61 keys: €549 / $599
49 keys: €449 / $499
arturia.com

Arturia is really at the top of its game right now. Following the success of its PolyBrute 12 synth and surprise AstroLab launch earlier this year, the French brand turned its attention to its popular KeyLab series.

• READ MORE: Arturia’s AstroLab: The story of an instrument ten years in the making

When designing the latest generation of KeyLab keyboards, Arturia’s aim was to produce a robust and reliable controller loaded with the tools demanded by modern producers, whilst increasing the focus on expressiveness and creativity. Does the Arturia KeyLab MK3 deliver? You bet.

What does the Arturia KeyLab MK3 hardware include?

The controller comes in two sizes – 49 and 61 keys – with a choice of dark or light colours. Both finishes look slick and stylish, an impression that’s helped nicely by the real wood end-pieces and streamlined design.

KeyLab MK3 features an all-new Arturia keybed. This gives smooth key movement with a relatively firm action and a welcome sense of weight while retaining a synth-like feel. Colour-backlit pads are new, too. There are only 12 of these, as opposed to the usual layout of 16 on MPCs, Maschine and other pad-base controllers, but it’s compensated for by the pads being large in size and by there being four pad banks. There’s also a fifth bank named DAW, dedicated to controlling DAW functions.

The keys and pads are sensitive to both velocity and aftertouch, with a choice of linear, logarithmic, exponential and custom response curves. The custom curve is particularly flexible, being defined by five adjustable nodes, but unfortunately, there’s only one custom curve that is shared wherever the custom option is selected.

Build quality is exceptional, with a uniform feel and response across all keys and pads. There’s perfect throw, resistance and spring-back of pitch and modulation wheels. The nine continuous rotary encoders offer a nicely balanced twisting resistance, and both they and the accompanying bank of nine faders are buttery smooth in motion and rock-solid in their mountings. Buttons sit snug and firm in their cutouts and give an affirmative and satisfying clunk when pressed.

KeyLab connects to a computer via USB, from where it can also power itself. It’s also happy running as a standalone controller keyboard, connecting to other hardware via MIDI in and out ports while taking power from a suitable external power supply. A power supply isn’t included in the box, but a suitable wall wart is a relatively inexpensive add-on.

Also on the rear panel are three jacks for connecting to foot switches and controllers. Although these are labelled Sustain, Expression and Aux their functionality is fully flexible, whether connected to on/off switches or variable controllers.

What are the onboard features of the KeyLab MK3?

Configuring and customising KeyLab hardware used to be the sole domain of Arturia’s MIDI Control Centre software, but MK3 can also be configured entirely within the hardware. This would have been a nightmare task using the previous generation’s two-line screen, but MK3 features a mid-sized, high-resolution colour display. A logical navigation and control system makes light work of such tasks.

The display also aids when configuring and working with the various on-board modifiers that can be enabled. Chord mode captures a chord that you play, allowing that chord to be triggered and transposed by each key press. The chord’s spread and voicing can be selected, and there’s a Strum option to apply a guitar-like note staggering.

Of course, a basic chord shape may be out-of-key when transposed, and this can be remedied by the Scale mode. This forces all played notes and generated chords to match a selected root key and scale. There’s a wide range of scales to choose from, including modes, various non-western scales, and even a user-defined scale.

Chord and Scale modes can also interact with an Arpeggio mode, which offers the classic up and down patterns etc. as well as a programmable random mode where both the order and timing/syncopation of notes can be randomised. Arpeggio timing and gate length are adjustable, a swing can be dialled in, and the tempo can be set within KeyLab itself or be synced to your DAW.

How deeply does the Arturia KeyLab MK3 integrate with software?

KeyLab MK3 comes with two built-in operating modes or templates: Plugin and DAW. Custom templates can be created as needed too, and these can be defined directly within the hardware or with the assistance of the MIDI Control Centre software.

Plugin mode is slightly misnamed, as it is intended for interacting with Arturia instruments that are running as standalone apps. Nevertheless, the tightness of integration here is impressive, making an in-the-box soft synth such as Pigments play and feel just like a real-world synth or instrument. Presets can be browsed and loaded directly via the KeyLab display and, thanks to all knobs and faders being touch-sensitive, the assigned parameter name and current value is displayed whenever you touch one of these controls.

Achieving a similarly tight integration with a DAW demands the installation of a control script designed for that DAW, but all of the most popular choices are already supported. Additional scripts will become available over time for others, whether developed by Arturia or by users.

In DAW mode, KeyLab can direct its knobs and faders to the DAW’s mixer or to plugins (a single button press switches the focus), and so can lend a hand at all stages of production. There are dedicated buttons for controlling the DAW’s transport, tempo, quantising, undo/redo, and saving. Meanwhile, context-sensitive buttons below the display provide access to various other common functions including channel mute, solo, monitor enable and record enable. All this means you can do a lot of production work without ever once touching your computer’s mouse.

Is the Arturia KeyLab MK3 for me?

There’s an awful lot to love and little to dislike with Arturia’s KeyLab MK3. Whether working in the studio or on stage, whether playing individual instruments or producing your magnum opus within a DAW, KeyLab MK3’s impressive feature set and tight integration are perfectly balanced to help you maintain focus on the task at hand. Everything works out of the box, and there’s little-to-no configuration needed unless you require a custom template.

The MK3 hardware quality is faultless, and the included bundle of effects, instruments and software adds even more value to what is an unchanged and incredibly reasonable asking price. Controller keyboards don’t come much more in control than this.

Key features

• Comes in 49-key and 61-key variants
• Choice of light or dark colour scheme
• 12 velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive pads
• 4 pad banks plus additional DAW control pad bank
• 9 touch-sensitive continuous rotary controllers
• 9 touch-sensitive faders
• Full sized pitch-bend and modulation wheels
• High resolution colour display
• DAW transport buttons and additional DAW function buttons
• Built-in Chord, Scale and Arpeggio modes
• USB-2 connectivity via USB-C (cable included)
• Bus-powered or external PSU (not included)
• MIDI in/out ports
• 3 flexible foot pedal / external controller jacks
• DAW script compatibility (at the time of writing): Logic Pro; Cubase (should also work with Nuendo); FL Studio; Ableton Live; Bitwig Studio

Included software

• Arturia Analog Lab Pro
• Arturia Mini V
• Arturia Piano V
• Arturia Augmented Strings
• Arturia Rev PLATE-140 reverb
• Ableton Live Lite
• Native Instruments The Gentleman piano
• Melodics subscription and bonus lessons
• Loopcloud subscription and sounds

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