A 61-key premium MIDI controller, around $599, built around a new semi-weighted keybed with channel aftertouch, touch-sensitive faders and encoders, a colour screen, and deep control of Arturia's Analog Lab. Reviewers and owners agree the keybed is among the best at the price, the build is solid metal and wood, the controls feel premium, and the software bundle is generous. Four things divide opinion: the 12 pads (fine to some, stiff and too few for finger drumming to others); the integration (slick DAW and Analog Lab control for most, but inconsistent when switching between Arturia instruments, and bettered by Novation's Launchkey for some Ableton users); whether its heft is reassuring or unwieldy; and value, where the fair price of a big bundle meets frustration that polyphonic aftertouch and the mk2's CV outputs are gone. Early firmware had sustain-pedal bugs, since fixed.
About this product
The premium 61-key KeyLab mk3 (2024) — metal-and-wood build, semi-weighted keys with channel aftertouch — not the budget KeyLab Essential mk3. The 49-key model and the orange 'Ultra' edition share its keybed and features.
Arturia's KeyLab 61 mk3 is the 2024 overhaul of the company's flagship MIDI keyboard: a new semi-weighted keybed with channel aftertouch, nine touch-sensitive faders and encoders, twelve RGB pads, a 3.5-inch colour screen, and a metal chassis with wooden end cheeks. It sits well above the plastic KeyLab Essential line, and is built above all to drive Arturia's own Analog Lab and V Collection instruments as if they were hardware.
It launched to warm reviews and a vocal letdown at the same time. Critics and owners rarely fault how it plays or how it's built; the arguments are over what Arturia left out — polyphonic aftertouch, CV outputs and four of the old pads — and over how reliably its software integration holds up day to day.
