Arturia MiniLab MKII Reviews

Awesome Midi Keyboard for the Price

This keyboard is truly awesome for the price. Also, the included arturia software sets you up with pretty much everything you need. Highly recommend it for anyone looking for an affordable midi controller. The only downside for me is the number of keys, but it really depends on what you want to do

Great addition to a home studio.

There is no cons.

good value for money controller

Using with ableton Live with custom setup for effects on vocals, guitar and as a looper.

Pros:

Very easy to setup

Cons:

None so far, durability is not tested yet, as I bought this just a month ago. Will be commenting again after a year of use.

Just Arturia

No words needed. Arturia is top quality. Perfect for begginers

Easy to use

It is very easy to use it.

My computer sees it directly and the knobs are working fine.

As for the pads, you need more force than expected, so you need to press them hard. That means that it is not to easy to handle the dynamics.

As for the sound quality, there is no sound of it's own (it's a midi controller). The quality of the clavie is great. Small and fits everywhere. It is what i needed for my desk and helps me to find very easily small mellodies (2 octaves) and some chords very fast.

very good midicontroller

i'v been having loads of fun with this thing and if you are an ableton fan it comes with integrated features for ableton it's easy to use and the keys sensitivity feel nice.

Poor materials

The keys are not comfortable to play.

Great for ableton

This is a great piece of gear, especially if you use Ableton. I personnalité use both Ableton and Logic Pro fro different music needs.

The setup in Logic Pro is as easy as Ableton (just plug and play) BUT you get a lot less functionalities out of the box. The pads are read by Logic as regular keys and the pots order doesn’t make any kind of sense.

If you’ll be working with Logic, expect a lot of MIDI mapping if you want to have a controller as versatile and useful as this one can be.

In Ableton - no issue at all, just freakin’ perfect out of the box.

I would have appreciated a lot more documentation from Arturia on how to use their gear with each DAW. Only YouTube and forums have been helping me so far.

Great experience and easy to get going

Packaging was cool and build quiality of the unit is great. Set up was straight forward especially for someone not tech minded. The analog lite program was exactly that, light on features. But all progrmas that come with it are great overall.

Overall would recommend, bulit to last, easy to use and plenty there to feel like you got waayy more than your monies worth!

Great quality for its price !

I'm quite surprised of the quality of this product for its price. Although the keys are quite close to each others, it is still very comfortable to play with.

Cheap but useful and loyal

This keyboard is my main keyboard for travelling. It's light, for the way I travel the size is ok, the keys feel much better then other similar keyboards at this price range, the knobs, pads and encoders can all learn MIDI, I use it with Ableton and I am very happy with it.

Way more than I expected

This midi keyboard is perfect for home studios and even for small live sessions/ jam sessions.

I is really versatile and the software is good too.

Cons in my opinion:

the pads are not that sensitive. You have to press a little hard when compared with other pads (e.g. Akai )

Really, really good

I just been testing it a day, but as far as I can say for now is that it is a really good midi controller. I use it with ableton live to track instruments that I don't usually have. I play and record traditional acoustic instruments. I play only for family and friends but when I do, I...This is my first personal midi controller. I wanted it to be mobile, versatile, and structurally solid (and I think I found it). I plan to use it for a long time. I updated to the latest firmware that was released recently. It's good to know that it is still being supported after years of its initial release. I upgraded to Analog Lab 4 though the Analog Lab Lite that came as a software download is enough get things started. The UVI Grand Piano Model D software is also a good addition to my arsenal. I recommend it.

A great MIDI controller, apart from some details

I was a bit divided between this Arturia MiniLab MKII and the Akai MPK mini MK2. I chose this one because it looked nicer, because I didn't like the mod and pitch wheel being merged in a joystick in the Akai and because the keys looked sturdier. I was not mistaken about that, I have some friends that had the Akai and the keys actually felt really flimsy and some even broke.

I wanted something that I could take with me everywhere and that could also be on the side of the computer in my home studio to try synth sounds and deal with them easily before going to my main keyboard that is not a MIDI controller but has more keys and better quality overall. This keyboard does the trick but there are a few details I would like to mention.

First, the knobs have really little sensibility if you turn them slowly but can go crazy if you crank them up a little faster. That can be useful in some cases, but in other is really distracting and can slow your workflow. Not something terrible, just something to keep in mind.

Second, I prefer the pitch and mod wheels being separate things, but the "touch" feature is a little unnatural and, in my opinion, unnecessary. But since I only use this keyboard it for drafts or dialing sounds, it's ok for me.

Off with the bad points, on with the good ones.

The pads are really good and sensible. They feel great and have a really nice response.

The size is perfect to put in your backpack and take it anywhere, and since it doesn't require any batteries or a power outlet, you can make music anywhere (keep in mind that it is white, it can get dirty really easily if you're not careful).

The keys are not amazing but they meet the goals that is to play with more or less sensibility.

It looks awesome!!!

Overall was a great buy, considering the price and the functionalities it has, plus the plug-ins it gives you. If your looking for something portable and powerful, I would recommend the Arturia MiniLab MKII ;)

Fenomenal MIDI controller for the price

Build quality isn't perfect, but for the price I'm very satisfied. Using this in my small home studio and it works great.

As said above build quality isn't the best, I'm not sure if this is only my unit but the pads barely seem to work, which kind of bums me out. I haven't heard anyone else say anything bad about the pads though, so it might be my unit.

The drivers were very easy to install, no troubles at all.

Really like the feel of the keys

not the smoothest setup with logic pro x

Still learning its capabilities and overall a really good keyboard

Great keyboard for my amateur music production. I'm still learning how to make the most of this keyboard and so far I really love it.

Keys strokes are similar to pianos which is what I wanted. Also, the keys are, though short, a bit longer than most mini keyboards which is also a plus for me.

Recommend to anyone like to turn their instruments and make new sounds, as there're tons of buttons which can be mapped to the DAW.

The only slight disadvantage is that it is quite heavy, but the build quality is excellent and I don't feel people would move around a lot while using it.

AVOID. Lots of practical features. Build is awful, knobs and Arturia costumer support are miserable.

I bought this after several reviewers recommended it, and more importantly, because of the endless encoders with default mapping to macros in Ableton.

These encoders turned out to be utter garbage. A slight turn to the right and the MIDI will jump dramatically to the left. To turn a macro knob in Ableton fully (1-127) you must rotate the knob over 720degrees (on fast acceleration setting). Their precision are unsellably bad. Avoid this controller like the plague if good encoders is what you seek.

The keyboard gets the job done. Cheap build, but much better to use than my laptop keyboard. Same goes for the pads.

The included software, Analog lab light, is very good. The presets in it beat every Ableton stock preset by a mile.

Worst of all has to be the extremely confusing MIDI control center and awful manual. After reading the manual I still could not set it up properly to utilize the banks. I emailed Arturia to ask what the issue was and they very rudely ignored the content of my email and sent a copy-paste guide of how to set up the controller in Ableton. This was not what my email asked.

I would not recommend this product at all. If keys and pads is all you want, I'm sure there are better cheap products. If you need knobs, these will disappoint you very much. I've read forms in which several people returned this product solely based off the poor quality of the encoders.

A good Midi Keyboard for the price

I use this keyboard occasionally when I have to work with Midi in my recordings. I would say that it is a good keyboard for the price. what i did not like was the touch pitch wheel, a physical wheel would have been better for me personally.

Tottaly worth!

Really nice mini keyboard, the keys are easy to play, the knobs help the user handle the macros in any DAW.

The software include a large variety of sounds i use in my projects.

The pads are quite hard to hit but overall its a value for money product.