Novation Launchkey Mk3 £var

Novation’s third incarnation of the Launchkey has a lot going for it if you are a Live user (and the smallest almost offers the most)

The original Novation Launchkey arrived back in 2013, a solid and great value-for money controller for both desktop and iPad and one which we concluded was, ‘possibly the best controller keyboard in its price bracket’. The Mk 2 version came out in 2016 and – with 16 launch pads corresponding in colour to those of the clips in Ableton’s Session view – became a bit of a steal for Live users. Now at Mk 3 stage, and with ‘create and perform with Ableton Live’ writ large on the box, Launchkey appears now to be a Live-only controller.

Look a-Live

It’s not, of course – even the most dedicated MIDI controllers will work, to varying degrees with any DAW, and Novation confirm this by saying “Launchkey also has full integration with Logic and Reason, plus out of the box functionality with other DAWs including Studio One, Cubase and Pro Tools, via HUI”. But there’s no getting away from the fact that integration here with Live is, as they say, ‘deep’.