Arturia MiniLab 3 Black at a glance

The MiniLab 3 from Arturia is a USB keyboard controller with a velocity-sensitive 25 mini-key keyboard compatible with most DAWs (Ableton, Logic, Cubase...) including Arturia PlugIns and AnalogLab. Any parameters can thus be directly assigned to the faders and knobs in the DAW, making the handling of the software easier in the most pleasant way. The eight colour-coded and velocity-sensitive pads offer a defined pressure point and are ideal for dynamically playing the percussion and firing off samples. Instead of the familiar handwheels for Pitchbend and modulation, two ribbon controllers are installed, which are operated by finger swipe. Playing aids include a simple chord function that remembers the last notes pressed simultaneously and an arpeggiator with the usual repertoire of playback patterns in the range of 1-4 octaves. The transport keys, accessible via the shift function, control the main functions such as recording, tempo, stop and playback in a DAW. Thanks to the MIDI output, the master keyboard is also perfectly suited for playing hardware synthesizers.