A powerful arpeggiator takes you to new melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic places, and Strum mode lets you hold down notes and strum chords to unlock more creative ideas.

Fixed Chord mode takes your ideas further, adding a customisable fixed chord shape that follows you up the keyboard. Made To MoveThe Novation Launchkey Mini is their most compact and portable 25-mini-key MIDI keyboard controller yet. Wherever you happen to be in the world, you can rely on a three-year warranty if any Novation hardware needs repairing or replacing due to a manufacturing fault.Modern PCs run with a multitude of high-speed buses ranging from the interconnects between, say, the chipset and the CPU, graphics card, memory, and peripherals. Easy-to-read screen – 16x2 character screen lets you easily see the state of what you’re controlling or selecting. Although there are a wealth of affordable controllers out there, the Launchkey scores with the number and luminosity of its drum pads.

This is not some post-festival clean-up activity; rather it means that physical controls have no effect until they move past the on-screen value, which is just what you need for jump-free operation. Main FeaturesDesigned for Ableton Live with immediate access to all the controls you need25 key velocity-sensitive keyboard and 16 velocity-sensitive padsTweak instruments and effects to perfection. Launchkey 37 features a synth action keybed, velocity sensitive pads, assignable knobs, and essential transport controls. When Novation released the original Launchkey, the raised the bar for USB MIDI keyboard controllers. Use Novation Components to configure four Custom Modes, which map Launchkey’s knobs, faders and pads to software and hardware features.Ultimate CreativityExperience new melodies, rhythms and sounds flying from your fingertips with Launchkey Mini’s simple yet powerful arpeggiator. If you lack any formal training in music theory, then this keyboard controller is even more suitable for you thanks to the advance scale and chord modes.

Launchkey 25 also comes with a host of creative features that help take your ideas to the next level: Stay in key with Scale and Chord modes or find new melodic ideas with the arpeggiator and mutate your ideas into new forms. To get you started, it includes 50 instrument racks (saved combinations of synths and effects) and can host any soft synths you own, making it reasonably powerful in its own right and a worthwhile introduction to the complete beast for those who've never had the pleasure. This is great for live performers that may travel with extensive equipment and need a feature-rich yet portable solution for sending MIDI data to other pieces of gear. If you are a hardware synth user or into modular synthesisers, you can use this controller along with its groundbreaking features in standalone mode, thanks to the 5-pin MIDI DIN output.

Eight Scale modes guide you into new musical territory, by transposing keys played to notes in the scale selected. With over 600MB to nose through, there's some varied, generally useful, inevitably dance-fixated material that is ideal starting fodder for Live Lite, itself bundled with a couple of software instruments and a further 200MB of audio loops (Loopmasters again).

Comes with great included software, including Ableton Live Lite and a choice of one of the 4 Addictive Keys (I chose Mark One). Pitch and mod wheels are also onboard along with Octave Up and Octave Down functions for easy manipulation of your sound. The Scale and Chord Modes, arpeggiator and Custom Modes can all be used to control an all-hardware studio or live rig.Found only on the Launchkey 49 and Launchkey 61 key versions are a set of nine 45mm faders and eight rotary encoders which allow you to tweak your instruments and effects to perfection. The iPad integration is welcome too and a recognition of the continuing improvement of iPad synths and music apps in general. An intuitive and fully integrated MIDI keyboard controller, the Novation Launchkey Mk3 is packed with fantastic features that expand your potential for composition, production and performance.