Microlab £64
There are so many small controller keyboards at the moment that we feel slightly swamped by them, so much so that we’re playing catch up with this release from Arturia, the Microlab.
At £64 it is obviously one of the cheaper keyboard controllers on the market, although not that much cheaper than Arturia’s own Minilab Mk2 which might be worth shelling out another 15 quid for if you want the (many) extra controls. However, what Microlab has going for it is portability. At around 0.8kg and a tad over 40cm in length it will fit in most bags. It’s also USB-powered with the cable wrapped around and part of the design, tucking as it does into the rubber protective case which, incidentally, is available in blue, orange or black.
Enclosed in said case, the keyboard feels durable and sturdy, able to take the odd knock on the road. The keyboard is better than some at this size, being the same as Minilab and surprisingly playable.
Controls are sparse and include up/down octave buttons plus a Hold button for latching. This doubles as a note sustain option (there’s no sustain pedal input) and sends chord notes for single key hits when the Shift button is held. Similarly the Shift button doubles up the pitchbend and modulation touch strips into controls to page through and select categories and presets via the Analog Lab software.
This software is one of a number of titles bundled with the keyboard – which also include Bitwig Studio 8-Track and UVI’s Grand Piano Model D – and probably the best, featuring as it does 500 presets, including vintage synths (both analogue and digital) , acoustic instruments (pianos, organs etc) and string machines. This might be the Lite version – so you only get 500 of the 6,500 sounds from the fuller option – but that’s still plenty to go with at this price level. Indeed it’s really the software that could be the deciding factor at this end of the market as there are some great options from Akai, M-Audio IK and more that might feature extra pads and rotaries but fall down on the bundle. As it stands this is a great all-rounder if you need something compact and robust.