Arturia MiniLab 3 Black

On the search for a new mini midi controller, after already used Akai's mini, Arturia's Minilab3 was a great upgrade, especially for someone who's on a budget.
The build quality is really good a robust, the features are really good and the bundle software is really appealing, with the Analogue Lab Intro being the most important since it "unlocks" from the get go.
My only critique is that the pads aren't that sensitive, but you can get around that by changing that in the controller itself through the software

For a first controller keyboard I must say I'm pretty darn impressed with the Minilab 3... I'm mainly a guitar player with some basic piano background and bought this to lay down some chords and backing tracks on Garageband to play on top with guitar, I wasn't really sure what practical use I would give to the faders and knobs and all the extra stuff that seemed daunting on some reviews. To my surprise after 2 hours of experimenting with it along side Arturia's tutorials I completely rediscovered and fell in love with Ableton Live (Lite 11 is included) and all of its potential as a creative songwriting tool. I also tried it with Garageband and Logic Pro (trial) with great success, but of the bat Live had an awesome integration and the most "hands-on" operation in my opinion, everything is instantly and very intuitively mapped, It's amazing how it frees you up from mouse work and makes you really just play, record, and have a lot of fun! I really liked toggling between banks A and B (shift+pad) for direct clip control with pads or pad drumming, as well as quickly assigning midi channels to different instrument tracks. Transport controls are also there, as well as a great mini screen displaying all the parameters you're adjusting, it makes it feel like a real synthesizer/groovebox. But to me the biggest surprise was Analog Lab, which is AMAZING and available as standalone operation, every instrument parameter is perfectly mapped and instantly available on all the knobs and faders, and the sound libraries are vast and EPIC.
Knobs, faders and keys feel very premium, for the price this is really a great device with a lot of features, and so well designed that it doesn't feel overwhelming. 5 year warranty, eco-friendly packing, now that's great value! Arturia has a new fan!

Minilab is a great midi for starters and also for professionals. It's compact and efficient, it is with me all the time. If you have any questions it could be hard to find all answers online because it's new, but in time the community will grow and it's gonna be easier to find solutions. Integration with DAWs is worth mentioning. If you want to learn how to play piano it's gonna be better to consider larger keyboards (37+).