Arturia KeyLab MkII 61 White

I was expecting more from this keyboard wrt. features and quality. It is however, very nice quality for the price.

+ The keys and the mod-wheel and pitch-wheel feels really nice.
+ Overall built quality of the body is very good.
+ Its easy to assign MIDI CC's to the various knobs and faders.
+ I love that they added CV ins and outs. (I am not using them yet, but I plan to in the future)
+ Nice DAW integration. Once in a while I use the keyboard with Bitwig.

- I feel that the quality of the faders and knobs is a bit low.
- The aftertouch is very difficult to control and doesn't really give any room for expression. (I have given up using the aftertouch at all)
- No MIDI clock signal. I mostly play on hardware synths so I miss having a simple MIDI clock.
- No builtin arpegiators. I think that it would have been quite easy for them to add.
- Not future proof... I don't see any indication that this keyboard will be upgraded to MIDI 2.0 (which will start to hit the market next year, 2021). So I expect that I am gonna go shopping for a new keyboard in a few years.

I'm using this MIDI keyboard mainly controlling hardware synthesisers and drum machines. Key touch is quite soft but still good feeling and built quality is also good. Only thing is would be good if the rotary encoders had a bit more turn resistance but this is also not a big matter and I assume it wouldn't bother most of users.
Software side is simply great and you can find plenty of reviews on this, so please refer those resources.
Although, before purchasing the item, it was quite hard to choose either 49 or 61 keys version for me. There's not much reviews on this product specifically about this matter. Of course, it depend on your needs but if you think 61keys takes too much space, there's only 8,2cm width difference between 49 and 61key versions, so in fact you get 1 octave more in almost same size keyboard if you pay about 100 EUR extra.
For that reason, pitch bend and mod. wheel are placed on different places on each models but probably it wouldn't really affect your work flaw or playing performance.
Probably this fact would help people who can't choose between the 2 models. If you find paying 100 EUR more for 1octave is too much then go for 49keys. I personally decided to get a 61keys version, because I would prefer to have more keys in limited space.

Another keyboard from another hi-end brand; much money invested only to encounter the same issue again!
Let me premise this review by stating that I am not interested in bells, whistles, flashing lights, software or any of the other "features" which are so aggressively marketed these days by keyboard brands. I wanted a functional MIDI controller KEYBOARD which I could use reliably for writing orchestral music by playing the parts. I am a classically trained pianist and therefore I consider myself to have a relatively disciplined level of dynamic control when playing a keyboard instrument. I am NOT comparing this keyboard to a real piano because it's a keyboard, not a piano. I have had at least 15 years' experience of professional keyboard performance besides classical piano.

Issues:
1. The black keys are significantly more velocity sensitive than the white keys.
2. It is almost impossible to play the white keys hard enough to output the maximum velocity value of 127. The max velocity when playing the white keys usually peak at around 115.
These two problems make dynamic performance a total nightmare. I have tried all of the velocity mapping options including the custom mapping but could not achieve anything resulting in unhindered playing. This is once again a fundamental flaw in the design of the key-bed/sensors etc.
For a keyboard of this price, why is the most basic and fundamental function of the keyboard so utterly defective?!

The drum pads are at best average. The velocity sensitivity isn’t very precise, and if you’re into finger drumming then often the pads will not trigger unless you hit them quite firmly. In my opinion they’re simply not sensitive enough for accurate finger tapping like AKAI pads if you want to use them dynamically. They also feel very rigid and unyielding which becomes fatiguing to use after a short while. There’s practically no bounce to them whatsoever, and so your fingers will end up going a bit numb.

This keyboard, and all other keyboards I have were tested with MidiView and then with various Kontakt libraries to feel, listen and see how they responded.
I have tried the Novation61SLMKII, AKAI MPK 261, and now Arturia KeyLab61mkII which ALL suffer from the same issue with keyboard velocity control problems.
I have used far older and cheaper Yamaha performance keyboards which allow for natural and dynamic playing.
I question how years and years of research and development these big brands have been doing, could possibly result in pricey MIDI keyboards that are so unplayable?
The features are nice yes.
Aesthetics: Beautiful.
Playability: Pretty useless as an functional instrument.

I use the Arturia Keylab MKII 61 for deep house productions. I waited from march will july 2020 for this bad boy to be back in stock and it was worth the wait.

In deciding between the Native Ins komplete control I went for the Arturia purely as it was more synth based and more control with faders and nobs. The analogue Lab VST that comes with it is amazing with over 6500 presets. It Can be a bit daunting due to the volume of sounds at first. It does NOT come with a power cord but runs direct through USB. Build quality is amazing and you will be surprised how heavy the unit is.

From a guy that has bought Roland and Korg workstations and synths all my life I don't think I'll ever go back now. You have everything and more under unit.

Pro's :
Analogue Lab VTS.
Build Quality
Lost of Control with Knobs & Faders

Cons
Difficult to find the right sound scrolling.
CPU heavy