Which MIDI / control keyboard you're using?

[antic604]

That's sone very good advises here. I already thought about my Future workflow in i getsome keys, but its Kind of Hard to imagine how the Controller will finally be integrated and used. Especially regarding the fact, that i want it for both, home Studio and maybe live Performance in the Future...

 

Thanks for your help and giving me some new directions to think about (Especially the Type of knobs)

 

You're welcome. Also, post questions on the forum of the DAW you're using, because there might be some models that work better or are closer integrated than others.

[onkelbibber]

i guess you've already seen the mpk mini in store. If not for your information: it feels (of course, according to the price) very cheap. maybe good enough to get an idea quick into the project but nothing for a lifetime, live playing or real "piano" playing. especially beacause the keys are very small. Not sure about the size of the arturia.

anyway, as my music is very rythmic and percussion-bases i'm still not sure if it really helps for this stuff: https://soundcloud.com/onkelbibber/sets/onkel-bibber-chomp-a-word-ep
what do you think?

[antic604]

i guess you've already seen the mpk mini in store. If not for your information: it feels (of course, according to the price) very cheap. maybe good enough to get an idea quick into the project but nothing for a lifetime, live playing or real "piano" playing. especially beacause the keys are very small. Not sure about the size of the arturia.

anyway, as my music is very rythmic and percussion-bases i'm still not sure if it really helps for this stuff: https://soundcloud.com/onkelbibber/sets/onkel-bibber-chomp-a-word-ep

what do you think?

Well, as I said you need to consider how you're going to use it. For me, I'm buying the controller in a hope it will help me get the flow and reignite the creative spark, so I don't want to go all-out in case it doesn't work out. I could easily spend north of 500eur on this, but I'm not sure, so I'm trying with a cheaper, but fully featured controller and I can always upgrade later

 

In that sense bigger controller will be better, i.e. the Code 25 has a semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch, so it'll definitely feel more premium. Seeing as you're releasing your music and play it to the people it makes sense to 'invest' more and with a longer-term horizon, so it would be reasonable to go 49-keys as it gives more options musically and number of available controls almost doubles.

 

BTW, really interesting music - reminds me a lot of Hedonix, whose albums I've enjoyed immensely. Will check more of your stuff on Soundcloud

[recursion loop]

And now seriously, does a keyboard really help a lot for psytrance production? I mean, of course you can make good stuff without it, but is it improving my workflow so much, that i really need one?

It surely helps, even if you don't write melodies in the traditional sence for your music, when you progam sounds in software synths or sound modules it is much easier when you can play them on a keyboard, you can make velocity assigments and immediately hear how the sound responds to the velocity, or you can play your sound in different octaves.

 

Nice track you posted

[onkelbibber]

It surely helps, even if you don't write melodies in the traditional sence for your music, when you progam sounds in software synths or sound modules it is much easier when you can play them on a keyboard, you can make velocity assigments and immediately hear how the sound responds to the velocity, or you can play your sound in different octaves.

 

Nice track you posted

 

thanks, yeah this velocity advise is really good, never thoght about that.

 

 

 

Well, as I said you need to consider how you're going to use it. For me, I'm buying the controller in a hope it will help me get the flow and reignite the creative spark, so I don't want to go all-out in case it doesn't work out. I could easily spend north of 500eur on this, but I'm not sure, so I'm trying with a cheaper, but fully featured controller and I can always upgrade later

 

In that sense bigger controller will be better, i.e. the Code 25 has a semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch, so it'll definitely feel more premium. Seeing as you're releasing your music and play it to the people it makes sense to 'invest' more and with a longer-term horizon, so it would be reasonable to go 49-keys as it gives more options musically and number of available controls almost doubles.

 

BTW, really interesting music - reminds me a lot of Hedonix, whose albums I've enjoyed immensely. Will check more of your stuff on Soundcloud

jep, as i plan to work on live sets some day i think it's better to get something more professional right away.

you mean this guy? http://www.ektoplazm.com/artist/hedonix

i think his stuff is totally different

[antic604]

 jep, as i plan to work on live sets some day i think it's better to get something more professional right away.

 

Fully agree. For me it's a matter of getting started (again, after 20 years) so if it won't work then I would have only spent 100EUR to try

 

If I were in your place, I'd probably go for Arturia's KeyLab 49:

 

you mean this guy? http://www.ektoplazm.com/artist/hedonix

i think his stuff is totally different

 

I mean this guy(s): https://www.discogs.com/Hedonix-Guerilla-Ontology/release/4557040

 

Sure it's not the same music, but I find the focus on rhythm, patterns and effects instead of melodic lines to be similar and I really appreciate that in music

[onkelbibber]

why don't you go for a online shop with a 30days refund policy like thomann and give it a try like that. one month should be enough.

 

I think i'll stick with a 25keys model, because that's way more protable and my "studio" is also located on a desk in the living room, so not much space

 

 

ah i see. now i know what you mean (hedonix)

[antic604]

why don't you go for a online shop with a 30days refund policy like thomann and give it a try like that. one month should be enough.

 

I failed to complete a full tune in almost 20 years, so yeah... one month might not be enough

[jivamukti]

And now seriously, does a keyboard really help a lot for psytrance production? I mean, of course you can make good stuff without it, but is it improving my workflow so much, that i really need one?

It surely helps, even if you don't write melodies in the traditional sence for your music, when you progam sounds in software synths or sound modules it is much easier when you can play them on a keyboard, you can make velocity assigments and immediately hear how the sound responds to the velocity, or you can play your sound in different octaves.

Yep a keyboard is an invaluable tool in sound design - velocity, checking timbre across octaves etc etc. Many experimental happy accidents to be found! I also really like improvisational playing.

 

Anyhow I have two keyboards: IK Multimedia iRig Keys and Nord Lead. The iRig Keys is a mini keyboard with glossy (yuck!), springy plastic keys that wobble sideways. The feel when playing is terrible. That was 100 € ill-spent. The Nord has a Fatar keybed that responds very well to light and quick playing. A delight! No aftertouch but that's what the famed Clavia hands-on controls are for. trollol!

 

I also had an Alesis VI49 from Thomann for a tryout earlier this year. The velocity response was insensitive despite multiple curves, the aftertouch was so stiff as to make your fingers hurt and the long travel of the keybed made quick playing difficult. Not recommended.

[antic604]

Picking the black version tomorrow!

 

 

[antic604]

...or not. Turns out I'd have to wait a month for it

 

Also, Arturia just announced Minilab MkII, which introduces some changes - two clickable encoders, colourful pads, pitch/mod strips moved up - however it looks even more toy-like and change in dimensions is not what I'd hope for: it's 2cm less wide, but 3cm deeper.

[antic604]

...and I purchased the white version:

 

 

Funny to read through the thread, how I went from "bigger" 25-keys controllers to even larger 49-keys and finally ended up with "mini" version - I think this will suit my needs at the moment and I can always upgrade to something bigger / more "pro" if it works out for me, with Minilab ideal for travelling e.g. holidays 

 

Will post feedback over the weekend, hopefully along with some samples 

 

Thanks to all who chimed in and helped me choose! 

[antic604]

God, it's sooooo much fun:

 

https://soundcloud.com/antic604/midi-test

 

[recursion loop]

Sound great!  What synth did you use? 

 

And are you actually able to assign different knobs to different synths and control them at the same time?

[antic604]

Sound great!  What synth did you use? 

 

And are you actually able to assign different knobs to different synths and control them at the same time?

 

No synth, just some random samples I found on disk, modulated via Renoise's native FX chains

 

And yes, I was able to control (and record on the fly) 2 instruments and one send FX all at once, 6 or 7 knobs in total - don't remember, it was late in night   The way Renoise is setup I think it would actually be more difficult to have it the other way around, i.e. to have MIDI assignments changing when I switch track / instruments, so it was a good choice to pick 16-knobs controller.

 

Plus I'm using the pads to control transport, track muting, etc.

 

It's a real game changer for me - music is fun again

[recursion loop]

Seems that the Renoise native stuff is pretty powerful, love these filters.

 

Well, i guess if Arturia can control different plugins at once the Novation and M-Audio keyboards will also do. I'm planning to pick one later this year, now I'm using this thingie because of the space constraints 

 

[antic604]

Seems that the Renoise native stuff is pretty powerful, love these filters.

 

Well, i guess if Arturia can control different plugins at once the Novation and M-Audio keyboards will also do. I'm planning to pick one later this year, now I'm using this thingie because of the space constraints 

 

Yes, I really dig Renoise and current version has practically everything I need (+ there's internal LUA scripting language where you can build your custom tools, if something is missing...).

 

Indeed, I think it's more the matter of DAW than of the controller. I mean in Renoise - if I'd use VSTi - it would expose the VSTi parameters to track effect via Instrument Automation and then I can assign a MIDI controller to it, just like to any other slider / toggle / button in Renoise. I can even assign the same controller knob to up to 8 parameters simultaneously using Hydra Device, so for example with just one twist I could reduce cut-off, increase resonance and increase drive on the distortion at the same time - very easy and quick way to get those screaming, swirly, self-resonating acid sounds with high-pass filters

[travbrad1001]

The pads are great for drum sounds or initiating sequences / muting tracks / changing scenes, etc. so should be useful in playing live (or recording live). I don't think they're very useful for step-by-step recording, unless you can assign them to start/stop or mute/unmute.

I was kinda of thinking that might be true about drum pads for producing (not live) psytrance. It seems like a lot of the "beats" in psytrance are really fast and tight which would probably be hard to replicate in real time on those drum pads. I want to start making music with FLStudio or Ableton and have been looking at midi keyboards since software Piano control is very unintuitive/slow and feels like it totally blocks what little creativity I may have. There are just so many choices, and it seems like quality and quantity of pads plays a big role in the price of them.

[antic604]

Maybe someone will find that useful (re-post of my post-purchase feedback from other forum):
 

I ended up getting Arturia's Minilab:
 


...which is pretty cheap (EUR/$100) and for my particular needs (to light up the creative spark after 16+ years of musical inactivity) seemed to be a perfect choice, i.e. it's a good hardware but not expensive to feel like money thrown away if it turns out I won't come back to writing music

 

Anyway, regarding the hardware:

• it's very light and compact, so exactly what I required - I can quickly pull it out and connect to my laptop and hide in the closet when not in use,
• the key action is synth-like (no weighting), there's no aftertouch but velocity works pretty well, although I'm not an expert as I don't really play piano/synths - works for me to draft the nuance in sound levels,
• integration with Renoise is great - I've mapped the pads to transport functions (play / stop / record / prev/next track / mute / solo), while the knobs are mapped to various instrument & FX parameters within the song and due to how Renoise handles that and the number of knobs (16!) I can basically control at once everything that I want to change,
• the knobs are of 'encoder' variety, so they don't have min/max, turn around infinitely and only increase/decrease the mapped parameter depending on how fast I'm moving it; one issue I have is that when mapping I need to manually adjust the type of received data in the dialog box (by default it would just move the parameter only by +1 / -1 no matter how long and how fast I twist it), but it's possible I'm missing some setting either in Renoise or in Arturia's software that comes with it; even if that's not the case, it's not much of a headache, because you'd usually map the knob to parameter once in the song and it takes literally additional 3 seconds to adjust the data mode,
• build quality I'd say is OK, considering the price - overall body is rigid and solid, the keys feel plasticky (they are) and - at least in my unit - are slightly uneven (but I'm really picky - one of them stands up like half a milimetr ) and also one of the knobs feels lighter to turn than the rest of them; but again, for the price it is fine and probably varies by unit,

 

Overall, I think I'd recommend it if music-writing is your hobby and you're not planning on touring with it playing live, because then you'd prefer something more premium and less toy-like I think? Also, it depends on the type of music you create - for me (psychedelic trance) it was important to be able to manipulate as much parameters at once as possible. For others pads might be more important, or sliders, or the actual keyboard.

BTW, just few days after I got mine a MkII came out:



But the only real differences that I could spot were:
- it's even more toy-like design (with faux wooden stickers on the sides),
- it's narrower (less wide) but instead it is deeper, because of pitch/modulation touch-strips moved above keyboard,
- two of the encoders are now clickable,
- the pads can now be highlighted with different colours (in MkI it's always light-blue),
- it comes with Analog Lab Lite (as opposed to full version with MkI), although I'm not 100% sure of the difference - both are said to include 17 instruments / 5k+ sounds,

 

[antic604]

Slightly OT, but I've stumbled upon awesome video of Minilogue giving a tour of their studio and how they CONTROL their track (hence I'm posting it here ):

 

[Taika-Kim]

I use a Roland D50, it's built like a tank, and has a very comfortable feeling on the keys. The velocity is kind of low so with normal playing it maxes around 80 or so. But I fix that with Piz's velocity scaler VST. Also it sends a global off on every note release, which has to be filtered for one plugin I have, or it cuts the sound immediately.

 

Before I had a PCR-300 which was built like shit but had a quite good keyboard feeling, almost as good as the D50, Roland seems to have good experience with this. Then again, a DX7 that I played recently felt quite clunky, even though the build quality was incredible.

 

I have been thinking about getting the Arturia Keylab 88, even the D50 does not have enough octaves, especially with Kontakt stuff that has the keyswitches often in the lowest octave. IIRC the 88 key model was supposed to be better built than the smaller models.

 

MIDI control I don't really know what I would use it for. There was a time 10 years ago when I used external knobs to control VSTs from a controller, but these days I just draw everything by hand, or use external gear that does not need a separate controller. Mainly I only use stuff that has a dedicated control for each function, meaning 100% analog stuff.

 

For live sets I have a Keith McMillen Quneo, it's indestructable and weights and takes less space than any other controller. Very easy to carry along with a laptop. It needs setting up by hand a lot, which I do not enjoy a lot, but I don't see how any other controller would be a lot different. I have been thinking about getting a Maschine Jam though, or maybe Push, but I'm not sure if they would speed up my working that much, or if my super simple live sets would benefit from either.

 

And in answer to an earlier question: get a keyboard! No matter what kind of music you make, it will be good to be able to jam with it, to play leads on it, etc. I play like crap, but I can get the feeling down and look for stuff that works, and then just edit everything to perfection by hand. I started using one just in the last 10 years, and the more I get into just playing stuff instead of mouse programming, the faster and better I can work, I have found out.

[Hasheeshian]

Hey people! After my thread about finding inspiration I was linked this thread, I'm currently thinking about buying the Arturia Minilab MK2 or the Akai mpk mini mk2. Anyone got experience with any of them? Heard both good and bad about both... I like how the minilab has 16 knobs but the pads seems nicer on the MPK, and I like the idea of an arpeggiator.

[antic604]

Hey people! After my thread about finding inspiration I was linked this thread, I'm currently thinking about buying the Arturia Minilab MK2 or the Akai mpk mini mk2. Anyone got experience with any of them? Heard both good and bad about both... I like how the minilab has 16 knobs but the pads seems nicer on the MPK, and I like the idea of an arpeggiator.

 

Minilab is great for Renoise - you can map all 16 encoders to whatever parameters across the whole project, pads to transport & general movement. In Bitwig it's not as great, because native script doesn't make much sense (to me at least), while the generic scripts work acceptably but far from perfect either.

 

Can't tell anything about MPK Mini2, but consider this - for psychedelic trance you might wanna control at the same time a lot of parameters across many devices (filters, resonances, envelopes, effect sends, effect parameters, etc.) and Akai has only 8 knobs and they're of the pots variety, so with specified min & max. I don't know how that'd work in Renoise, but Bitwig currently doesn't have parameter pickup function, which means if you had your filter on one device (and on controller) at 20% and switch to a different device that has it at 100%, then turning the knob will make it suddenly jump to 20%.

 

Arturia seems more solid & is slightly bigger, while Akai is even more compact (smaller footprint due to lack of pitch&mod, and flatter) and while it feels a bit more plastic (especially the keys), it definitely doesn't feel flimsy or easy to break.

 

Tough choice, sorry

[Hasheeshian]

Minilab is great for Renoise - you can map all 16 encoders to whatever parameters across the whole project, pads to transport & general movement. In Bitwig it's not as great, because native script doesn't make much sense (to me at least), while the generic scripts work acceptably but far from perfect either.

 

Can't tell anything about MPK Mini2, but consider this - for psychedelic trance you might wanna control at the same time a lot of parameters across many devices (filters, resonances, envelopes, effect sends, effect parameters, etc.) and Akai has only 8 knobs and they're of the pots variety, so with specified min & max. I don't know how that'd work in Renoise, but Bitwig currently doesn't have parameter pickup function, which means if you had your filter on one device (and on controller) at 20% and switch to a different device that has it at 100%, then turning the knob will make it suddenly jump to 20%.

 

Arturia seems more solid & is slightly bigger, while Akai is even more compact (smaller footprint due to lack of pitch&mod, and flatter) and while it feels a bit more plastic (especially the keys), it definitely doesn't feel flimsy or easy to break.

 

Tough choice, sorry

Yeah truly a tough one >.< I settled for the Arturia even though the script issues you talked about, mostly because of the extra knobs and them being encoders. It will arrive in one week, can't wait   Thanks for your advices!

[antic604]

Yeah truly a tough one >.< I settled for the Arturia even though the script issues you talked about, mostly because of the extra knobs and them being encoders. It will arrive in one week, can't wait   Thanks for your advices!

 

Good choice! Let me know when you'll want to pair it with Bitwig (BTW, beta for v2.2. came up today) - I might have some advice to shorten your struggle