Which 61 key midi controller?

Chuffola

Looking at various options and am attracted by the Arturia Keylab Essential 61 but would welcome any thoughts.

I’ll be using primarily with GarageBand. I’m also mainly looking to use vintage virtual instruments - Rhodes, Wurlies, B3, Mellotron etc.  There’s some decent sounds within GarageBand but what’s drawing me to the Arturia is the inclusion of Analogue Lab V, which looks excellent and also includes loads of other vintage synths. 

At around £220 for the package it seems a bargain. Anyone use it?

TTony

Chuffola said:

At around £220 for the package it seems a bargain. Anyone use it?

I do, and it is.

[edit]
Unless you're in a hurry, I'm expecting some more black-Friday-ish sales from Arturia.  Might not change the price of the kbd, but might give you some other deal options on the bundles.

Littlejonny

Don’t get the MAudio Oxygen … mines been really faulty and now several of the knobs have packed in

i reckon the notation ones look more solid

Chuffola

Good to know @Littlejonny ;;

Cheers @TTony and good call re Black Friday




I will never have enough patience to wait until then….

Heartfeltdawn

Nektar LX61 for me. I had one, loved it, and have the LX25 for messing about it. 

Chuffola

Arturia arrived today. Oops.

What a brilliant thing it is. And Analogue Lab V is worth the price alone. Fun weekend ahead!

Bod

Chuffola said:

Arturia arrived today. Oops.

What a brilliant thing it is. And Analogue Lab V is worth the price alone. Fun weekend ahead!

Enjoy!  The Arturia hardware is brilliant and Analog Lab is fantastic too - is it the full version?  I bought a 25-key MiniLab 3 and it came with the intro version, but upgraded to the Pro in a sale.  I think I paid £35 so keep your eyes peeled.

Teetonetal

I have the mk1 keylab, it's been great, easy to use and lasted well.

Chuffola

Bod said:

Chuffola said:

Arturia arrived today. Oops.

What a brilliant thing it is. And Analogue Lab V is worth the price alone. Fun weekend ahead!

Enjoy!  The Arturia hardware is brilliant and Analog Lab is fantastic too - is it the full version?  I bought a 25-key MiniLab 3 and it came with the intro version, but upgraded to the Pro in a sale.  I think I paid £35 so keep your eyes peeled.

Its the full version. Quite incredible value. 

Chuffola

Update. It's not the full version... Its all the presets from the Analog Lab V - to unleash the full synths then you do need to buy the full version (I think?)

However, I know nothing about synth programming and the presets are fantastic. There's more than enough in there for me with hundreds / thousands of them (I'm not a synth player and don't really want to go down that rabbit hole...) and there's plenty of adjustment available within each preset.

If I see an upgrade for £35 I'll definitely get it though!

Octavio

Chuffola said:

Update. It's not the full version... Its all the presets from the Analog Lab V - to unleash the full synths then you do need to buy the full version (I think?)

However, I know nothing about synth programming and the presets are fantastic. There's more than enough in there for me with hundreds / thousands of them (I'm not a synth player and don't really want to go down that rabbit hole...) and there's plenty of adjustment available within each preset.

If I see an upgrade for £35 I'll definitely get it though!

£35 for an upgrade to V Collection X?

Chuffola

I'm now confused. I think it is the full version of Analog Lab V - that seems to be presets only. 

I'm assuming @Bod had a lesser version and the £35 upgrade was to the full Lab V that I have. 

Octavio

Chuffola said:

I'm now confused. I think it is the full version of Analog Lab V - that seems to be presets only. 

I'm assuming @Bod had a lesser version and the £35 upgrade was to the full Lab V that I have. 

Do you have an option to updates to V Collection X? That's usually €599 on its own.

Chuffola

No. £299 for me to upgrade. I don't need anything like that level of control though. The presets are fantastic, there's loads of them and I can still tweak everything I want. 

For example, in the Rhodes presets I can swap out all the fx pedals, adjust stereo spread, movement, reverb, delay etc. That's enough for me!

Bod

Chuffola said:

I'm now confused. I think it is the full version of Analog Lab V - that seems to be presets only. 

I'm assuming @Bod had a lesser version and the £35 upgrade was to the full Lab V that I have. 

I had Analog Lab Intro and upgraded to Analog Lab Pro for £35 which basically gave me a larger library of presets. 

Analog Lab is essentially just a load of presets that use the synth engines from their V Collection.  You can only edit them if you own the full version of that particular synth engine.  So, for example, I have the full version of Pigments, so can open up Analog Lab patches for deep editing, but can't for any of the others.