Every RK-1 sold today is a pre-order. You pay at checkout, and your unit ships in an estimated 4–6 weeks from your order date. Every first-run unit is numbered and initialed by the creator; your unit number is assigned when it ships. The early adopter price is $199; the retail price at launch will be $249.
Simple version: you have 30 days from delivery to return your RK-1 for a full refund.
/usr/share/doc/, and listed below.If you give us an address for “tell me when it ships”, here is exactly what happens to it.
We write once, when the first production run ships. That is what the list is for. If we ever want to send anything else, we will ask first.
It is stored in our Shopify account, the same system that handles orders, and nowhere else. We do not sell it, rent it, trade it, or hand it to an advertising network. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe, and you can ask us to delete the address entirely at hello@risekeys.com without giving a reason.
This is separate from the privacy promise about your playing. Nothing you play ever leaves the RK-1, there is no server for it to go to. An email address you typed into a form is a different thing, and we would rather draw that line ourselves than let the two blur.
If you teach piano or keyboard, the RK-1 is $159 instead of $199. Same product, same warranty, same 30-day return, same free updates, nothing is held back from the cheaper unit.
Who qualifies. Anyone who teaches piano or keyboard to other people: private teachers, school and college staff, church musicians, community and after-school programs. Not restricted to full-time or credentialed teachers, and we do not ask for documentation.
How to get it. Email hello@risekeys.com from the address you teach from, or tell us where you teach, and we send a discount code back, usually within a day. No application, no portal.
Limits. One unit at the teacher price per teacher. Buying for a classroom, lab or group is welcome and priced separately, tell us how many and we will quote the set. It cannot be combined with other discounts. If you ordered at $199 within the last 30 days and only then found this, email us and we will refund the difference rather than make you return anything.
We check nothing beyond taking your word for it. If that turns out to be naive we will tighten it, but we would rather start by trusting teachers.
The RK-1 is in pre-production, so the product photography on this site is computer rendering, not photographs of a finished unit. We would rather say that plainly than have you find out when the box arrives.
What the renderings show accurately: the size, the proportions, the two illuminated controls and the position and labelling of every socket. Those come from the same CAD the enclosure is actually printed from and from the real boards inside, and they are not expected to change.
What will differ: the finish. Every case is 3D printed, so the real surface is matte and lightly textured, and catches light differently from the smooth material in the renderings. Colours are approximate and vary between screens. Small details, fastener positions, the exact shade of the button rings, silkscreen weight, may change as the first run is built.
We will replace these with photographs of real units as soon as there are real units to photograph. If the product you receive does not look like what you ordered, that is covered by the 30-day return promise above, and you do not need to argue the point with us.
Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Korg, Kawai, Alesis, Arturia, Akai, M-Audio, Novation, Donner, and any other brand names mentioned on this site are trademarks of their respective owners.
On classic-synthesizer heritage, said plainly: several RK-1 voices are original FM synthesis inspired by the great electronic instruments of the 1980s. They are programmed from scratch, the RK-1 contains no ROM data, no sampled content, and no patch data from Yamaha or any other manufacturer, and it does not emulate any specific product. DX7 is a trademark of Yamaha Corporation; Rise Keys is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Yamaha. We admire that era's instruments, and we respect their makers' rights, the sounds in this box are ours.
Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Korg, Kawai, Alesis, Arturia, Akai, M-Audio, Novation, Donner, and any other brand names mentioned on this site are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used solely to indicate compatibility with class-compliant USB MIDI equipment. Rise Keys is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any of these companies. Shopify is a trademark of Shopify Inc. "Rise Keys" and "RK-1" are trademarks of Rise Keys.
Email hello@risekeys.com, a human reads it.