Menu
To zoom in and out of the vertical view, place the cursor over the keyboard graphic first. Then press Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) and use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out. 10.7.2 Per-sequence parameters ARTURIA – KeyStep – USER’S MANUAL. Page 55: Seq Length. Arturia Minibrute 2. Arturia MiniBrute 2 is the new generation of the MiniBrute. It features 2 VCOs (VCO1 being Saw + UltraSaw, Square +Pulse width, Triangle + Metalizer, and VCO2 being Sine, Saw, Square waveforms.), Steiner Parker filter, ADSR and AD Envelopes, two LFOs, and of course, manual analog patchable configurations. KeyStep was imagined and designed to become the modern musician’s trump-card. Whatever your setup, KeyStep will merge into it to overdrive your workflow and effectiveness. With KeyStep and its range of connections you can control any digital or analog synthesizer from the past, today and even tomorrow. Sequence them all!
Arturia Keystep Pdf User Manuals. View online or download Arturia Keystep User Manual. How to download and update arturia keystep firmware Samsung are one of the most desirable gadgets that can be bought on the market as well as it is long lasting, so this is why people need to know how to update android firmware on Samsung.
MIDI Controller & Step Sequencer
Arturia’s cut-price creation combines step sequencing with keyboard control.
It’s not so long ago that Arturia dipped a toe into the hardware sequencer market with the Beatstep, quickly following it up with the more assured Beatstep Pro. With its balanced set of features for MIDI control and sequencing, plus a generous dose of CV/Gate outputs, this was — and is — a worthy addition to setups ranging from monster Eurorack systems to totally in-the-box environments. And yet, flexible though it is, the BSP’s pads and encoders don’t cover every aspect of step sequencing, hence the arrival of the Keystep.
Reminiscent of the step sequencer that graced Roland’s JX3P, this keyboard-based design offers polyphonic sequencing to the masses, kindly bundling in an arpeggiator and chord memory too. Arturia have avoided the primary shortcoming of the original Beatstep by including all the essential synchronisation options from the word go, along with the increasingly sought-after CV/Gate sockets. It might be the performance keyboard and sequencer many have been waiting for; at the very least, it promises to be a step in the right direction. Let’s take a look...
Key Points
First impressions are good; the Keystep is a solid marriage of metal base and creamy plastic shell. The first touch of its 32-note ‘Slimkey’ keyboard is equally promising, and the experience gets better when you learn it is equipped with velocity and aftertouch transmission. Compact and portable (at just 482 x 145 mm), it’s easy to imagine the Keystep at the heart of a live sequencing and performance rig.
In place of a regular pitch-bender and mod wheel are two ribbons, the former having a ‘snap to zero’ action. Ribbons are a (minor) compromise compared to the tactile response wheels provide, but their main downside is probably lack of visibility. If you leave the modulation wheel anywhere above zero, there’s no physical sign of it. Usefully, the mod wheel can be assigned to any MIDI CC you choose, but the pitch-bender’s definition is fixed. If, like me, you view synthesizer pitch-bend with the same suspicion as mullets and ‘funny cat’ presets, this might seem like a missed opportunity, but one that, perhaps, could be addressed in a future update.
The keyboard can be transposed by four octaves in either direction. Using the Shift key and the transpose buttons, you can toggle the behaviour of the keyboard in relation to the sequencer, choosing either to transpose the pattern dynamically or to use it for regular performance, on a separate MIDI channel if necessary. The final ‘performance control’ is a Hold button; it is handy for drones, for letting arpeggios run hands-free and for adding extra notes to an active arpeggio. A quarter-inch input is provided for a regular sustain pedal, whose configuration options cover those of the Hold button, plus a selection of MIDI CCs.
Taken purely as a controller, the Keystep sits comfortably in a MIDI, CV or USB-MIDI environment, and is perfectly happy to transmit MIDI and CV at the same time. A Micro USB port ensures class-compliant MIDI communication with your Mac or PC, plus it supplies power. Arturia assume this will be your preference, and so only a single cable is provided. If there’s no computer nearby, you’ll need to source a USB phone charger or similar, which is the only blatant example of penny-pinching. I’m relieved that the Micro USB port is less wobbly than that of my Beatstep Pro though, even if I still wouldn’t be completely at ease trusting it in a live situation. Fortunately, this isn’t necessary because there’s also a 9V adapter socket. The power requirements (500mA) are light enough that it even runs from an iPad, although if you planned on using it that way extensively, purchasing an adapter would be a good idea.
If it isn’t already obvious, the Keystep’s polyphonic sequencing is a purely MIDI thing, but there’s good news on the MIDI front. The In and Out ports are both full-sized, so there’s no need to mess around with fiddly adapters! The single set of CV/Gate outputs are joined by a third mini-jack, initially set up to turn the mod wheel into a voltage source. If you like, you can send aftertouch or velocity instead. Be aware that any reassignment involves the MIDI Control Centre software, so it’s not exactly spontaneous. My last slight niggle about the aesthetics is one I noted previously: given that many Keysteps are sure to find their way into Eurorack setups, Arturia could have made connectivity friendlier by printing the I/O text on the top rather than the rear. Actually, putting the mini-jacks on the top too would have been even better!
Other reasons to download the MCC software include the tweaking of the signals sent and expected by the Sync I/O mini-jacks. When clocking from MIDI or from a typical analogue pulse, you can get started right away as the sync options are set via external DIP switches. Admittedly, these aren’t as convenient as the button of the Beatstep Pro and you might need to pay more attention to the manual than I did at first. Otherwise, you too might not realise the white portions of the switch diagram represent the ‘on’ positions, not the ‘filled-in’ parts.
At the back of the Keystep we find a 9V power socket, three 3.5mm CV outputs, a quarter-inch sustain pedal port, MIDI I/O sockets and DIP switches to determine the sync source.
Sequencing
The sequencer interface is stripped to the basics: a few rubber buttons, a switch and three knobs. Of these, the Rate knob is redundant when using external sync or if you tap in the tempo. There’s no row of flashing LEDs to indicate progress through a pattern, nor are there options for changing direction, skipping steps or repeating them. It’s not completely Spartan though; additional functionality is gained by drafting in the keyboard and the ubiquitous Shift key. Blue text indicates the MIDI output channels, gate lengths for sequenced notes and the 10 possible swing values. Swing involves lengthening the odd notes while delaying and shortening the even ones, and both note length and swing values are remembered on a per-pattern basis.
When you wrap your fingers around them, you’ll notice that two of the knobs aren’t knobs at all but multi-position switches. They’re used to select the pattern to play and the current time division. This is undoubtedly cheaper than adding 16 buttons would have been, but buttons are faster and more direct. Realising this, Arturia have implemented a pretty decent workaround for option-jumping: if you press Shift while turning either knob, the new pattern or time division won’t kick in until Shift is released. Admittedly it’s a two-handed operation, but it helps you avoid all those embarrassing ‘oops, triplets’ or ‘the new pattern started a bar early’ incidents that can spoil an otherwise slick live performance.
The Keystep is limited to just eight patterns, each of up to 64 steps. There are two methods of pattern creation, both giving results that are tightly quantised. If you were hoping for a MIDI recorder that plays back ‘as is’, the Keystep is not it. Whether you opt for step- or real-time recording, you can stack up to eight notes on every step but no controller information can be included, not even the sustain pedal.
To begin step-time entry the Keystep must be stopped. Where sequencers are concerned, I’m no fan of unnecessary stopping, so this didn’t get our relationship off on the right foot. However, once I hit record and began banging in notes, chords, ties and rests, this seemed less of an issue. Adding legato notes is similar to adding tied notes: you hold the Tap button until you’ve entered those that should be legato; releasing it marks the return of normal progression. I’m happy to report that no manual was required for any of this — the controls are intuitive, even inspiring.
It’s not perfect, though. In common with Roland classics the SH101 and JX3P, the Keystep doesn’t display how many steps have been entered. Personally, when I’m hitting keys, I rarely remember to count them, so while the frequency of happy accidents is on a par with those old favourites, a visual counter would have been even sweeter. Since that is impossible with the existing interface, perhaps other improvements will be forthcoming. My vote would be for a faster means of deleting patterns and an actual means of undoing drastic changes.
Real-time recording works differently because it doesn’t create new steps, it merely overwrites the data found in the current pattern. You might therefore need to drop into step-time first and manually prepare the way, counting out all the steps you’re going to need. However your patterns attain the desired length, you must play the notes correctly on each pass; there’s no way to overdub and build up a pattern that way or return and edit them later. I guess if I were brainstorming a possible ‘Pro’ version, I’d probably want the option to turn off note ‘thru’ while recording too. Right now, the performer’s note input is heard exactly as entered. It’s only on the pattern’s first loop that it is tightened up.
Along with notes, the Keystep captures velocities as they’re played and interprets notes held over two or more steps as tied. But however you play, individual note durations are discarded in favour of a single value for the whole pattern (from 10 percent up to 90 percent). Naturally, the note lengths also depend on the envelope of the connected synth.
I mentioned ‘drastic changes’ earlier and one example of this is the potent (but ruthless) ‘Clear Last’ operation. This method of erasing the last step can be performed until all are gone and it works whether the sequencer is running or not. It’s a reasonable way to wipe short patterns, but remember the wiping is permanent. You can’t non-destructively shorten, as you can on the Beatstep Pro.
The Append function does the exact opposite — it adds steps to the pattern’s end. This simple feature requires the sequencer to be running but is not to be underestimated. Using it, you can fix an initially odd-length pattern on the fly, adding a note or two without having to record them all again. Then, for re-synchronisation or simply to restart because you feel like it, Shift and Play is a logical enough button combination and works smoothly.
That’s pretty much it for real-time recording. Incoming MIDI notes (from a keyboard or another sequencer) cannot be captured, but they are pretty useful for transposing Keystep patterns instead.
If you were wondering about the rules for chords and that single set of CV/Gate connections, there’s a parameter set in software to determine which note is selected (low, high or last). Lowest generally seemed to make the most sense to me as the Keystep was generating analogue bass lines from a Studio Electronics Tonestar while a Waldorf Streichfett provided choral accompaniment. Any comparable setup should be enough to convince you that basic sequencing need not sound one-dimensional.
The MIDI Controller Centre software’s Settings page.The Time Division isn’t stored in the pattern, it’s always live. Four ranges are offered, from 1/4 to 1/32 and Arturia deserve credit for placing all the triplet values together in the second half of the knob’s travel. With a bit of practice you’ll soon be swapping between the 1/16 and 1/32 divisions to recreate the repeats and ratchets of other sequencers.
Given that there’s no pattern chaining, 64 steps at the slowest (1/4) division offers a reasonable opportunity for varied chord progressions. It’s not really slow enough if you’re fond of drawn-out pads though but there are solutions to hand. For example, if you clock the Keystep from an external pulse derived from a clock divider (or from one of the drum triggers of a Beatstep Pro), life in the slow lane is more easily achieved.
Chord Memory
A single chord can be captured with a quick Shift-Hold combination. You can keep adding notes — up to the limit of 16 — provided you don’t release the keys. When you do, Hold flashes as a reminder the mode is now active. Lovers of expansive drones are sure to want to activate Hold too, in which case the flashes are twice as fast.
There isn’t much else to say about one-note chords, other than they can be spooky, wonderful, complex things. And depending on the receiving instrument, they could just as easily be a set of loops or long-playing samples. Up to eight notes from the chord can be captured into a sequencer step or, at the flip of a switch, you can arpeggiate the entire chord.
The Arpeggiator
As far as possible, the fun stuff of the step sequencer applies equally to the arpeggiator, which is notable for having its own set of gate and swing values. The restart function also has a place, because the arpeggiator also has patterns — of up to 32 notes. Joining the regular Up, Down and Random modes are ‘Order’ (playback is in the order entered), plus Inclusive and Exclusive. Inclusive is simply an ‘Alternate’ mode in which the notes play from low to high then back again, repeating the lowest and highest notes. Exclusive is similar except it drops the repeats. In the final pair of ‘x2’ modes, each note is played twice as the pattern goes up and down.
It’s not the most feature-packed arpeggiator. But to put that another way: the arpeggiator is fast and a genuine pleasure to use. In common with classic arpeggiators of the past, it is not key-sync’ed, so you won’t interrupt its perfect flow no matter how waywardly you feed it notes.
Depending on the definition in the MIDI Control Centre, the sustain pedal either has a normal MIDI function or can act like the Hold button for slotting in extra notes. When extending an arpeggio in this way, you’re free to switch octaves as many times as you like to create large, sweeping patterns.
MIDI Control Centre
While many of the Keystep’s internal parameters can be dealt with stand-alone, you can’t escape the computer indefinitely. It is needed to update the Keystep’s firmware, a task I performed at once to apply the most recent bug-fixes. Within the MIDI Control Centre, you decide whether the CV output should talk Oct/Volt or Hz/Volt and what type of gate is required, with the usual options offered. Unlike, for example, Arturia’s MicroBrute, the Keystep’s gate output has sufficient poke to drive the envelopes in my Eurorack modular.
Essentially, if there’s a decision you’re allowed to make, the MCC is the place to make it, even if in some cases you’d have preferred to wait until performance. A case in point is whether patterns should switch at their end or on the next step. Ditto the choice of whether they are transposed in a latching or non-latching way.
You don’t have a large pool of patterns to play with, but if you create something worth preserving, you can back up and restore from here too. The MCC’s graphical editor might seem like overkill, but Arturia can turn out that sort of thing in their sleep and some are bound to find it useful.
The MIDI Controller Centre’s note editor.
Ultimately, love it or loathe it, the software does what it’s meant to, and pretty painlessly. As a Beatstep Pro user myself, I only ever fire it up for firmware updates or to change the sync clock types. For the latter, the Keystep offers the following clock values: 1 step (Gate), 1 step (Clock), 1 pulse (Korg format), 24 ppqn and 48 ppqn.
Conclusion
There’s a good reason you see so many Beatstep Pros paired up with Eurorack systems: you can’t buy equivalent modules at anywhere near the same price. The Keystep offers a similarly attractive package but with different strengths. It covers chord sequencing, one-finger chord playback and sports a rather decent arpeggiator. Apart from the need to stop before notes can be entered in step-time, it’s fast, flowing and ideal for live interaction. It’s also a neat controller keyboard for iOS, MIDI hardware, DAW-bound soft synths and analogue gear. The keyboard length is an improvement on the ‘standard’ two octaves and the presence of aftertouch is a bonus at this price. Speaking of bonuses, Ableton Live Lite is included, just in case you’ve lived this long and failed to pick up a copy.
Once you accept that every change made to a pattern is stored automatically, you should have no qualms about embracing the Keystep for its immediacy. Of course, no matter how much I praise operational simplicity, it’s hard not to wish for just a tiny bit more. In this I feel justified in blaming Arturia since it is they who set the precedent for a ‘Pro’ version with the Beatstep. Whether or not a bigger, more sophisticated sequencer with pattern chaining, multiple channels and loads of storage is in the pipeline, the Keystep today is an excellent partner for no-nonsense sequencing, either by itself or as part of a multi-sequencer environment.
Pros
Cons
Summary
While it’s tempting to wish that Arturia went straight for the ‘Pro’ version, the Keystep is simple, fun and easily justifies its existence.
information£99 including VAT.
Source Distribution +44 (0)20 8962 5080
Published February 2017
Controller Keyboard
A fully-weighted master keyboard at this price is unheard of. Is the KeyLab 88 too good to be true?
It’s unusual to review a product after it’s been on the market for this long, but in this case, there’s a good reason. I first received a KeyLab 88 immediately upon its release, but it was clear that there were problems. For example, the velocity response was unpredictable, and I couldn’t use a standard–polarity sustain pedal with it. Discussing these issues with Arturia revealed that the company were already working on updates, so we agreed that they would supply another unit as soon as they felt that the bugs had been ironed out. When this arrived, tests revealed that they had addressed the major issues but... there was now a hardware fault.
In common with several purchasers who wrote to various forums, I discovered that the keyboard had a bunch of dead keys, in my case spanning from A7 to E8. To be more accurate, they were not dead, but hitting them as hard as you would to elicit a MIDI velocity of 127 elsewhere on the keyboard resulted in only silence. Hitting them considerably harder squeezed a maximum velocity of around 15 from them. So, like the first review unit, the second was soon winging its way back to France.
Sometime later, a third was dispatched and, upon its delivery, everything seemed to work correctly except that I had lost one of the updates that had been present on the second unit — the sustain pedal was again inverted. So I updated the firmware and ran Arturia’s MIDI Control Centre, which I had first installed when I tested the company’s Analogue Experience products some time ago. This detected the KeyLab 88 and, after updating itself, allowed me to modify the pedal input so that ‘off’ was detected as MIDI CC 64 value 127, and ‘on’ as value 0. I was finally able to play the KeyLab 88 as nature, and Arturia, had intended.
Hardware
The KeyLab 88 is an 88-note master keyboard with a velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive, piano-weighted Fatar keybed. It doesn’t boast an escapement action, but its touch is quite acceptable on a product designed for a range of playing requirements, especially since the firmware now offers 10 velocity curves and 10 aftertouch curves to tailor its response. Behind this, you’ll find the standard Arturia complement of knobs, faders, velocity- and pressure-sensitive pads, switches and transport controls, together with pitch–bend and modulation wheels, octave up/down buttons and a volume knob.
Editing is carried out by two further knobs and three buttons that interact with the menus displayed on the 16x2 character display. With its polished wooden cheeks and uncluttered design, the KeyLab 88 is an attractive unit and, while I’m not a fan of white keyboards on stage, Arturia have already released black versions of the KeyLab 49 and 61, so maybe a black 88 is in the works. On the bright side (and that’s not a pun regarding white and black keyboards), the KeyLab 88 weighs just 13kg, which makes it much more manageable than some of the 76-note keyboards and workstations that I still use, let alone the 88-note back-breakers of just a few years ago.
Initial setup couldn’t be simpler: just connect it to your computer using a USB cable and most if not all soft synths should recognise it and add it as an option in their MIDI menus. However, as with all products hosting parameter access editing systems, detailed configuration can be a bit clunky. Many times I intended to change values but instead found myself whipping through menus, to the accompaniment of much swearing in the wilds of Cambridgeshire. I therefore found it much quicker and easier to create configurations using the MIDI Control Centre software. Having done so, I was able to save up to 10 maps as presets within the KeyLab 88 itself, which allowed me to use whichever was appropriate for a given setup. This is a nice touch, especially when the keyboard isn’t connected to a computer.
When I first started playing the KeyLab 88 in earnest, I wasn’t a huge fan of its Fatar keybed but, as it started to loosen up a little, I found myself becoming more comfortable with it. Things were further improved when I determined the appropriate velocity and aftertouch sensitivities for my playing style. Similarly, I wasn’t sure at first how I felt about the position of the pitch-bend and modulation wheels. I’ve never been comfortable stretching over a keyboard to reach these and always prefer them to be to the left of the keyboard. Then I realised that, when playing in the upper octaves of an 88-note keyboard, it would be an even greater stretch to reach them if they were in the traditional position. Consequently, my only caveat regarding the hardware would be to take care to ensure that the KeyLab 88’s relatively lightweight knobs and sliders are fully protected if you’re going to be schlepping one around the country.
SoftwareArturia Keystep Start
Much of the value of the KeyLab 88 is contained within the Arturia Analog Lab, Modartt Pianoteq 5 Stage and UVI Grand Piano Model D software bundled with it — or, to be more precise, the software licences for these products that are bundled with it. Unfortunately, no CD-ROM or DVD-ROM is supplied so, unless you have superfast broadband, prepare yourself for a long evening of downloading and installing the many gigabytes to which you’re entitled. I don’t live in the city, and my maximum broadband speed is, to be honest, rubbish, so it took me four hours to download all the packages, create the necessary iLok account, then install and authorise everything. What’s more, not having installed the UVI Workstation host software before, I found the registration process for Model D to be a bit long-winded and intrusive, which led to much additional swearing in the wilds of Cambridgeshire.
I reviewed Arturia’s Analog Experience software a few years ago, and many of its features have survived in the Analog Lab, which now contains nearly 6000 sounds distilled from the company’s current range of V-series software synths and keyboards. There are numerous ways to select sounds and, as before, the software then provides a subset of the original voicing parameters rather than the complete edit map for each instrument. With up to 20 parameters available per sound, you can access most of the important features of the simpler instruments such as the Wulitzer EP200 and Solina, while those provided for the more sophisticated synths are still sufficient to sculpt myriad new sounds. What’s more, you can even determine which of the available parameters is assigned to each of the knobs and sliders on the KeyLab 88’s control panel, which is a nice touch. If you own full versions of the underlying soft synths and have them installed on the same computer as the Analog Lab you can go still further, because pressing the Edit button reveals the full editing system of the appropriate synth, thus turning the Lab into an integrated editing and playback environment for all of your Arturia V-series instruments.
Other features include a Multi mode, which, despite its name, is a dual mode that allows you to split or layer two sounds and apply a range of effects to each, and Chord mode, which allows you to replay up to 16 chords of your choosing by pressing the appropriate pads. Then there are Snapshots, which allow you to allocate 10 sounds to the buttons on the KeyLab 88 for quick recall, and Live mode, which allows you to order up to 128 sounds and Multis for recall using MIDI patch changes. There are frustrations — for example, you can’t re–order the sounds that you insert into the slots in Live mode, and I would expect the Snapshots feature to be of limited use on stage because, when you press a button to select a sound, the previous one is instantly silenced and there’s a delay before you can play the next. What’s more, the Analog Lab appears to have lost two features of the previous Analogue Laboratory: Scenes (which for me isn’t a huge loss), and the ability to use the pads as rhythm loop triggers. And while it was stable for most of the review, Analog Lab isn’t entirely watertight. On one occasion, I managed to get it into a right tizzy, reporting CPU usage of more than 1000 percent and unable to escape from a loop of error messages. But overall, it’s much more flexible and much more useful than you might imagine, and deserves serious consideration.
Alongside Arturia’s own software, the Modartt Pianoteq 5 Stage physically-modelled piano comes highly recommended (not least in the Sound On Sound review from April 2015). While it’s a limited version of the Pianoteq Pro software that I already have loaded on this Mac, and it lacks almost all of the Pro version’s editing features, the underlying quality is retained. One significant benefit of physical modelling is that it requires a tiny fraction of the disk space needed for a sampled piano, yet Pianoteq also demands surprising little of your computer’s precious CPU power. With the latency at its lowest setting (64 samples at 44.1kHz) and 128 voices enabled, it made the CPU fans whirr somewhat faster than usual on my MacBook Pro but played faultlessly.
Finally, we come to the UVI Grand Piano Model D, which is a huge, sample-based instrument based on a Steinway Model D. It runs within UVI’s Workstation, a powerful multi-timbral environment capable of hosting all manner of instruments and effects from both UVI and third-party developers. Getting you to install this is, no doubt, a significant part of the reason why UVI agreed to bundle the software in the first place. In use, I was pleased to find that the UVI and Modartt instruments have rather different characters (otherwise, why bundle both?). In my view, the underlying tone of the UVI piano is the more realistic, but the Pianoteq is more playable due to its lack of sample layers. You may disagree, but that’s fine. Pianos are singularly personal instruments, so all I can say is that you might like both, or one, or neither. Probably both.
Conclusions
It’s possible that the escapement keybeds incorporated within premium products cost as much as you’re likely to pay for the whole of the KeyLab 88 and its accompanying software. And, whereas flagship products may have large screens and sophisticated GUIs, I’m comfortable (at this price) about using the MIDI Control Centre software to overcome the shortcomings of the KeyLab 88’s on-board editing system.
So where does that leave us? Ultimately, there are still a few minor bumps to iron out, but Arturia are to be commended for listening to feedback, accepting that there were initial problems and then fixing them. The KeyLab 88 now works as I hoped it would and it offers good value for money. If you’re after an 88-note MIDI controller, you wouldn’t be doing yourself any favours if you omitted the KeyLab 88 from your list of candidates.
The Rear Panel
The rear panel is sparsely populated but, given the price, this is understandable. There’s a single MIDI in/out pair on five-pin DINs, four control inputs — sustain, expression, auxiliary and breath controller, all of which can be reassigned to the MIDI CC of your choice — and a USB type B socket for connecting to your computer. You can use the combination of USB MIDI and the five-pin sockets as a MIDI interface for older, five-pin-only equipment, which is a bonus. Power is also supplied via USB, but the final hole in the back panel is a 5V DC input that will accept power from a mains adaptor (not supplied), allowing you to use the KeyLab 88 away from your computer should you wish.
Hardware AccessoriesDownload Manual Arturia Keystep 6
The KeyLab 88 is delivered with two hardware add-ons, both of which are welcome. The first is a wide although not very high music stand that hooks solidly over three lugs on the rear of the unit. I would give this five stars, except that it’s mounted somewhat left of centre and isn’t tall enough to support classical sheet music, which will droop backward unless you brace it. The second included accessory is a rubber-surfaced extension shelf that also attaches at the rear, adding 4.5 inches (11cm) to the depth of the top surface. This is enough to allow you to place even the largest of laptops, a selection of synth small modules or even small synthesizers safely on top of the controller. It would be nice if this extension could be mounted to the left or to the right of the music stand, but there’s only one position and that’s to the right. I’m impressed that Arturia included these add-ons because, in all manner of situations, they make the KeyLab88 much more usuable than it would otherwise be.
An Unexplained Bug
For some reason I haven’t fathomed, two of my software synths — Gmedia’s M-Tron Pro and Virtual String Machine — suffer from hanging notes when played from the KeyLab 88. I tested the keyboard with other soft synths to see whether this was a generic problem, but it’s not. The likes of Gmedia’s ImpOSCar and Oddity, as well as other manufacturers’ products such as AAS String Studio VS2 and Future Audio Workshop Circle, all seemed to work without problems. The KeyLab 88 also worked with the Roland Boutique hardware modules, and as a full-size controller for the Korg Minilogue. Furthermore, Arturia’s earlier Analog Experience controllers don’t exhibit this behaviour with either M-Tron Pro or the VSM, so I hope that it’s an isolated incompatibility involving the review unit, my host computer, my software and my OS. Nonetheless, it may be worth testing your own setup (if possible) if you’re going to be using this combination of products.
Pros
Cons
Summary
Until recently, had some bloke down the pub offered you a weighted, 88-note MIDI controller complete with a powerful soft synth package and two respected grand pianos, all for around £500$800, you wouldn’t have bitten his hand off — you would have been up beyond his elbow before pausing for breath.
information£559 including VAT.
Source Distribution +44 (0)20 8962 5080
Test Spec
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