Arturia KeyLab Essential 61 4-stars Reviews

Decent MIDI Keyboard

Overall, I really like this keyboard. For the price, you really can't go wrong with what's included. The included software packages are really handy and I've found myself using them very often. Can recommend

Arturia KeyLab Essential 61

I am new to piano, and I must say, this keyboard is great. The software it comes with, is what makes it such an incredible option for beginners. You can explore a lot, and make the BEST most atmospheric, dramatic, dark, or happy sounds with Analog Lab V, and of course Ableton Live Lite is great if you want to begin recording.. The reason I gave the product 4 stars and not 5, is because one of the higher note keys (A) for some unknown reason stopped working after 6 hours of using the keyboard. The keybed itself feels much nicer than I thought, but you don't have 100% control of the action like you would with a properly hammered piano/keyboard. Overall its great for beginners

does what I would expect

the manual could be better, in that novices won't understand the terms, but apart from that, no major problems

A la hauteur de mes attentes. Excepté un petit bémol concernant les softwares qui vont avec le produit (analog lab...) pas très intéressants à mon goût.

Nice keyboard

Nice cheap midi, nice feeling to the keys, knobs, and faders, Arturia lab 4 is also a very good accompanying software with great sounds

Excellent value midi keyboard

I got this for my home studio set up. In addition to the relatively low price, the bundled software made it a very good value purchase. There are some limitations (eg the absence of zones / splits) but for less than £200 I can't really complain.

Pros

1. Relatively easy to set up and install, provided you follow the instructions and do everything in the right order

2. The midi control centre, where you can save configurations to the User pads for easy recall is great.

3. With the optional adaptor (Item 192043) I have also been able to use this in a live setting as a controller keyboard (in my case for a Nord Electro 6 HP), so it could operate as a top (B3 organ) board, including the assignment of the sliders to the Nord drawbar settings. It took me a little while (and a youtube video) to figure this out, but it was really worth it to have the versatility of a second keyboard on the Nord sound engine and the ability to control the organ sounds from the midi controller.

4. The variety of sounds / synths in the bundled software is just fantastic. I've had hours of fun with the vintage synths.

Cons

1. It's not the sturdiest keyboard in the world, and the keys are very light to the touch. Not really suitable for piano sounds, but is grand for synths and light organ work.

2. Would prefer to be able to assign channels to zones, but I guess that's why Arturia sell more expensive / feature rich versions.

Overall, if you're looking for a cheap controller with a bundle of software, which can also be used live, and which will integrate easily into your DAW, this is a good option.

Reasonable quality for the price.

I use this as my main midi keyboard. Having five octaves in a pretty compact keyboard has been great as someone who doesn't have a whole lot of space. The keys are nice, though it's a typical synth keybed. Nothing fancy beyond velocity and release velocity.

I like the layout, lots of faders and pots to map things too. Transport controls are super handy. I can't say I use the pads much though. The programming software is easy to use, and an update within the last year made it not take a few minutes to actually load. Which is nice.

My minor complaint is that the pots move veeeery slowly. It's the same on my keystep pro, so it might be Arturia's thing.

My major complaint is the midi keys sometimes get stuck on. For whatever reason the note-off doesn't get sent. It can be very annoying.

The big thing though is the inclusion of Aturia's analog lab. I think this makes the keylab essential and excellent product overall, especially for those first getting into making music who perhaps don't have as many synths and samples yet.

Unimpressed by the keys and pads, but SOFTWARE VALUE!

Overall good keyboard with good functions. Extremely good software value!!! That's really the best thing about it to be honest. Weightless keys are really not pleasant to play. They don't have enough force to bounce back well like good synth keys, but they don't stay down enough to feel like weighted keys either. Just overall not the best key experience. Pads are also underwhelming. Sensitivity to low velocity hits is quite bad. I've found that my AKAI MPK mini keys are better. All the controls are pretty good, do the job, and work great with analog lab. I wish i just got the smaller version of this to use with all the arturia plugins, and got a 61 keys standalone keyboard with better keys to play.