Novation Launchkey Mini [MK3] — Portable 25-Key, USB, MIDI Keyboard Controller with DAW Integration, Chord Mode, and Arpeggiator — for Music Production

Perfect little keyboard for someone who’s trying to be a songwriter it’s easy to carry around and store away the ton of it’s very good also

A bit hard to figure out how to work with but great product it’s

Muy bueno, se demoró menos de lo que pensé, excelente todo

I love it!

making music - it is a beginner way to introduce piano playing - they will teach themselves

I previously owned the Launchkey 37 MK3, which was a great controller for producing music but not for playing most songs with two hands. After moving, I decided to upgrade to Launchkey 61 MK4 since I finally got big enough desk space for 61 keys. These semi-weighted keys are much better quality in comparison and a lot more pleasant to play.I love using the clip launcher in Bitwig Studio, which is my DAW of choice and has a great support for this controller, despite having some initial difficulties setting it up (see further). The knobs, sliders and DAW controls work great.I daily drive Linux, and it's mostly flawless except for one thing - sometimes the controller is not picked up by the system until I replug it. I use PipeWire and I'm not really sure whether it's a problem with my configuration, but I didn't ever have this issue with MK3. Also, the controller interfaces don't have MIDI and DAW in their names, they are just named "Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4" and "Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 #2" respectively, and Bitwig didn't set them up correctly out of the box, so I had to do some trial-and-error to figure out which is which. In case anyone faces the same issue, the correct order in Bigwig is (see the attached screenshot):1. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 #22. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK43. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 #24. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4That said, after performing this initial set up everything works great. Except for the occasional replugging issue that I mentioned above. For this reason, I took 1 star off. By the way, the first thing I did was updating the firmware version, which can be done surprisingly easy via a browser on the Novation Components website, which I didn't expect was even possible.One more minor gripe (though not a dealbreaker) is that this controller doesn’t have a dedicated button to switch between MIDI programs. The MK3 had a "..." button for this, which was useful for quickly changing programs in Qsynth. I should’ve caught this detail in the photos, though, so that’s on me.I'm just a hobbyist producer and piano player, and I'm still a beginner, so I can't yet review more advanced features that this controller supports. Nevertheless, I did a lot of research and this seems to be, at the moment, the best "neutral" controller on the market at this price range. By "neutral" I mean not married to a specific ecosystem like Native Instruments or Arturia, resulting in needless price markups for those who don't need those ecosystem features. So, if you don't mind the issues above (which shouldn't even be issues if you're on Mac or Windows), I'd say go for it!

Good

I did a lot of measurements before I bought this keyboard controller. All my estimates were off, it's actually smaller than I thought! Perfect for me. I'm trying to make my "mobile command center" fit inside the backpack (pictured above it's the Lenovo hardshell something). As you can see, it fits beautifully. I included pictures in front of a computer screen, next to a 17" laptop, and next to a standard computer keyboard for reference. With the app downloaded, it was plug and play into Waveform Pro, and I imagine any DAW that can read USB MIDI will find the keyboard no problem. In my opinion having played with it and the drum pads is the hardware itself is worth the price and is a great deal.For the negative, it's all to do with the "extras" they bundled with it. "Oh wow, Ableton lite! Multiple expensive instruments! (the Orchestral thing is 300 euro), all for free what a deal!" Every. Single. One of them. Requires you to sign up for a separate account, give full permissions for web tracking, give them your address and purchase info (bank, credit card, paypal), download a separate app because their expensive software doesn't have just a VST plugin. It has to have that software up and running on your computer to work with your DAW, which means potentially Meta (Facebook), Google, and several others I stopped reading in the agreement could be watching everything you do on your computer directly. I started with the Orchestra one and signed up through the whole process before realizing that every other one was a different company and required all the permissions. If you don't mind the EU spying on you along with Big Tech (Yes, the Orchestra instruments one is from Germany and require you to give EU permission to view your data even if you don't live in EU), then the extra software packages are a great deal. But I'm suspicious of anything that goes from 300 Euros to free just cause I bought a keyboard controller and has no VST, no way to download and delete the account.TL;DR It's a great deal, very small, good price, decent quality, but the addons spy on you and require a different account with a different company for every one, and probably a different desktop app as well.