Arturia KeyLab Mk3 Review: A Premium Midi Controller at a Great Price Leave a comment

You possibly can even browse presets instantly from KeyLab, filtering them by instrument, sound financial institution, or model. Native Devices gives a flashier and arguably extra superior model of those identical instruments on its Kontrol series, however I discover Arturia’s UI extra responsive.

Integration with Arturia’s particular person devices is a bit more patchy in the mean time. Just some, like Mini V and Piano V, will assist you to browse presets and present graphics, although I’m positive updates will repair that quickly sufficient. For the reason that interfaces of the devices range broadly, the way in which the controls are mapped additionally could be inconsistent. And for most of the stand-alone devices there are extra parameters to deal with than there are hands-on controls. You possibly can simply remap these to your liking, but it surely does add an additional step.

The KeyLab mk3 additionally gives some management over your digital audio workstation (DAW), as long as your DAW is Ableton Stay, Bitwig Studio, FL Studio, Cubase, or Logic Professional. Your particular selection of recording software program will decide how tight the mixing is. I solely examined Ableton Stay, and issues principally labored as anticipated. The transport controls allowed me to play and document, and the knobs and faders had been mechanically mapped to controls for Ableton’s native devices and results. The pads can be utilized to set off scenes and clips in Ableton’s clip view, and massive enhancements had been additionally made permitting you to simply choose and arm tracks utilizing the primary encoder.

Different Goodies

The brand new KeyLab mk3 has just a few different good options, together with scale mode to maintain you from taking part in out of key and a very good arpeggiator with randomization instruments. Along with serving as a controller in your DAW and plug-ins, it has 5-pin MIDI out and in ports for instantly speaking to {hardware} synths. Plus it comes with a stable software program bundle, together with Analog Professional V, Mini V, Piano V, Augmented Strings, Ableton Stay Lite, and extra.

In the end, the rationale to select the KeyLab mk3 isn’t the arpeggiator (I believe Native Devices’ arpeggiator is healthier). It’s high-quality {hardware} and seamless integration with Analog Lab. At $499 for the 49-key model and $599 for the 61-key, they’re really cheaper than comparative controllers from Novation and Native Devices.

Should you’re already a devoted person of Arturia’s software program devices and need one thing a bit of extra premium than its plasticky KeyLab Important sequence, the KeyLab mk3 is an apparent selection. However in the event you’re not already dedicated to a particular plug-in suite, the KeyLab is a stable proposition. It delivers high-quality {hardware} at a cheaper price than the competitors and comes packaged with among the best emulations of traditional synths in the marketplace.