Arturia KeyLab 61 review: specs and price

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Buttons will light up when pressed, resulting in better visibility to users.

The device has an electronic display to present information to the user.

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The octave buttons are used to shift the keyboard up or down in one octave increments. This extends the range of the keyboard in either direction, which lets you play notes that lie outside the number of keys available.

The button is used to select independent banks of continuous controllers. Effectively, this allows you to control more independent parameters with the knobs, faders and buttons. The bank selector button is used to switch among the available banks.

The more buttons the device has, the more complex the input can be.

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The mod wheel is used to add expression, or to modulate (change) various elements of a sound or sample.

The pitch wheel alters the pitch and timbre of a sound in real-time. It can give fine tuning control from fractions of a semi-tone to huge multi-octave pitch swings.

Faders can be either channel volume faders, pitch sliders, crossfaders or even EQs.

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Similar to a weighted action keys, but with less resistance and a slightly springier release, semi-weighted keys are popular with many players. If you don’t need realistic piano response, but also don’t care for spring-loaded synth actions, a semi-weighted keyboard might be ideal for you.

The amount of keys the controller has on the keyboard.

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Velocity sensitive keys are just spring loaded keys that sound out louder the harder you hit them. If you "lightly" press a key, the sound will be quiet; the harder you press, the louder it gets.

The pads section is ideal to trigger loops and samples, using your finger drum skills.

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The keyboard also respond to the amount of force applied after initial impact. On electronic keyboards and synthesizers, this pressure sensitivity is usually called aftertouch.

The MIDI-Out port is used for transmitting data.

When pressed, the sustain pedal allows all notes to sound and “vibrate” freely. All notes played will continue to sound until the pedal is released. This is perfect when you need a sturdy and responsive control over sustain.

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MIDI-In Port allows data to be received by a MIDI-compliant device. The “in” port enables the MIDI keyboard to be controlled by an external device or sequencer.

Dedicated expression pedals let you have a hands-free control over your keyboard's volume, vibrato, and more.

Devices can communicate in both directions with each other without any additional MIDI interface. The biggest advantage is that the USB connection can be used for everything; power supply, MIDI-in and MIDI-out. This means you need less cables.

It is compatible with PCs and laptops running the Windows operating system.

Users can map, set and regulate the entire midi controller giving different functionalities to all different buttons, knobs and faders. The device could be also set up with different softwares.

It is compatible with Mac OS X devices such as MacBooks and iMacs.