Keylab 61 Essential – One Year Later

Published by Tiago Duarte on

I've been using the Arturia Keylab 61 Essential for more than a year now. Let's see how it's been holding so far. Last year I gave myself a new years gift and upgraded my previous keyboard with the Arturia Keylabs Essential 61. I've been using it almost every day since. If you want to take a look at the review I did about the keyboard, I'll link the video here and in the description. This video is not sponsored. I bought this keyboard with my own money (but Arturia if you are watching I don't mind having a sponsor). If you are new to the channel, subscribe and activate the notifications so that you know when I publish videos about music productions. We also have a merch store with T-shirts and hoodies like the one I have in the video.

One of the things that I've been integrating more and more in my productions is automation. This is especially true when I'm producing Techno. Electronic dance music requires way more automation than Hip Hop. For that, I'm using the pitch wheels and the knobs and sliders available on the keyboard. Every knob and slider in this keyboard feels good. The travel of the sliders is small but for the size of the keyboard and for the type of automation that I do is more than enough. The knobs have infinite rotation and they have resistance when you move them so it's easy to control for small and big movements.
When I record pitch bends, I would like to have the wheel next to the keys but having it on the top does not make too much of a difference. The pitch bend wheel also has a nice tension which allows me to control the bend reasonably well.

Another feature of this keyboard that I cannot live without anymore is the transpose buttons. I have my keyboard right in front of me so when I want to record something, I just hit the record button and the play button. It saves me a lot of time and it's very convenient.


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