it clear: if you want to inject some chaos and personality into your set, these gestures are your ticket. But let’s be real—explaining the difference between flex and grasp in text is pointless. You’ve got to see it in action to get the full effect.

Doctor Mix doesn’t stop at the built-in sounds. He plugs the Airwave into plugin territory, using it to control parameters in Rhodes Ontology and showing off how every hand movement gets mapped to plugin controls in real time. Watching the parameters dance as he moves is a proper synth geek’s delight.

But the real flex comes when he hooks the Airwave up to a Korg microKEY and then, through some Ableton and Max for Live wizardry, to a real analog synth. Using NRPN Gen 2 patches, he transforms the Airwave’s MIDI data into something his analog beast can understand. This isn’t just about flashy tech—it’s about breaking down the walls between digital and analog, letting you control anything with a wave of your hand.

Doctor Mix wraps things up by reflecting on just how game-changing the Airwave could be. He’s clearly impressed, calling out ROLI for a job well done and hinting at the creative chaos this tech could unleash in the right hands. It’s not just hype—there’s genuine excitement about where this kind of control could take live electronic music.

But as with all new tech, the real test is in the trenches. Will the Airwave become a staple in every performance rig, or is it destined to be a flashy sidekick? Only time (and a few sweaty gigs) will tell. For now, though, it’s safe to say the future looks a lot more interesting—and a lot more hands-on.