It’s because they are new. Find an old t shirt you want to use as a rag and wipe down each pad with the rag and the friction of your fingers. This will remove the waxy layer of the pads and speed up the break in period. People have been doing this on the push 2, maschine, and new MPCs and yielded great results.

Thanks for that. Will do. It’s all fairly new to me, really. Was using an old synth for this before (sans pads).

I've had a 61 for over a week now. I really like it. It's well built, keys are decent enough, and it seems to be working nicely with Ableton.
An earlier post asked how it compared to some other controller keyboards. I have not played them all, but before buying the keylab MkII I spent a lot of time demo'ing NI's Komplete Kontrol keyboard. I passed on the NI given one thing that drove me crazy. There is a very noticeable difference in my hands on how the NI keyboard's white keys behave vs its black keys. I would describe it as trigger depth mostly. The NI's black and white keys just feel like they don't belong on the same keyboard. I just could not get past that when playing, which is unfortunate given that controller has some really nice features.

Thanks for the knowledge dubya. I remember reading your post on the Arturia board a week ago about the black keys on the komplete kontrol. For a 700 dollar controller it should be top notch for black keys. I’ll probably get this keyboard in the next few months. I think I am waiting for the white color to release to match my spark original model.

I have not posted about the NI keys anywhere but my prior post here. Sounds like I'm not crazy though and at least one other person agrees with how they feel to me!
I almost waited for the white KeyLab too. Best of luck!

White Keylab is the one I went with, a little while ago now. Love the looks of it.

I have had the Keylab 61 MkII for a few weeks now, and I am finally posting something since I can’t seem to find any other info or reviews addressing some of my questions and concerns. Sorry this is super long; there was no product review page on Gearslutz for me to put this in. But it is relevant to this thread.

So I never owned the previous Keylab (MkI I guess you would call it now), but I was impressed with the Ableton integration that goes a step beyond what you get from basic user remote scripts for unsupported controllers. I did not like the feel of the MkI keys in the store, however, but the MkII advertised even better integration but with a much better key bed. Well, it turns out that the integration is deeper in only a few ways, and falls far short in others:

1. Session control: A key feature I wanted was to be able to navigate and control more than just the first 8 tracks (which is what you get using user remote scripts). The MkII can do that, but it doesn’t give very useful feedback as to how you navigate. The 3 buttons next to the faders change this behavior in ways that I literally cannot figure out. The knobs and faders control 8 tracks at a time, but I can’t really tell which 8 are active, and so I end up using the mouse anyway.

2. Solo/mute/record buttons: These are not as easy to use as they should be. You have to first select an active track (and as noted above, which track it will jump to is not very clear), and then press one of those buttons to solo/mute/record that track. The button row below the faders only selects the track to be active. It would have been easier if the solo/mute/record buttons made that bottom row switch to do one of those functions for all tracks, but instead it takes multiple button presses to navigate, select, and then solo/mute/arm a track. Also, there is no way to do affect multiple tracks, as each new selection unselects the last one. Again, the result is going back to the mouse.

3. Knobs: Unlike the MkI and most keyboards, the knobs in Ableton DAW mode only control track panning. They DO NOT take control of the 8 macro controls for a selected track device, ever, which is basically a deal-breaker for me. They can’t even be used for track sends. This is not “deep DAW integration” by any measure. I actually tried to set up a user-remote script anyway but couldn't get it to recognize anything. This is just super disappointing for a $500 controller.

4. Pads: In Ableton DAW mode the pads do some kind of clip triggering, but it doesn't seem to map in any logical way. I literally can't figure it out. There are 4 rows of 4 pads but clips only appear in the top two rows, and scrolling with the jog wheel and arrows will move the active cell but it does not move the zone controlled by the pads. Also, the pads in this DAW mode don't transmit notes, so if you want to control a drum kit like you would with, say, Push, you actually have to switch out of Live mode (which is not editable) to one of the customizable user modes. The pads themselves are OK, but not great, certainly not on par with Push or even my Akai MPK Mini and LPD. But they are not terrible like the original Akai MPK49/61 keyboards either.

5. Keys: The key action is okay, certainly much better than the MkI, but not great. One annoyance that I notice constantly is that I feel the bottom edge of the keys scratch my fingers whenever I press a key from a slight angle. I am a piano player, so basically any chord will result in this happening. If the keys were just one or two millimeters deeper this would probably not be an issue. The keys are also perhaps a bit on the light side for being semi weighted, but I'm not an expert there. I have a Roland System-8 with its shorter semi-weighted keys, and they do not have these same problems. I also tried the Nektar LX88+ and returned it when I heard the announcement of the Keylab MkII. Its keys didn’t have edges, and it has all 88 of course, but the semi-weighted key action was probably pretty comparable.

6. MIDI: One feature I also wanted on the MkII was 5-pin MIDI in and out for my outboard gear. Well, it turns out that MIDI thru only works with USB MIDI. So you if wanted to use this as a master keyboard for outboard gear in a DAW-less rig, it will have to the first device in your chain, which seems completely bonkers to me. Also, the USB MIDI thru has a lot of issues that appear to be firmware bugs. It does have a super convenient way to change the MIDI channel, which was another feature I wanted, and that does work super well. It also remembers these settings when you power back up, including which mode you left it in, so that's really nice too.

Ironically I was frustrated that the Nektar LX88+, which also boasts deep integration for almost every DAW, does not offer anything for Ableton beyond the basic user remote script features. After seeing the Keylab MkI I was expecting so much more from this MkII, and now I see that the Nektar could do most of what I wanted while the Keylab MkII cannot. I think will have to return this as well and wait and see if Arturia ever push a firmware update to fix some of these obvious oversights. I have been in contact with their tech support (which is excellent, by the way) several times already, and they confirmed some of these issues since the manual is very vague on a lot of the above points. They said they would pass it along, but who knows if a patch will ever be issued. For the price, I don't know how they can afford not to at least make it do what the MkI could do.

I'm currently using Deepmind 12 as my main keybed and triggering the DAW with a mouse and have and part use the Arturia V6 collection. I have all the synth keyboards I need really but I have a tier free and empty - so I have a bit of an internal debate:

1: Buy the VC340(Sell VP-03) when released and put that on the lower tier.

2: Buy a Digital/Hybrid keyboard synth(something different) to put on the lower tier(JD-XA, Blofeld etc).

3. Wait till something with a Keyboard comes to market that I'd really like to put there(I.e. maybe a Jupiter 8 analog clone or something comes to market).

4. Stop this hardware synth nonsense and buy the Arturia Keylab MKII with its Analog Lab/VST and DAW(Cubase) control, it even has 16 pads so I could sell my Akai MPD32 maybe. I'd then put the Deepmind 12 on the lower tier.

1. Don't know anything about those.

2. I think the JD-Xa sounds great! I bought one but returned it because the front panel was scratched at the factory. I didn't re-buy it because I felt it overlapped too much with all the ROMplers I own, plus I got lost easily trying to program it. But it's still a great-sounding board. Its pads and leads kinda pwnd my ROMplers'—very up-front and present. Sounds are Roland-eque: pretty and polished, but also very bold.

3. It's very close to 2019 NAMM, so it's probably not a bad idea to wait two months see what the new Roland/Studio Electronics collaboration has resulted in (maybe it's your hoped-for super-poly!).

4. I bought an Arturia Keylab Essentials 61 (below) specifically to play my Arturia suite (you get a 50%-off coupon for Arturia V-Collection 6 when you buy the Keylab, plus a full-license to Analog Lab 3). The Keylab hardware integration to Analog Lab is perfection (Analog Lab runs as the UI to the entire V-Collection suite, if installed).


Arturia Keylab Essentials 61.

The Arturia suite is fun and has a lot of sounds. However, after getting a Prophet 6 and OB-6, I haven't touched any of my Arturia softsynths since, if that tells you anything. There's really something special about real analog synths when playing with their cutoff/resonance knobs—you get a "squonk" that you can't seem to get out of any software synth.

However, if you can get past that, the Arturia suite has a lot to offer. The Arp 2600 emulation is really a lot fun (now, I have no desire to invest in any modular hardware). There's tons of fun to be had with the V-Collection despite my earlier nit, and for only $249 (with coupon code), it's an incredible value.


Arturia Arp2600 V running on a Dell Core i5 24" all-in-one touchscreen PC.

Cheers for your response, I have V6 collection but only use the non VA stuff like DX-7, Synclavier and Fairlight etc as I have all the true analogues I need in hardware, its more for the combined use of DAW/VST control. My biggest worry is if I bought a 49 key midi controller that is me filling the space I have available for keyboards but then NAMM comes along with some thing that kicks in the GAS and their I go off selling the Keylab MkII to make room or something like that. Maybe I should wait, maybe this is a problem we all have - I guess?

*Edit: Actually, if I bought the Keylab MkII(not Essential) I would sell my MPD32 so would gain a space on my desktop, so any future purchase could have a space as long as its desktop format. Hmmm...

Yup! We're all afflicted! Personally, I would wait the two months. It's ridiculous how many amazing synths are coming out all at the same time!

I've lost count of the times I've said, just this last bit of kit and I'm done to my wife. She doesn't buy that line anymore...

Cheers for the replys

Thanks for taking the time to contribute a detailed review. I am also in the process of selecting the right MIDI controller for my studio setup.

FWIW, I got a Nektar GX series and the DAW integration with Cubase was flawless and just worked out of the box. I returned it because I found the keys were not very good at all. I also want a little more DAW integration. I am in the process of try the Novation MK2 which I hear is decent and is decently priced. I can't justify a dinky MIDI controller that is priced almost as much as a synth. So am working my way up from cheaper to more expensive. If the Novation does not live up to expectations, I might jump on a Arturia MKii.

Figured I'd bump this thread rather than start a new one.

Now that you've had your boards for a bit, how do you mkii owners feel about the keybed?

I keep wanting to get one of these (workflow looks grand), but every time I play one in the store, the keys feel a bit, I don't know, "soft" and there's some side to side wiggle that makes them seem imprecise. Much prefer the action of Novation's SLs or the Komplete S-series.

How do they play longterm?

I'm happy but not a player player, cons: drumpads still no full velocity setting(Arturia said in a firmware update, this has been over a year to no avail, recently promised me again its on its way - bought another Akai MPD218), sometimes I'm getting stuck notes, tapping the note key again releases it, never had this issue when Deepmind 12 was my main keys, so...also its a PITA to configure in a DAW - I needed Arturia Support to help, their documentation was out of date with the latest Cubase last year, once its set its fine though.

Other than that, yeah - Happy....

I've got a Mark 1 Keylab 49. The pads on both series have polyphonic aftertouch.
I find polyAT much easier to use from pads than I did with the polyAT keyboard I had.

The keys are fine for what it is, and comfortable to use for a long time.
The aftertouch comes in nice and smooth and is very easy to control.

One of the main reasons I bought it is because the keys also send release velocity.
I have several soft and hard synths that make fine use of it.

I'm considering getting a Mark II because it has some new features and also has 4 CV outs,
as well as more pedal inputs and a lot of other refinements.

You're not alone, breakmixer. I've seen numerous reports of this, especially on Arturia's forums.

Well, they must be aware by now then, hopefully a firmware fix, I wasn't sure what causes it so didn't straight blame the KL. I'm using it with USB out BTW. Cheers for heads up.

Now a G Key has broke(Hanging in half, sheared but still holding on, superglue time) after about a year or so use. Arturia hit me back quite fast. I'm about to find out what their support is really like...

lol, the keys break...

Does anyone know if keylab has the ability to cycle through multiple external synths. If not what do you recommend besides Novation on slmk3

Sorry for the necrobump, but I'm curious if anyone actually knows what the keybed of the Keylab 61 MkII is. They proudly boast about their 88-key's Fatar keybed but seem to be intentionally vague about the 61-key version. It seems like it's pretty good, all things considered, and I'm in the market for a new controller – the Keylab 61 MkII ticks all my boxes, but it would be nice to know what the keybed might be comparable to!

It's extremely light. Same keybed as the MatrixBrute, I believe.

Thanks! I suppose the only thing to do is try one out in person, but it seems like they're pretty well-liked overall.