Novation Launchkey 49 MK3 49-key Keyboard Controller Reviews

As a church bassist learning keys, I needed a larger key bed to play bigger chords. This completely fits the bill. Novation boards interface nicely with my Sunday keys app, and Ableton Live. Easily transportable with the Novation case, I am on my way to being a more complete musician.

Everything I imagined it would be. Thanks to Ed Needler for support on my purchase!!

I have a mk3 mini and wanted a larger keyboard. This is what I landed on. 49 keys, I counted them. You have to be careful, sometimes they leave out the high C thinking you won't notice.

It works seamlessly with Ableton. I only have Ableton Live 11 lite (which still has a gazillion things you can create with) because I am an el-cheapo. I hope that term isn't culturally offensive to anyone.

Anyway, plug in and go to town, basically, with Ableton. It gives you the option of controlling parameters from the keyboard itself, as opposed to pointing, clicking, dragging, etc. in Ableton. The pads are very responsive, they have a great "feel" to them when you use them.

The keys are not weighted, although they do come in the traditional white and black style. Even though they are not weighted, you can still play loudly or softly depending on how hard you bang on them.

This came with a free instrument you can download from Novation. You can pick from a few. I chose the grand piano set. I was really impressed with this. It has a standalone program that you can run if you just want to "mess around" or give a concert or whatnot. I like this because you don't have to fire up Ableton and pick a track, load the sound, etc. Within the program, it also has about 30 presets for the grand. In addition to this, you can also tweak the sound by changing microphone type and distance, and using a few effects. It has a really great sound, in my opinion. Like, you can play the intro to the Fallout games and it sounds spot-on!

It has an LED screen that you can use to navigate with. I have not even used it yet.

Overall, I really like this keyboard, it suits my needs very well.

This product is a game changer for the home/small studio. Faders, interaction with the DAW, nice mouse click count reduction, lights, colors - for the price a process changer - more time for the 88 key pianos here!

I am not a keyboardist. I needed a midi interface for my Studio One DAW. My Windows 10 PC recognized it immediately, latest drivers were easy to find, download, and install, and integrating it with Studio One 6 was simple - once I stopped trying to use a 5-pin midi cable and learn about USB midi, which wasn't invented yet the last time I worked with midi LOL. All in all, thus far, this keyboard is what I expected it to be.

I have purchased a few products from sweetwater and I can honestly say everything that I have purchased has worked out perfectly.I will continue to buy from sweetwater because the service is great and I always get my equipment delivered on time like they said I would.
Thank you Sweetwater
Keep up the great work.

Returned an Akai MPK249 in exchange for this due to it's terrible Ableton integration, and I couldn't be happier. This little guy is literally built with Ableton in mind from the ground up. The controls are intuitive and the workflow makes a lot of sense... There's no fluff or gimmicks here. Highly recommend for my Ableton peeps.

This is the first midi controller I have bought and it is everything I wanted and more. Amazing feel and seamless integration with Ableton makes it simple for a beginner like me. Can't recommend novation enough!

The Novation Launchkey MK3 49-key Keyboard Controller provides such quality and value for a keyboard controller, I bought 2... one for my piano playing son and one for me. Guitar is my primary instrument, but the MK3 is so convenient and easy to use I'm finding myself playing it a lot more than I was intending. All the manual interface features are beautifully laid out on the board for ease of use and the port, pad, and fader modes make the MK3 a complete package to expand my music. Thanks Calvin Hull for recommending the Novation Launchkey 49 and thank you Sweetwater for your excellent service.

I have been having a lot of fun with the Novation Launchkey and I am really glad that I bought this keyboard controller - I use the Novation Launchkey for both Ableton and Studio One 5's Professionals/Studio One Artist 5.
All hands on keyboard while mixing and creating with one of my favorite Additive Keys, software which came with this Novation Launchkey along with other software - I'm extremely pleased with this purchase. Thank you Sweetwater! Great service and amazing equipment, software and more!

Keys, knobs, pads, and faders feel good and the build of the keyboard itself feel sturdy. Only thing is that I wish the keys were more sensitive to velocity but that could just be the software/synth patches I'm using. Def recommend buy this.

I bought this on an impulse buy, as I usually do when I come across instruments that I think are cool. I was worried that, maybe, just maybe, I would regret this one. "I already have a digital piano," I said to myself. "Why am I getting another keyboard?" How silly these thoughts were. This is no mere keyboard; it's a highly advanced artifact from an alien race of music lovers.

The software it comes with, Ableton Live Lite, was a surprisingly large bonus. The greatest hurdle is learning how the software and the Launchkey Mk3 work individually and together, but after a number of very useful YouTube videos, it was only a matter of hours before I felt competent at the majority of the Launchkey's features and functions. It works with Ableton flawlessly, and I was immediately able to start recording loops and creating music I've never been able to create with my digital piano.

It may not have all the bells and whistles, but purely due to the price point of the keyboard I can't take off any stars.

So far I am loving this midi controller. The integration with Ableton Live is flawless. I've also used it to run soft synths inside Reaper with success. I'm mostly a drummer so the quality of the keybed is lost on me. With that said I think the keys feel better than my Yamaha Motif. Between learning all the tricks this thing can do and all the free software that cam with it I'll be confused for weeks! I mean confused in a good way!

Really really love this one!

So I have been looking for my first MIDI keyboard for a while. I saw this and I liked the extra features like the pots and faders along with the programmable buttons. Overall it has been an excellent tool and I highly recommend it! 10/10, might buy again -mousie

The Launchkey has been crucial for diving into Ableton with no prior experience. All the controls sync with Ableton functions automatically to make a familiar control surface. It's making my home-studio life a lot smoother.

If you use Ableton, shut up and buy this. The tight integration makes it easier to stay focused on music and not workflow. I love the feel of the pads, faders and knobs. The keys feel different, but not in a bad way. The sales staff at Sweetwater once again made this an easy buy and made shopping a human experience!

I got this for all of the cool user modes it has. Which work well and are pretty fun to use. The biggest downfall about this controller is it's keybed. I found it to be not that sensitive where some notes just wouldn't register. And when it's hooked up to exspensive hardware that'll really frustrate you. Maybe there's a way to adjust it to be better suited. Returning it and buying the Arturia keylab because this experience has taught me that it's better to have a great playing keybed than to have more features. At least in my opinion..

Decades ago I went through a few Ensoniq keyboards with built-in sequencers, and they were very simple and intuitive to figure out how to play, record, and edit tracks and songs. I recently picked up this LK49Mk3 and installed Ableton on a PC because it looked like a great solution to documenting song ideas. The combo must be capable of a lot, because there are so many confusing configuration features. Sadly none of it is intuitive. So when I figure out something, if I wait a few days before coming back to it, I can't recall how to do it again. I am very tired of constantly watching videos on how to setup things or figure out functions that should be simple. If you want to focus a bunch of time on learning how to make this thing work, you'll probably enjoy it. But if you want something simple and intuitive that will let you document your musical ideas without the technology getting in the way, this is NOT it. The more frustrated I get with it, the less I want to try to use it again.

First off, let me say that this review does not reflect my thoughts on Sweetwater. I like Sweetwater very much and they have great customer service! However, the Novation LaunchKey 49 keyboard controller I have different feelings about. When I first got this 2 years ago, I did a driver update and it worked well for me in Ableton Live. Unfortunately 2 years have past and this thing will no longer power on. And yes, before you ask, I tried 4 different usb cables and 2 different computers. This thing is dead. :(

The controller itself is built very cheaply and I wouldn't recommend this controller to anyone except maybe my mortal enemies. There are better controllers, go buy something else. I have it a 2 star review because that's how many years it lasted.

To start, Sweetwater rocks and I love them. Novation however has absolutely dropped the ball with this. You would be better off using literally anything else. The moment I got it home I was so excited because I had been using my Novation Peak with a Yamaha DX100 and needless to say that is not a great midi controller. I boot it up and it works great! and then the pitch wheel starts sending random signals! Randomly without touching the pitch wheel it will adjust itself and lock just a litte tiny bit but enough to make whatever you are playing sound awful. Unfortunately I looked it up and not only do tons of people have this issue, it is at this point unfixable!