Novation Launchkey 49 MK2

Wonderful to work with, as good as plug and play for windows and mac, only with logic x not complete functions on all buttons, but with ableton live lite, which comes for free, but after setting the drivers.

I did have a problem with the code for live lite, but after sending a message to ableton's customer service, I got a new one within a day, which is very nice.

Too bad I had to wait 5 days for it to arrive. Maybe it was the PostNL, but thought it was a shame.

For windows it was important to download the Asio4all drivers, and I still have latency, which may be due to my laptop.

Plays great, very easy to use, nice and light and very easy to carry. The plastic feels a little flimsy at times, but hey, didn't plan on throwing it around the room or dropping it off the roof. Feels nice and solid with a good surface. Have to ram the keys a bit hard before any sound really comes out, and the pads are at 127 or 0, but oh well. Fortunately, you can still adjust this manually.

What I'm actually trying to say I think I kind of like my launchkey I know it's moving fast we've only known each other for 3 weeks but I just think you're very important to me and I'd like to have another want to spend time with you. She is beautiful, always on point, never complains, and a very positive influence on my creativity and confidence. Playing feels like ecstasy at my fingertips, and finally I don't need a manual anymore, everything goes naturally.

I think we were made for each other, and that's why I was so impatient to receive her.

For true love, especially this product, would pick up.

Last week I wrote a review about the Launchpad Mini from Novation, this was a typical impulse purchase that I'm very happy with but with which I can't do some things so easily (playing the keyboard is more difficult and there are also no sliders / knobs which can be very useful for volume and effects); This made me decide to buy another product from Novation to complement these desired functions, this has become the Launchkey 49 as this device has the most features for the friendliest price.

The Launchkey has 49 pressure sensitive keys that feel great and are just the right size for instant familiarity when you're used to other keyboards/digital pianos. The pressure sensitivity is very noticeable, although you have to press very hard if you want to reach the maximum strength. On the side is an octave button with which you can also reach the parts of the keyboard for which there are actually no buttons, this makes it easy to reach the higher and lower notes while playing, but due to the limited size of 4 octaves that the device does not play all music well, but this is not a problem for me. The pitch and modulation wheels also feel good and do their job.

At the top of the keyboard is actually a device of its own, similar to a Novation Launchcontrol. 8 track sliders and 1 main slider incl. mute/solo buttons make it very easy to quickly adjust the sound level of a multi-track song. The rotary knobs work with a number of plugins out of the box, but can also be midi-mapped to other functions so that you can set it up exactly the way you want. Perhaps the most notable feature is the drum pad with 16 pressure-sensitive, large, illuminated buttons. Of course I already had enough buttons like this on my Launchpad Mini (a bit smaller) but what struck me was that this is the only device with pressure-sensitive buttons; the dedicated Launchpads do not have this. These buttons are used in Ableton either as a drum pad or to enable/disable the recording/playback tracks. In addition, there are some extra buttons to navigate and to control recording / loops / playback and stop, very handy.

The device is a lot bigger than what I initially thought, it only just fits on my desk with the launchpad next to it, but at least the space is used well. The dials feel a bit rickety but do their job. The display at the top left shows the value of the slider/button you are currently pressing, useful if you want to set all volume buttons back to 100.

What I personally find a pity is that the cooperation with the Launchpad is not optimal, there are some bugs in Ableton (it starts recording when you press the last key of your Launchkey keyboard) that can only be solved through the midi change the device number (by holding down both track buttons at the same time) for the Launchkey to e.g. 02 (the Launchpad already uses 01), this is not a problem in itself, but this is not remembered and you have to do it every time when you have turned off the power. Also, the device could be attached to the iPad with a USB hub together with the Launchpad, but when I do this it doesn't work (even just the Launchkey with the hub in between doesn't work); Shame as it is something I would have liked to have used. The Launchkey app on the iPad is also quite fun to use, although the Launchpad Mini might be better suited for it due to the size of the device.

With the device you get downloads for Ableton Live Lite (super! I only had this one with the Launchpad), a mountain of samples and 2 VST synthesizer plugins, these are not as great as many other VST synths but certainly a nice extra.

All in all, I'd definitely recommend the device, it's great value for money and together with a Launchpad you have complete control over Ableton without needing to use your mouse and keyboard too often.

This keyboard is light but sturdy and gives the impression of being of good quality. All buttons and faders feel solid and are easy and smooth to operate. The keys themselves are quite heavy, they give quite a bit of resistance and you have to hit hard on them to send MIDI values close to 127.

I mainly use this keyboard to quickly enter notes in notation software and to play soft synths. My operating system is Linux and I was pleased to find that almost everything works flawlessly, without any configuration or installing drivers. In Jack the keyboard appears as 2 inputs of which only the first does anything as far as I can see. The midi channel of the keys is freely selectable with the channel selection buttons, the velocity-sensitive pads are on channel 10, the standard channel for drums. Only the "incontrol" buttons cannot be mapped in MIDI.

The faders and knobs make it ideal for use in Ardour 3, with the only downside being that the transport controls require custom mapping. Unfortunately it is not possible to use the record button to arm tracks but this is due to Ardour, not the keyboard. The faders and knobs can be mapped freely and work as you would expect.

All in all a top keyboard, although I might have taken a size smaller.

*sound quality does not apply in the rating as it completely depends on the softsynths or soundfonts used.