Review: Arturia Keylab Mk3
Arturia’s top flight controller will keep you in a productive brain space more of the time.
28 October 2024
I’m heavily invested in the world of Arturia’s virtual synthesisers. V Collection really is the vintage synth toyshop I could only dream of when I started to produce music. There are plenty of amazing synth emulations on the market but Arturia’s is undoubtedly the best collection. What’s more, it’s always being updated and added to. (All that being said, special mention has gotta go to Korg’s Gadget suite of soft synths, which sound great and are very easy on the juice. Fans of NI, Roland etc can all lodge their complaints to me on a back of a postcard now, if they wish.)
So whenever Arturia releases a new controller I’m all ears.
Arturia has two controller keyboard offerings. Keylab and Keylab Essential. A lot of the obvious differences are in the build quality. Keylab Essential, you can easily lift with one hand. The differences aren’t so much in the feature set. Personally, I like the distinction. If I’m skint and/or I don’t need the controller for live use, then Essential is an excellent choice.
THREE TIMES
The subject of this review is Mk3 of Keylab, the primo alternative, and you can tell it’s primo as soon as you pick up the box. It’s reassuringly weighty.
I had a look at Preshan’s review of the Mk2 back in 2018 and instantly you can see some aesthetic and functional differences, but the general offering is much the same – a bank of pads, transport section, an almost-central display and nine pots and faders.
It could be useful to work our way from left to right and investigate how each of these main areas have been improved in Mk3.
PADS
The Mk3 pads are designed to trigger sounds/clips, play finger drums or use instead of the keyboard for playing chords and the like. Curiously, Mk3 loses a row of four pads. I guess that makes them a little larger than Mk2 but 4×4 is a fairly universally accepted configuration in MPC-style software emulations. I’m a tad surprised by that decision. The pads feel good. Not super-primo good but Keylab isn’t pretending to be a dedicated fingerdrum controller.
NEED TO KNOW
Arturia Keylab Mk3
Controller Keyboard
TRANSPORT
Keylab Mk3 plays nicely with most of the main DAWs, including FL Studio, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Cubase, and Bitwig Studio. If you’re a Pro Tools, Studio One etc DAW user then it’s easy enough to get Keylab communicating via the HUI protocol – albeit with a bit more hand cranking.
I found the lines of communication to be open when using Logic Pro. Arturia has published a short video to explain the use of Keylab with each of the DAWs, which was helpful. After downloading the correct script from the Resources section of the Arturia site and ticking a few boxes, Keylab and Logic Pro looked to be best of friends. Seemingly small things like being able solo the track you’re working with via one of the contextual buttons, or toggling the metronome off/on from the dedicated buttons in the transport section, all contribute to keeping you in the zone when in a creative state.
DISPLAY
The Mk3 display is pure luxury compared to the previous Mk2 iteration. The 3.5-inch screen offers enough real estate to display the Analog Lab synth you’re working with. If you’re splitting or layering synths then you’ll see both clearly enough. I find this very reassuring. Seeing and hearing the synth just seems to connect a few more synapses in my brain.
The Mk3 screen has eight attendant buttons which change status in a contextual manner – ie. the purpose alters depending on the menu you’re looking at. It makes sense and is a good combination.
When working with Analog Lab (either from within your DAW or in performance mode) the display allows you to riffle through the presets as you would within the Analog Lab GUI; select favourites; and add a second instrument for splits and layering.
If you’re working with Arturia’s soft synths (either in your DAW or standalone), then the there doesn’t seem to be any special relationship between Keylab and the instrument. It’ll control key parameters, as you’d expect, but a thumbnail doesn’t appear on the display, which seems a shame.
I guess Keylab Mk4 (whenever it arrives in the future) will have a touchscreen but I found the contextual buttons more than adequate.
If you rely on Arturia’s soft synths then Keylab is more than a strong contender, I think you’d have to have rocks in your head not to look at it seriously
POTS & FADERS
The nine pots and faders make total sense in the context of working in Arturia’s Analog Lab preset sound library. The pots and faders duplicate the UI in Analog Lab and, as you’d expect, the integration between Keylab and Analog Lab is exemplary. (Worth mentioning: Analog Lab is bundled with Keylab.)
Mk3 offers touch sensitivity for both the rotary encoders and faders. The benefit of touch sensitivity is the ability to interrogate a setting without messing with its value – touch the pot and you see the parameter pop up and its value. This is super handy.
Pot 9 really comes into its own. It’s always set to adjust the patch volume – something I found especially useful when auditioning sounds against the other tracks in the session. Finetuning the level of the instrument while playing it, goes a long way to finding the right sound and perfecting the part. It’s one of those little touches of luxury you didn’t know you needed until it’s in front of you and instantly indispensable.
The pots and faders themselves feel great with a decent amount of resistance.
KEYBED
The keybed has been updated. It’s a hybrid feel, as you’d expect. (I assume at some point Arturia will release a weighted 88-note version for the ivory-ticklers.) You won’t break your hand if you’re attempting Hammond-style gliss antics but there’s enough resistance to feel like you’re in control of the instrument. There’s aftertouch and release-off velocity. If MPE is important to you, then you’ll need to look elsewhere. Performers will have their preferences, and this review is unlikely to alter them (it’ll be too light/bouncy for some) but I think it treads a decent line of hybrid compromise.
TIME & MOTION
There are other luxe keyboard controllers out there. Others may well offer better bundles or ‘skin’ the controller ‘cat’ differently, yet Keylab remains a strong contender. If you rely on Arturia’s soft synths then Keylab is more than a strong contender, I think you’d have to have rocks in your head not to look at it seriously.
Before I sign off, do me a favour: do a little time and motion study in your studio. Perhaps pop your phone camera up in a corner for 30 minutes or so of music production. Then determine how much of that 30 minutes you’re at your controller keyboard or could be at your controller keyboard if you had it properly integrated with your DAW. I think you’ll then readily admit that the controller deserves a commensurate chunk of the money you’re investing in that studio (and probably deserves to be front ’n’ centre between your studio monitors). All to say: it deserves more than 25 keys and some loose change.
With that perspective, if Keylab wasn’t in your sights, it should be. It’s now in mine.
RESPONSES