Hello, world. We are back on Kickstarter for our fifth campaign: Loog Piano!
Twelve years ago we came to Kickstarter and reinvented the children's guitar. Through these years we ran 4 successful Kickstarter campaigns, exhibited at the MoMA, won a few awards, and made some pretty cool new friends:
The Loog Piano is a portable, 3-octave digital piano and MIDI controller for children and grown-ups, with musician-grade sound and design.
The video above shows the Loog Piano in action, sounding through its built-in speakers. No edits, external equipment, or sound enhancement at all.
Loog Piano, in a nutshell:
Scroll down for full specs!
The Loog Piano is for:
Most keyboards for children are very plasticky, with lots of bells and whistles, keys that are not capable of piano action and quite frankly they don’t sound like real pianos.
Loog Piano on its first day: The very first day we had the Loog Piano prototype ready, we went for coffee and, lucky us, we ran into Grammy-nominated (and mega talented) pianist Luciano Supervielle. Luciano was kind enough to play for us and we captured it forever in the video above!
So that's how it sounds. And this is how it plays:
The modern acoustic piano, when it appeared in the 18th century, brought an innovative feature to the world of keyboards: dynamics. You can play soft or loud, depending on how gentle or hard you press the keys. Dynamics help convey what a composer intended or what emotions are needed for the piece. That's so important that it's in the very name of the instrument: piano (which is Italian for "soft") and forte (Italian for "loud"). The Loog Piano features keys that allow for piano dynamics — piano, forte, and everything in between — all at an appropriate weight and size for children. To the best of my knowledge, for keyboards of this size and price, this is a first.
A piano; that’s it.
An important design decision we made with the Loog Piano is that the sound engine’s full muscle is devoted to the piano sound. That’s its only sound. Sound attack, decay and air in between notes have been sampled and modeled so that the Loog Piano sounds just like the real thing.
As with all Loog instruments, we went with good, honest materials. Materials that make the instrument playable, touchable and enticing for children… and for grownups too! That’s why we use solid wood (sourced from responsibly managed forests) and also a beautiful fabric top: this is a nod to old electric pianos and also a very pragmatic design choice: the sonically transparent fabric allows the built-in speakers to project a beautiful stereo sound from within, emulating the sonic output of an acoustic piano.
MIDI over USB, built-in rechargeable battery, built-in speakers, headphone connector and compact size: the Loog Piano is ultra portable and ideal to play music on the go.
We spent years figuring out what a Loog Piano should be. We knew we wanted the design to be simple and we knew we wanted it to sound great. To that end, the Loog Piano is an instrument that was designed with kids in mind, but offers a pro musician-grade sound and playing experience.
The Loog piano has an accompanying app with lessons and game-like exercises that make learning fun and easy. (The Loog Piano is also compatible with other piano-learning apps.)
Another learning material included with the Loog Piano: the Loog flashcards. A simple, screen-free, and effective way of learning how to form chords and scales on your Loog Piano, or any keyboard :)
Loog started as an academic project in 2010 when Rafael Atijas developed the concept of a 3-string guitar for children as his Master’s thesis at New York University. A year later, Loog launched to market here on Kickstarter, marking one of the platform's first product design success stories. Since then, we've been busy living this rollercoaster of emotions that means running a product startup. A few highlights: we had members of The Rolling Stones buying and playing our guitars, Jack White played one on stage, we collaborated with Fender, and have our instruments at the MoMA in NYC! 🤩
As you can imagine, there is a considerable upfront investment needed to make these Loog Pianos. We are here to hopefully gather enough pre-orders to make them a reality, and also to do it with our community. We exist as a company because of our Kickstarter backers, and we never ever forget that. Plus, launching a new musical instrument through Kickstarter feels more like a proper event than doing it quietly on our own. And we feel the Loog Piano deserves a nice launch party :)
Please note that the pledge amount does not include shipping charges. We will collect these only when we are ready to ship. (This will allow us to offer you better rates.)
Here's what those shipping charges will be:
Named one of ProductHype's Best Kickstarter Projects of 2023
Be the first to own a Loog Piano at 20% off retail.
Estimated Delivery: June 2024
Your Loog Piano bundled with the Loog magnetic music stand, carrying case and legs (retail value: $400).
Estimated Delivery: June 2024
Share your email, we will send you an invite!
If you're already have a PledgeManager account from another project, just sign in using the button below to join the project.