Background and context
I’ve always enjoyed trying out new hardware synthesizers. Quite a few hours at a local Long & McQuade music store here in Canada. Or when I was still travelling a lot for work, it was stores in other cities or even different countries. You know you’re a synth nerd when visiting synthesizer stores are a tourist attraction for you! — I still have memories of trying a PolyMoog, Prophet 10 and the Jupiter 8 back in the 1980s, when they were first released. Those were beyond my modest budget, but sometimes I would end up buying one of the more affordable synths. My first synthesizer was a Jupiter 4, which I traded in for a Juno 60 upon it’s release. And I bought and traded many other synths over the years – and some of them I still have – including that original Juno 60.
But it’s been quite a while since buying my last hardware synthesizer. These days, my synthesizer addiction is served by software. The last hardware synth, that tempted me somewhat seriously was the Arturia MatrixBrute, when it first appeared a few years ago. Instead, I ended up buying Arturia’s V Collection, their outstanding bundle of classic synth software simulations (the closest I got to owning some of those high end synths from the 80s!) – and also Pigments, their powerful and flexible modern software synth.
Fast forward to last week, when my friend Jef (more on him later) asked, if I wanted to borrow his AstroLab hardware keyboard synth for a few days. I excitedly took him up on the offer. A keyboard synthesizer for playing the Arturia V Collection plus Pigments without being tethered to a computer, sounded very intriguing.
First impressions
Setting up the AstroLab in my studio, I couldn’t help being drawn in by it’s good looks. The design language reminded me a bit of upscale Scandinavian furniture. From a white body with light wooden side panels to the brushed metal kind of controls. A central larger dial with a small screen, pitch bend, and mod wheel to the left plus 8 endless encoders plus a volume knob on the right.
Turning it on (startup time about half a minute) revealed useful LEDs behind every button, around each encoder, next to the mod wheel and row of tiny dots for each of the 61 keys. The lighting design fit with the general understated elegance that I quite liked.
The mod wheel and pitch bend being above the keybed may irk some players, but it saves space and helps with the overall elegant look. I don’t mind that position, since they are about the same reaching distance away from where I typically stand or sit in front of the keyboard.
Keybed feel can be very subjective, but to me it was in the upper echelon of all the keyboards in my collection. However, I found it difficult to tell, that it featured channel pressure without me putting a MIDI monitor on it. There’s just not all that much travel. And while watching the MIDI monitor, I could very carefully and deliberately get to different channel pressure values. And it seemed rather accurate. But for practical purposes, it felt more useful for on/off control, like kicking in a vibrato late in a note, but not so much for being able to carefully modulate a cutoff frequency by feel. That’s better done via the mod wheel.
Dialing up a couple of piano and organ sounds first, the sounds were very consistent with what I already knew and liked from having Arturia’s V collection on my DAW computer. — In addition to the very good looks, what intrigued me the most about this keyboard was the prospect of Arturia’s modelling synthesis engine being outside of a computer in a standalone instrument.
So – as I always do, when trying out a new synthesizer kind of keyboard – I quickly moved on to intending to tweak some synth sounds. Tweaking is one of the great joys of having bought Arturia’s V Collection instruments for my computer already some years ago. Maybe I’ll just start with changing the drawbar settings of a Hammond B-3 preset.
Uh-ooh
Okay, so the tiny display in the rotary dial didn’t really look practical for diving into parameters. But then I realized: Deeper diving into sound design wasn’t even possible on this keyboard. The 8 nice looking and feeling metal endless encoders allowed very basic pre-configured tweaking of the sounds, but not often the things I would typically reach for when trying to adjust a preset.
Having seen and loving the Arturia MatrixBrute and PolyBrute – both being a tweaker’s delight – left me wondering what Arturia might have been thinking when they decided to design and release the AstroLab.
Aha moment
And then it struck me: It was probably not meant for studio tinkerers – like I’ve been for quite a while now. And later looking at their marketing material seemed to confirm that.
So I changed my expectations and imagined myself having this keyboard back in the 1980s when I still played in an 80s tribute band. — ehhm, (blush) it actually was the real 1980s and we played contemporary mainstream rock covers when synthesizers arrived in popular music with a bang. When MTV had just become a thing. Like stuff from Duran Duran and Ultravox. And Thomas Dolby and Billy Idol. Back then, I lugged 5 synths from gig to gig, not even all of them had programmable presets, and I had to spend time between sets to dial in synth settings for the upcoming set. It was also just before MIDI became big.
Much later, in the early 2000s, I played in a basement jam band enjoying musical trips down memory lane playing a bunch of 70s and 80s songs with a few friends. Good memories!
The AstroLab might be perfect for either of those scenarios. Because I didn’t really like tinkering with synth sounds when playing with a band. Much better to prepare my presets before. And then quickly dial up the right sound and just play. And while playing, I really didn’t do much additional performance twiddling. Nothing beyond a mod wheel, pitch bend and maybe a few knob twists at most. The use of endless encoders is far superior in this kind of setting because they smoothly pick up the internal state of the current synth preset. We didn’t have that in the 1980s!
Another feature that wasn’t around in the 1980s or even the early 2000s was the ability to do all of one’s sound design in a pure software instrument and then transfer a finished preset to a hardware keyboard to take to the gig. And it’s one of the great things about a workflow with the AstroLab. I would have loved that in 1985 as well as in 2005.
So in this context, the AstroLab started to make a lot more sense to me.
If I was still playing with a band, I’d prepare for the gig or the jam session on my computer, carefully tweaking the sounds I’d want to have on recall on the computer, rather than on the hardware synth, then transmit them to the AstroLab – maybe even utilizing the playlist feature or even just marking a subset of the many presets as favourites. And then I wouldn’t have to tweak anything while with my band mates. Just recall a well prepared sound and play.
Another thing I would have loved performing with the AstroLab: The back lit buttons and LED indicators next to the mod wheel, above the keybed, and around the endless encoders would have been great on stages that often went very dark between songs, leading to the occasional embarrassing moment on stage when turning between keyboards I couldn’t see where an important button was.
Yet still a little puzzled
But even for just picking a preset, the small screen isn’t ideal – especially for performers who accidentally (or willfully) don’t wear their glasses on stage.
Another thing I noticed during my testing was, that most presets seemed to load relatively quickly, but a few presets loaded quite a bit slower. So that might need some extra planning for a live playing situation: Only use the slow loading presets when the switch between presets doesn’t have to be instantaneous.
However, downright puzzling for a keyboard that is specifically intended for live performance: Why are the endless encoders on the right hand side? Since most people are right handed, it would seem more natural to keep playing with your right hand, while adjusting some parameters with the left hand. After all, the mod wheel and pitch bend are on the left, so keyboard players are used to that configuration. Having to reach across your body to use the knobs may be a good move for yoga, but not necessarily so good for a musical performance.
Not everyone would be concerned about those issues, but they would be important to me.
But also more goodness
Having 4 inputs for pedals is really nice. And another small, but good attention to detail is the fact that there’s enough power supplied on the 5pin MIDI, that I was able to connect a Bluetooth MIDI dual dongle (I happen to have the Yamaha MD-BT01, that I could test with). With that, the AstroLab can be a wireless keyboard controller for another sound module like an iPad. Very nice! It was a little odd, though, that every note was sent twice over MIDI. Fortunately, going into the AstroLab MIDI settings made it possible to fix that. And to my pleasant surprise. the mod wheel seems to transmit 14bit MIDI CC values. I won’t explain here what that is, but fellow MIDI nerds know what that means for extra precision in MIDI control for external hardware or software that can make use of that.
And I also noticed, that the AstroLab had some audio features attractive for those kinds of gigs where amplification needs to be kept simple.
For example, one can use the AstroLab as a Bluetooth audio device to play music from a phone during a break between sets. And maybe hook up a mic. And a USB stick filled with backing tracks. Nice!
Good Bye
Even with some of the puzzling issues I’ve described, I have to admit having developed a real soft spot for the AstroLab. So if a live playing situation benefits from a certain extra stylish look, the AstroLab might be really worth having. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in quite a few music videos. It would also look stylish in many a living room.
If money wasn’t an issue – even if I wasn’t playing live – I’d want to add the AstroLab to my collection – and would put it into a very visible spot. But for my current studio music making, many other Arturia offerings (synths, software and MIDI controllers) are a more natural fit.
But damn … did I mention how nice it looks?
So I was a little sad when it was time to power it down for the last time before returning it to its rightful owner – and for one last time, the AstroLab was very polite.
Thank You
A very special thanks to Jef Gibbons, for lending me his AstroLab keyboard for a few days, so I could give it a good try. He has featured the AstroLab in one of his many outstanding YouTube videos. And he is as nice in person as he seems in his videos! Thanks again, Jef!