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

You tin adjacent browse presets straight from KeyLab, filtering them by instrument, dependable bank, oregon style. Native Instruments offers a flashier and arguably much precocious mentation of these aforesaid tools connected its Kontrol series, but I find Arturia’s UI much responsive.

Integration with Arturia’s idiosyncratic instruments is simply a small much patchy astatine the moment. Only some, similar Mini V and Piano V, volition let you to browse presets and amusement graphics, though I’m definite updates volition hole that soon enough. Since the interfaces of the instruments alteration widely, the mode the controls are mapped besides tin beryllium inconsistent. And for galore of the stand-alone instruments determination are much parameters to contend with than determination are hands-on controls. You tin easy remap these to your liking, but it does adhd an other step.

The KeyLab mk3 besides offers immoderate power implicit your integer audio workstation (DAW), truthful agelong arsenic your DAW is Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio, FL Studio, Cubase, oregon Logic Pro. Your circumstantial prime of signaling bundle volition find however choky the integration is. I lone tested Ableton Live, and things mostly worked arsenic expected. The transport controls allowed maine to play and record, and the knobs and faders were automatically mapped to controls for Ableton’s autochthonal instruments and effects. The pads tin beryllium utilized to trigger scenes and clips successful Ableton’s clip view, and large improvements were besides made allowing you to easy prime and limb tracks utilizing the main encoder.

Other Goodies

The caller KeyLab mk3 has a fewer different bully features, including standard mode to support you from playing retired of cardinal and an fantabulous arpeggiator with randomization tools. In summation to serving arsenic a controller for your DAW and plug-ins, it has 5-pin MIDI successful and retired ports for straight talking to hardware synths. Plus it comes with a coagulated bundle bundle, including Analog Pro V, Mini V, Piano V, Augmented Strings, Ableton Live Lite, and more.

Ultimately, the crushed to prime the KeyLab mk3 isn’t the arpeggiator (I deliberation Native Instruments' arpeggiator is better). It’s high-quality hardware and seamless integration with Analog Lab. At $499 for the 49-key mentation and $599 for the 61-key, they’re really cheaper than comparative controllers from Novation and Native Instruments.

If you’re already a dedicated idiosyncratic of Arturia’s bundle instruments and privation thing a small much premium than its plasticky KeyLab Essential series, the KeyLab mk3 is an evident choice. But if you’re not already committed to a circumstantial plug-in suite, the KeyLab is simply a coagulated proposition. It delivers high-quality hardware astatine a little terms than the contention and comes packaged with immoderate of the finest emulations of classical synths connected the market.