21 thoughts on “Arturia Intros MicroLab mk3 Universal MIDI Controller”

1. No poly aftertouch, not good enough in 2025.

   1. Yeah, a totally reasonable request for a 50,- 25-key travel keyboard… Jeez.

      1. My Hydrasynth Explorer with 37 keys have polytouch.
         I don’t know why you think the number of keys determines polytouch or not?

         1. Sorry for not being clear, but the 50,- was my main argument. This is at the very low end of the range. You can buy non-Arturia 27 key for with polyphonic AT or MPE at around 150,-. if my memory serves me well. You can’t expect poly AT at the 50,- range.

            1. This is why “the customer is always righ” customers are often dumb, with no deep understanding of manufacturing costs, and just need to be satisfied.

               1. 2 octave range is perfect for bass duties.
                  Ideally with AT.
                  You don’t need polyAT for bass!

            2. What’s the poly AT for 150? I know the xkey but it’s not really a keyboard.

               1. X-Key is no longer a MIDI controller. They were bought out. Now it is a full synthesizer for synth level money.

   2. Its 2 octaves

      Nobody uses them anyway

2. 2 octave range is perfect for bass duties.
   Ideally with AT.
   You don’t need polyAT for bass!

3. Next: a one-octave Picolab. I need a few more keys, though not 88 for everything. When they get too tiny, it becomes distracting.

4. Even at this smaller size and price point, it would be nice to see really good velocity response. So many of these entry level keyboards have poor response & feel.

   It would also be cool if their little touch/ribbon strips had decent resolution, if not a full 14-bits, then maybe 10 bits (?) that would give you over 1000 values +/- 500 for bipolar pitch.

   But even that is a pretty big ask at that price point.

   PolyAT requires a pretty complex hardware configuration, I’m not surprised at all that it is absent.

   It’s funny how people act like PolyAT is something new for our times. It was on a few rare keyboards back in the day, and has only recently appeared again.

5. These fit nicely in a backpack, and I once went through airport security with one in. Caused a bit of a panic. All the staff were running over and whispering amongst themselves. I guess on the xray it doesn’t look like anything they usually see. Afterwards they said they thought I was testing them.

   USB-C and pedal input looks like the new additions in mk3, which could be useful.

6. As an atheist I don’t support mini keys.

   1. Even though I asked chatGPT to explain this joke to me, I still laughed.

7. Mehhhh. Where are user waves for Minifreak.

   1. Wow, what a random question.

8. Well, CME have produced portable keyboard controllers for some time now that include poly aftertouch and the latest one announced in Superbooth 2025 has built in synth as well 🙂

   1. The Xkey isn’t really a keyboard, though I guess some might say the same about this one. It’s more like a set of buttons, so calling it polyphonic aftertouch is almost like saying a drum pad is poly-AT. most of them are. I don’t think every new product needs to compete with non standard products.
      Also, the Xsynth is around $350

      For Arturia, I’d suggest that after sending the publishing request, you write some kind of trolling, entitled message, it seems to work magnificently, considering it’s just a two octave boring MIDI keyboard.

      Maybe “Mappy” is from Arturia?

9. STILL NO TRS MIDI

   $35 amazon controllers have trs midi out; aaand bluettoth midi; aaand arpeggiators

   i dont understand this garbage

   1. that was my thought exactly, I just will not buy a midi controller anymore that doesn’t have either a trs or a full sized din port on it nowadays.