The Arturia KeyLab Important mk3 is full-featured, eco-friendly and fairly priced

Arturia’s KeyLab Essential collection is type of the candy spot in its lineup. It has many of the identical core options as the corporate’s flagship KeyLab collection, however with a much less premium construct and some much less hands-on controls. However it’s they’re additionally about half the worth. The brand new KeyLab Important mk3 delivers even higher worth with extra controls, a much bigger display and a extra eco-conscious construct. 

The mk3 will initially be obtainable in 49- and 61-key varieties, in each black and white finishes. Whereas there was no announcement of an upgraded 88-key mannequin, I would not be shocked if Arturia added one down the road. On the floor the KeyLab Important mk3 would not look terribly completely different from its predecessor. There’s nonetheless 9 knobs and 9 faders on the appropriate that present quick entry to vary of parameters in Arturia’s softsynths. However there are additionally management scripts for a variety of common DAWs, together with Ableton Dwell that permit you to do suppose like combine tracks utilizing the faders or cease and begin recordings. 

The one instantly noticeable distinction is the a lot bigger display in the midst of the keyboard. It ought to make navigating presets in Analog lab and different Arturia devices a lot simpler. There’s additionally 4 contextual button under it permitting for extra management over your plugins. 

Arturia additionally expanded the controls at your disposal, together with including a second financial institution for the eight pads so, a minimum of with a bit of labor, you possibly can reap the benefits of a full 16 pad drum rack in Dwell. There’s additionally new scale and chord modes with presets, in addition to a maintain perform and an arpeggiator. The corporate additionally upgraded the pedal enter to permit to be used with an expression pedal as an alternative of simply maintain. The software program bundle included (which was already fairly nice) has been expanded to incorporate Native Devices The Gentleman, Loopcloud and Melodics, along with Ableton Dwell Lite, Analog Lab V and UVI Mannequin D. 

Lastly Arturia has dedicated to lessening its environmental affect by making the KeyLab Important mk3 out of a minimum of 40 p.c recycled plastic and transferring to one hundred pc recyclable packaging. And regardless of all this, the keyboards are literally considerably cheaper than the mk2 fashions. The 61-key KeyLab Important mk3 is $269 (down from $320 for the mk2), whereas the 49-key model of the mk3 is barely $219 (down from $269).