Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3: Is Bigger Better?- Review
Arturia's Premium 88 Key MIDI Controller
4,5 / 5,0 | 
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 Black on Legs · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 Rear Connections · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 Black · Source: Arturia
Arturia Keylab 88 Mk.3 with Accessories · Source: Arturia
Arturia’s KeyLab 88 finally arrives for its third iteration. We take a look to see what’s changed and what hasn’t.
Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3 Review
Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3 – Quick Facts
- All-new Fatar TP/110 Weighted Hammer Action Keybed
- Full Colour Screen
- Velocity and Channel Aftertouch
- Smart Software Integration
- Broad Range of DAW Integration with Transport Controls
- Touch-Sensitive 360º Potentiometers and Faders
- 12 Velocity and Pressure Sensitive, RGB Backlit Pads
- Scale, Chord and Arpeggiator Modes
- Customisable MIDI Message, Pad Colour and Velocity Curves
- Bundled with Analog Lab Pro, Instruments, FX and More
My History with 88 Keys
Before we get stuck into the main review, I wanted to begin with a bit of my background with 88 keys as it will, in some way or another, inform my opinion of the KeyLab 88 Mk.3. Like most people of my age (mid-50s and above), our first experience with a western style piano keyboard would have been on a piano. Be it in school, church or, for those lucky enough, in our own home.
I think mine was at my Grandmother’s house. She had a dusty old upright in a dark room that was woefully out of tune but hugely interesting to a young me. Then, I guess, it was in Sunday School (I only went because it was more like a Youth Club!). After that, it was at regular school. All of these were proper pianos with their natural weighted hammer actions.
Synths did feel a little weird, but not for long, as the sounds they could make soon vastly outweighed any complaints about the keys. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I eventually bought my first 88-key, weighted, hammer-action MIDI controller. But I didn’t buy something new and modern. I bought what is still considered to be one of the best 88-key weighted hammer action controllers of all time, in terms of its keybed; The Yamaha KX88.
I’d lusted after one for many years, seeing the likes of Mike Lindup and Michael McDonald play them in the 80s. When the opportunity to buy one arose, I bit the seller’s hand off. Despite its size, weight and complete lack of modern-day MIDI control, it was a real joy to play something with the feel of a real piano again.
Yamaha got the balance just right. The keys felt hefty enough to feel like the real thing, but just this side of light enough to enable more synth-like chops. But it wasn’t perfect, at least not for 21st-century MIDI controllers. The KX88 was one of the first of its kind and, as such, was limited and difficult to configure. Ask anyone who has had to custom program a KX88 in HEX, and you’ll see many pained expressions!
It’s also rather chunky and extremely heavy, none of which does us any favours in our modern, bijou home studios. No, the KX88 is a lovely piece of history, but ultimately, in this day and age, it is nothing more than a lovely keybed. Something new is required in my studio. Enter the Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3.
The Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3
Arturia has been making excellent keyboard controllers for well over a decade now. They’ve become very good at it too. And the third generation of KeyLabs is no exception. I reviewed the KeyLab 61 Mk.3 back in August of last year and gave it a good 4.5 out of 5. It married a nice keybed with an unfussy user interface that integrated beautifully with their V Collection and a wide range of DAWs.
I speculated back then that an 88 key version might appear early in 2025, and my spidey senses must have been well-tuned because the KeyLab 88 Mk.3 is here, and it is a lovely thing indeed! It follows the contemporary styling of its smaller brethren with its sculpted wooden end cheeks, inlaid with the Arturia logo.
Befitting such a keyboard, it’s not that light, but weighing in at around 16kg, it’s a lot lighter than my KX88 and, more importantly, a lot slimmer too! The UI is identical to the 49 and 61 key units, albeit the transpose and octave buttons are below the pitch and mod wheels rather than above.
There are 12 touch and pressure-sensitive, RGB backlit pads that can be assigned to four banks, giving you… <does maths in head> …48 individual pads to play with. When connected to the likes of Ableton Live, these can serve as clip launchers as well as drum pads. I’d still like to see 16 pads rather than 12, but that’s not really a huge issue. I wonder if replacing these with smaller pads, and more of them, as seen on some Live-specific controllers, might be even more useful?
Above the transport controls, there are chord, arpeggiator, scale and hold buttons and also those useful Save, Quantize, Undo and Redo buttons that keep your hands on the controller rather than your mouse. The screen is full-colour, big enough to be easy to read, small enough not to dominate proceedings and is surrounded by eight ‘soft’ keys, four above and four below. The rotary selector sits to the right, but I was left wondering if the use of a larger touch screen may have been a more elegant approach.
When you power on, the unit asks you what you want to control, be it a DAW, an Arturia plugin or one of your own user configurations. The Keylab 88 Mk.3 is highly configurable from the Global menu settings, with all aspects of it available for personalisation. In fact, when you power on for the very first time, you are offered the opportunity to calibrate the keyboard to your own personal playing style, which can be adjusted later.
The nine faders and 360º pots are touch-sensitive, so there is no need for scribble strips. Simply lay your finger on the control for its assignment and position to be shown immediately on-screen. I think this is an elegant way of doing things, although some may prefer something more along the lines of KORG’s Keystage with its Property Exchange feature.
Connections on the rear, like the 49 and 61, have dropped the CV/Out of the previous iterations. The 88 sports one extra pedal socket to the three found on the others, and there’s a full-size MIDI as well as USB-C for data and power. For those wanting a more stable power supply, there’s a socket for a 12V/1A supply, which is an optional extra for those who do not wish to connect to a computer.
So far, the 88 Mk.3 is virtually identical to the other Mk.3 units, so I guess it’s time to look at what sets this unit apart and the main reason most of you will want to buy this unit. The keybed.
I Love Your Love Action
The KeyLab 88 Mk.3 sports a brand new Fatar mechanism, the TP/110, an upgrade from the TP/100 fitted to the Mk.2. Arturia claim that this provides an even smoother action compared to its predecessor and I can attest to this claim as it really is a delight to play. And here is where my bit about the Yamaha KX88 becomes relevant.
I can honestly say that having tried numerous 88 key keybeds over the years, the KX88 was never beaten and rarely equalled when it came to its feel and performance. I’ve spoken with numerous professionals over the years, and almost every one of them gets a bit misty-eyed about the KX88. When mine used to reside within camera shot on Zoom calls or livestreams, I’d often get people remark on it and recall their positive playing experiences with one.
The keybed on the KeyLab 88 Mk.3, in my very humble opinion, has surpassed the KX88. So much so that after living with the KeyLab, the KX88 was retired to my lock-up and will likely only ever remerge for special occasions. It was quite a wrench, but the quality of the KeyLab was such that I could find no genuine reason to keep the KX88 in a studio that is screaming for space!
The action on the KeyLab is as smooth as Arturia says it is. It has that exquisite balance between lightness and resistance that somehow feels right, whatever you are playing, however you are playing it. There is enough lightness to play fast but enough heft to be expressive, but it is the expression where we find, possibly, the KeyLab’s one weakness.
Since the launch of the PolyBrute 12, with its stunning FullTouch, MPE-compatible keybed, many have hoped that Arturia will bring that to a controller. I’m afraid to say that this hasn’t happened here. Personally, as I have written elsewhere, this is no surprise. The FullTouch keybed is so utterly unique and so inextricably linked to the amazing analogue PolyBrute engine that it seems unlikely to make it into a controller. Well, not yet anyway. It is such a major part of that instrument that to make it widely available may do Arturia more harm than good.
Moving the disappointment of no FullTouch to one side, one might have hoped that the KeyLab 88 Mk.3 might, at the very least, have polyphonic aftertouch, and again, I have to let you down gently and inform you that the aftertouch featured here is mono/channel only. Some argue that aftertouch on a hammer action keybed is the marriage of two ill-suited bedfellows, but Yamaha definitely pulled it off on the Montage M8x.
The KeyLab 88 Mk.3 is very much a traditional controller, and I’d wager that most people in the market for one will not be too put off by these omissions.
In Use
When I first installed the KeyLab 88 Mk.3, I immediately headed to some of my piano libraries and started trying them out. For me, it just seems the most natural thing to begin testing on. I used Arturia’s own Piano V, IK Multimedia’s Pianoverse and AcousticSamples C7, a particular favourite of mine. Given my rather ham-fisted technique, I was beyond delighted with how these all sounded under the control of the KeyLab 88. Each was a joy to play, and I had a lot of fun.
Next up, I ran through a wide range of Arturia’s V Collection. Things like their Augmented range felt very well suited to this controller, especially the pad-type sounds. But when I moved to the synth emulations, it was a very pleasant surprise to feel how responsive the keybed was to synth-style playing. The speed of the key return was superb, allowing for fast trills and runs.
Some players will almost certainly prefer a synth-action keybed for such things and I’d wager that many of them wouldn’t even be in the market for a weighted, hammer action controller, but for those of us who like to flit between both, the KeyLab 88 Mk.3 is a real and rewarding joy.
Conclusion
Looking at just the keybed alone, the KeyLab 88 Mk.3 is one of the finest I’ve played. It strikes a near-perfect balance that will work well across a broad range of instruments and playing styles. The typical 88 key controller buyer will adore this and it may even ensnare some of you who might have backed away from such a thing for regular synth performance.
Its style and feature set are as good as you’d expect it to be, and it is available in white and black editions, with the latter being produced in fewer numbers, at least at launch. Whilst not to everyone’s taste, I expected that polyAT might have been catered for, but I’m not too disappointed that it isn’t. I have that covered elsewhere.
As with the other KeyLab Mk.3 units, the 88 comes with a nice collection of software, most notably Analog Lab Pro, along with Piano V, Mini V and Augmented Strings and the lovely Rev PLATE-140 reverb plug in. They’ve even thrown in Native Instrument’s ‘The Gentleman’ piano, Ableton Live Lite and a couple of subscriptions to Melodics and Loopcloud.
The Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3 feels very much like a premium keyboard controller and will, no doubt, become the centre of many people’s studios or live stage setups. The included sheet music holder and tray extension further enhance the many simple but useful ideas implemented here.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Superb keybed with smooth action that suits a broad range of playing styles
- Versatile DAW and V Collection integration
- Touch Sensitive pots and faders for immediate assignment and position information
- Stylish good looks
Cons
- No polyphonic aftertouch or MPE
- A larger, possibly touch screen would be very welcome
- CV/Gate connectivity has been dropped
Price and Availability
The Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3 is available now in white and black for just €939.00 via our affiliate partner. The 61 and 49 key versions are also currently available.
More Information
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One response to “Arturia KeyLab 88 Mk.3: Is Bigger Better?- Review”
Love to get that action on an Astrolab.