After grabbing the attention of the online music-tech world in 2023 with an early preview of the Nopia, designers Martin Grieco and Rocío Gal are now close to getting the instrument into players’ hands. The pair recently visited the MusicRadar offices for a detailed first look, confirming that the device is expected to arrive in “a couple of months” with a price of roughly £550.
At its core, Nopia takes an unusually harmony-focused approach to music-making. Instead of offering a standard synth setup with a handful of controls and a keyboard tied to one patch, it brings together several sound modules — keys, bass, arp, and pad — for an integrated performance experience, almost like a groovebox without drums. Its layout includes a one-octave Chord Builder keyboard, a 12-button Tonal Selector, and an Extensions Dial, all of which shape the key and chord voicings. The goal is to make rich, sophisticated harmonies playable with only one or two fingers.
For hands-on expression, Nopia also features a strum plate positioned in the upper-right corner, allowing users to pick out individual notes from a chord, alongside a slider designed for bending the pitch of entire chords.
Beyond its virtual analog and sample-based synth engines, the instrument includes straightforward effects such as delay, reverb, tape emulation, and beat repeat. It also offers a wide range of connectivity, including MIDI output for each module, so external gear can be driven by Nopia’s harmony engine.
