Arturia Keylab Essentials Mk3 - Money Well Spent

foreign [Music] why are we recording you with a midi controller when he's surrounded by all these beautiful Hardware synths well that's pretty much the point because I haven't got that much experience with midi controllers and I get so many comments from people saying isn't that just a synth in a box you're better off with a midi controller and not having that much experience with them I thought it was well worth having a look at basically a new one and how they've moved on so since I last used them years and years ago when I was almost almost all in the Box okay makes a little sense here's arturia's key lap Essentials Mark III it's brand new out more men in a pub tell me it was coming there I've got my mate who knows a mate who's got a man to have a pub he's got another make down another Pub so I got in touch with our story and they've sent me this one yes it's on loan and yes I hope they don't ask for it because it is actually quite handy but as I said in the intro there I do get lots of comments it's hard to argue against the sort of financial aspects of that this is lots cheaper than a lot of the stuff I've got lying around here and it takes up a lot less space so uh let's take a look okay I can see overhead shots coming now so here it is all fired up we've got 49 full-size keys and these feel okay we don't feel as nice as some of them are more expensive synths but they're more than adequate and they're so much better than some of my old vintage things anyway we've got eight pads over here on the left-hand side he's got two Banks that's eight and you can see their full RGB LED and we use the artoriate midi control center to set all those parameters so we can see the color changing on each of the banks that's Bank a this is Bank B we've got the type which is gate so it's on or off we've got the note down there as well we can change the notes we can oops let's put it back onto a G sharp three change the type so it's toggle on our off switch midi Channel LEDs on or off all the things you might expect we can do the same on the knobs and the sliders as well on the faders or the sliders we've got two different modes fader or drawbar on a drawbar as you pull it down it gets louder and as you push it up gets quieter for each of the drawbars which is exactly like you get on an Old Hammond organ [Music] but again set the CC set the midi Channel minimum maximum values one thing you can't set is system exclusive messages which would have been nice to control things like my Alpha Juno 2 but not very many people need to use that which is why not many things have it so it's not a biggie that one but what it would be nice to do is to be able to name these sliders and these functions we come into for example the mini freak program of setup it says it's fader one and fader two but be nice if I told you about the actual value you were changing was so looking at the mini freak software there's the cutoff changing there's the resonance and all the various bits and Bobs I've got set up with these knobs so things with the oscillators envelope cuts off volumes and I'll take a look at that in a little bit more detail in a minute but yeah you just can't see what fader one's doing so if you're using generic midi CCS for all of them and all your soft synths at least you could see what's happening again not a Big E just nice to have but that does bring us over to the screen and just see me flicking through the programs here so we've got door integration I've set up for the mini freak and I've set up for the spark as well set up for the spark here let's put into bank one [Music] it's playing some Lynn drum samples and of course we've got the transport buttons as well start okay so fast forward we can tap the tempo turn the click on or off turn the cycle on or off [Music] save quantize undo and redo and it does come with integration for logic able turn Cubase and a couple of others Fruity Loops I think as well we'll check all out on the website so on the right here as well we've got hold chord scale and up hold mode which holds like you might expect comes in handy with the Arps got a chord mode as well we can set our own chord or we can use the presets it's got in here at least to edit presets you've got octave [Music] fifths major Triads major sevens all the things you might quite like and somebody might not [Music] turn it off come out of there we've also got scales as well loads of different scales that we've got in here as well so chromatic minor Dorian what's that phrygian lydian mixolodian locrian there's a few here I've never heard of that was that freakish never heard of that one anyway just means that you can you can play stuff obviously without being able to play stuff everything he plays in tune very handy but lots of things have that don't they but it's nice that it's here on a controller keyboard means you're not going back and forth to your software let's put it back into chromatic so don't confuse myself later on there's a fair few in here and we're going round and round there you go I am okay and then we've got an ARP built in as well long press to edit here we go so orbs on there we go to the modes we've got up down inclusive exclusive random and in the order we've got division we've got the gate we've got all the things that you might expect swing rate sync and octaves and again it's handy to have all this stuff here so you're not having to go back to the computer and what's really handy for is the bundled software in particular the analog lab V this was a pre-release version sent to me so it don't have everything but apparently it'll be shipped with Ableton lights the analog lab V and melodic subscription with bonus material to help you improve your finger drumming and your keyboard skills but the analog lab V is the one that it really works well with so if we put it into artoria mode or analog lab V mode we can see we actually get the preset names up [Music] we can flick through these with the upper down buttons [Music] and we can look at the types so base Keys lead all that sort of stuff all the stuff that you normally do on the software itself here we are in the software it's got literally hundreds and hundreds of presets um and that's just the bases and this is because I've got arturia V Collection as well and if you've got arturia V Collection this is a bit like a front end to it really here's the patch I'm using now and if I open that and then go and edit opxa but don't have that I'm not sure you can do that I think you're limited to these controls down here which are all mapped to these knobs and faders obviously but having the V Collection I couldn't tell you what it does if you don't have it if we hit instruments we can see all the instruments we've got access to there and hit user these are ones that I've made some presets for and now we can see my lovely vintage style preset bank for pigments which is available from my stancy car website at the bargain price of I don't know what it is at the minute but it's on offer so yeah check that out so overall it integrates really well [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] I know it's staff but still get a little buzzfeeding to recreate plastic tracks on just a laptop that was The Ballad of Dorothy Parker by Prince if you haven't already guessed and that's on sign of the times album well worth checking out but coming up now I've got the mini freak from auditoria and again I hope they don't ask for this one back because it really is a nice little synth if you've seen my demo or if you haven't seen it do check it out but they've got the mini free V software which acts um well it's so identical to this you can use it as a as an editor but gives us a great opportunity to check the difference between using a hardware synth and software with a controller so on the controller we've got 18 knobs and Sliders in total and on the hardware we've got 27 have counted that plus we've got all the various select buttons and stuff like that so the hardware itself does have a lot more going on if we go into the software it's really handy that the software is identical to the hardware in this case but uh great that our story I've got this software it's absolutely spectacular it's a really really good emulation of the minifig obviously the software hasn't got the analog filters but it's still an excellent thing and we can see here what I've managed to map if I just come out of midi Lane that's what your normal view is midi Lane anything in red is anything of mapped to this keyboard let's map that attack as well that should be it there we go so we've got the oscillators all mapped across the top here I've got the filter the resonance the envelope amount got the volume of the two oscillators on four and five and then six seven eight and nine at the main adsr envelope so this is the model of The Voice the ratio on in that on that voice I should say they'll detune on that one so basically knobs one two three and four so it's one two three and four it's these four knobs I've got mapped to the one two three and four but on this we've got select one and two so I've had to take up one two three four with the other four it'd be really good and I'm not sure if it's possible if you're not touring with the control center you could use the pads to toggle between different sets on this on the right hand side and even perhaps use the pads to toggle between different types of envelopes so envelope run or Loop or on the lfos free poly keyboard mono something like that you know keep on pressing these to to flick through the menu that'd be really handy but as I say I've no idea if it's possible it may be something they'll throw in on an update because if we go into the MIDI controller here keylab essential Mark III isn't there yet so maybe it will be but as a controller with this and the computer next to me it's actually really good I mean obviously on the on the software The Matrix is easier to use you're not having to rely on the little screen and go into work out what a sign one two and three are so got three assigns got three pages of them they're the all are laid out and you can see the amounts and change them really simply so obviously there are massive advantages to having a computer screen so using this and the computer is is not the same as using Hardware synth but it is a lot more flexible you know not use the controller keyboard for a fair few years so it was good to get a new one to see exactly how things have improved and they have so there you have it analog lab Mark III the experience was a lot better than I thought it was going to be to be honest the keys I said at the start they're sort of okay but playing with these behind me again um these are just as good not just adequate they're fine um not as good as the ones on my profit 600 because I've got a brand new Photon keyboard in that book The Roland Juno 60 the X7 Juno six they're honorable what's that that's the that's the r packs so yeah my initial reservation is about the keys I've been wiped out after playing with it for a little bit and then coming back in back in here so yeah level of integration is great especially with artori keylab it's not as good obviously as using the hardware simple a hardware synth in particular you're never going to get the level of integration you get with the dedicated piece of Hardware but all in all I think it's you know it's a space saver it's financially viable and it's nice like and portable so enjoyed that if you did please think about subscribing ring the bell join me over on patreon or check out mystarskycard.com website I've got Patches I've got tutorials loads of stuff so you can give me money so I can carry on doing stuff like this it's like begging that isn't it I'm not sure I'm keen on doing those bits at the end but everyone said they should start with you anyway I'll see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Starsky Carr

Views: 34,291

Keywords: Arturia keylab, keylab essentials, midi controller, best midi controller, top midi controller, Arturia midi controller

Id: WTBJ_p6U-0c

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023