Best NEW budget MIDI keyboard? Arturia Keylab Essential MK3 Review

foreign [Music] this is the arturia key lab essential Mark III and it's the newest budget keyboard from arturia that comes with 49 or 61 keys and black or white in this video I'll show you why this is a great full-size keyboard to buy if you're making music on your computer and you want outstanding control of synths pianos and other virtual instruments by arturia this keyboard delivers and won't break the bank I'll also compare the key lab essential Mark III to some other Alternatives you may want to consider alright let's start with the most prominent new feature in my opinion the new screen brand new for 2023 it's an excellent improvement from the previous version of keylab essential it has lots more room to show information and makes use of contextual buttons under it as well the large encoder knob feels premium and there's a nice soft click as you turn it you can press press it in to do things like select the screen is easy on the eyes it's great to see the presets you're using the parameters you're changing and your Daws control as well I'll go into these features more later in the video so overall great screen and I have to say this is a winning feature of the keylab essential Mark III when comparing it to other keyboards at this price point other keyboards give you those tiny screens that don't really enhance your workflow that much in fact this screen is even better than this screen on our toria's more expensive keylab Mark II I think we may be seeing an update to that keyboard coming soon given the improvements on the essential now there's more new stuff on the key lab essential I need to talk about dock control but before I do that a quick word about key and Pad field this is super important to me as a Pianist keys Keys hats are Velocity sensitive of course but no aftertouch the keylab essential Mark III has semi-weighted spring action keys if you'll find a bit light to the touch but not mushy foreign you will find better keys on arturia's more expensive keyboards but these Keys feel appropriate for this price point and similar to Native Instruments a series quality foreign 's drum pads on previous keyboards but the pads on this keylab essential feel good sensitivity and stiffness have been improved Novation will give you more drum pads for a similar price but they're smaller m-audio's oxygen pro has a nicer key bed and more pads but you're going to pay a bit more for that keyboard real quick on the left side of the keyboard you have pitch and mod Wheels octave up and down and transpose buttons and midi Channel and a bank select button for the pads before we get to dodge integration if you're new around here I'm Sanjay C consider subscribing if you haven't already I've got lots of keyboard reviews and a Saturday news report video where I share the latest products from the music production world if you're interested in buying the key lab essential Mark III or other keyboards I talk about in this video I'll add links to the best prices below okay the next most notable new feature is the inclusion of Daw configurations for several popular Daws this was missing on the previous version but now you have out of the box configurations for Ableton Live bit wig Cubase FL Studio logic and the MCU Hui standard if you're using a different Daw this is an important feature because if you use any of these Daws to make music you'll have pre-mapped easy access to frequently used features using the physical buttons knobs and faders on the key lab essential now other keyboards at this price include dock configurations so arturia is kind of catching up with this feature it's nice to see that it's finally included so what does Daw configuration do well let's take a look I'm using Ableton Live but you'll get similar control with other supported Daws switch to the dot control mode and the faders control your track volumes the knobs control your pans and the buttons to the left control stop play record tap Tempo you've got loop on and off rewind and forward metronome on and off save quantize undo and redo foreign the buttons under the screen give you some more control depending on your Daw for Ableton Live for example you can switch between device and track control and also arm tracks and select tracks I tested loading up some stock instruments in logic in Ableton and they instantly worked well with the knobs on the keylab essential and the screen shows what parameter you're adjusting to I love this feature [Music] I should also mention that arturia has nine faders and knobs unlike the typical eight on many other keyboards the last fader and knob give you quick access to your current active track this is a nice feature if you forget which track is the one you're currently using you always know number nine corresponds to the active track one thing I don't see on the key lab essential Mark III is the ability to control sends someone correct me if I'm wrong arturia does give you a way to customize the physical controls using their software and you can also customize the velocity curve of the keys and the velocity and after touch of the pads here now the dot control features I've explained so far are similar no matter what doll you use but Ableton Live has a few unique features and the key lab integrates well with them as well first is clip and scene triggering you can use the drum pads to launch clips and record to Clips as well and you can use the main encoder to navigate through scenes and trigger a scene when clicking in foreign when it comes to Ableton Live the only other keyboard that gives you a little bit more like access to Ableton capture features and sends is the Novation launch key that keyboard was built for Ableton Live when it comes to data integration arturia has done very well on the keylab essential Mark III although they are catching up with other keyboards here they have a big Advantage with the screen it's so much more useful to see your control descriptions on this screen versus other tiny screens on other keyboards at this price but we're not done yet you can't talk about arturia keyboards without showing off their integration with our toria's own analog lab software and it's even better now before I get to that if you're writing songs and producing music at home you should share them with the world it's super easy to get your music out there using District kid the sponsor of today's video District kid lets you upload your music to Spotify Apple music YouTube music Pandora pretty much everywhere best of all they make it really easy just upload your track fill in some Fields add some artwork and they do the rest District kit also collects earnings for you when your listener plays or purchases your music and they help you Market your music with tools built right in a hyperfollow page lets you share your latest music with your friends on Facebook or anywhere you can share a link and it can easily follow you to get notified of your upcoming releases I've actually created two dedicated videos on just your kid to give you all the details about how it works how you upload and how you get paid you can watch that video here check out those videos and if you're ready to sign up I'll include a link in the video description that will give you seven percent off your first year of membership now I said this keyboard has excellent control of arturia's virtual synths pianos and other virtual instruments and that's an important difference when comparing this keyboard to Novation M Audio Akai and nectar keyboards none of those keyboards offer this level of integration the only other keyboard manufacturer that gives you this much is Native Instruments so let's see what keylab essential can do load analog lab onto a track in your Daw the keylab comes with this software by the way and then switch to keylabs mode to arturia and now you have the ability to navigate the presets and control sound shaping parameters turn the main encoders who cycle through presets you can even filter the presets by type [Music] you can favorite them and you've also got preset previous and next buttons [Music] with the new screen this gives you an excellent way to find sounds in analog lab once you find something you like you can use the knobs and faders to shape the sound this is a lot of fun and really Sparks creativity while keeping your focus on the keyboard instead of your computer screen and I think the key until is the most budget-friendly way to dive into the world of virtual instruments and if you're into vintage synths this may be a dream come true for you so what else has arturia added how about chord scale and art features chord mode assigns a chord that you can play on any note long press on the chord button to select different types of chords you can also create your own chords [Music] scale mode allows you to set a scale and not have to worry about playing the wrong notes [Music] they got really fancy with the screen for the scale mode you can actually see the scale on the screen art mode gives you Auto arpeggiators and lots of ways to adjust them again the screen just makes this easy and intuitive arturia has improved the included software collection I'll get to that in a sec before I do let's take a quick look at the back not too much here though you've got a USBC connector a midi out and a port for a sustained expression or a foot switch pedal the keylab essentials build quality is on par with their previous model and other keyboards at this price with the exception of the faders and knobs I actually think they feel more premium than the competition you get some pretty software with the key lab essential Mark III arturia is including analog lab V which I showed you before Ableton Live Lite Native Instruments the gentleman piano and ubis Model D Piano as well as Luke cloud and melodics this is a great keyboard for the price and arturia has really raised the bar with the user interface at this price point if you're in the market for a mini keyboard I've rounded up the best available right now in a video right here keep making the music you love and I'll see you soon

Channel: Sanjay C

Views: 171,946

Keywords: Arturia Keylab Essential 3, Arturia Keylab Essential review, Arturia Keylab Essential MK3, best midi controller keyboard, midi controller with 49, best 49 key midi controller, best midi controller for 200, cheap midi keyboard, arturia midi keyboard, sanjayc, sanjay c, arturia keylab, keylab essential, keylab mkiii

Id: Ydjuxe5N2VI

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Tue May 23 2023