Arturia today announced MiniLab Mk II, a new MIDI controller that combines a keyboard, 16 rotary knobs, touch controllers and a software suite.
Here’s the official intro video:
Features:
- 25 note velocity-sensitive slim keyboard.
- 2 banks of 8 high quality velocity & pressure sensitive pads with RGB backlighting.
- 16 rotary encoders (2 of them are clickable).
- 2 capacitive touch sensors for pitch bend and modulation wheel.
- 8 user presets.
- Sustain pedal jack.
- Octave up and octave down buttons for full range.
- USB powered.
- USB/MIDI class compliant no drivers needed.
- Mac or PC.
Kensington Security Slot.
Pricing and Availability
The MiniLab Mk II is expected to be available later this month for 99 EUR/$119 USD.
Wow! Same keybed as Keystep + Ableton Live integration: take my money!
Stop ruining devices with touch strips, Arturia. The MiniBrute has two of the finest wheels available.
I have nothing against touch strip since I guess they make the instrument slimmer
if this strips are like the keystep they are much more interesting then wheels. it is sensitive as my iPhone and you can do thing with it that wheels will never do. i prefer manufacture will give people new options based on new technologies then the same boring controls. if you like wheels you can have many 10 years old keyboard designs.
I havent played around with the touchstrips long enough to form an opinion, but I will say that I have preferred wheels in particular in the past, due to the spring-back resistance and the way your thumb can fit in the groove, giving you quick motions both up and down… as opposed to levers or other things. X/Y joysticks are sometimes comparable depending on how they are built…
So guitar luthiers should stop making instruments with boring strings?
Touch strips give you zero physical feedback (and these don’t have even visual feedback).
Mod wheels can be played blind. Your fingers will instantly know where you are.
Such a pity that so little attention is paid to this feature by the industry.
The only exception comes from France, where the Ondes Martenot was invented: Expressive E Touché.
you can do things with touch strip you can’t do with wheels like jumping instantly between points (without fading into them) make faster moves, faster everything, if it’s sensitive enough.
talking about feedback and wheels,
if the setting of a preset is say modulation at 10%, and your wheel on 40%. where is the feedback in that? when touched it will jump to 40%
even if it will be on some short of pickup mode it will not give you any “feedback” about that.
or worse,how many time you browsing between presets and you don’t hear them the way the creator intended because every preset now have 40% of modulation…
i agree that with leds it will be better, also better then wheels imo. remember you can use your ears for feedback
there are many other keyboard with wheels you can freely buy if you only looking to play like you did before. others may find it useful and even better.
So just because Luthiers build guitars (a centuries old horse which has been beaten to death), no manufacturer should explore new designs or concepts because that one already works?
Interesting notion ????
while i’m impressed with the software this keyboard does nothing for me ,looks hipster toy to me
yep, I’m not a fan of the mod strip on my keystep – can’t see where it is
Why not Bluetooth LE added?
I briefly had a Kurzweil stage piano with pitch & mod ribbon controllers (rather than wheels). There were other things about that keyboard I hated (so I returned it), but I really like those ribbons. On the pitch ribbon I could hold one position and tap another to get fast trills, similarly with the Mod strip, I could tap to get fast switches to different values and do rhythmic things that didn’t require a “path” from value A to value B. Try that with your dumb wheels. JK. Seriously, though. I do like wheels, but just wanted to explain why this isn’t a bad alternative.
As for these capacitive touch strips, I wonder if they would do that thing that always happens for me on my iPad where I have to tap it like 10 times before it even knows I’m there. That would enrage me.
I have the original Minilab and like the functionality but the keyboard is horrible. Curious to see what the new keybed feels like. Larger “slim” keys might be more playable.
I’ve never liked mini-keys so the smallest controllers I have are 32 or 25 full sized keys (well, *had* since now I have the KeyStep).
Slim keys though there’s something about them that makes me tolerate them usually due to the compactness of the controller, be it the KeyStep or this new MiniLab mkII which is a great compromise for a small compact controller that includes a good set of pads too, besides the good amount of encoders.
Certainly some good points I hadn’t thought about. In case of the KeyStep, there are no presets for use with CV, though.
There seems to be no keyboard with both wheels and strips. The M Audio Code has wheels and an XY pad.
My DSI Pro 2 has both!
Yeah it’s a little more than a controller 😛