After teasing a mysterious announcement across its social media channels over the weekend, Arturia has announced a new product at a livestream event this evening.
AstroLab is a stage keyboard equipped with more than 1300 sounds from Arturia's Analog Lab software, a sound library that features an extensive selection of presets from both the Pigments synth and the company's V Collection, a comprehensive collection of vintage synth emulations.
AstroLab's 61-key, semi-weighted keyboard is equipped with channel aftertouch, and sits below a beautifully designed interface based around a circular display that also acts as a rotary encoder. Two additional banks of rotaries operate macro controls for the AstroLab's sounds and its 12 onboard effects, which include delay, reverb, chorus, phaser, distortion and more.
The keyboard is kitted out with an arpeggiator, chord and scale modes (that work in conjunction with its 61 LEDs above the keys) and a 32-bar looper, in addition to a vocoder engine that can be used with an external microphone. AstroLab's 1300+ sounds can be split across the keyboard or layered together in multitimbral patches.
In addition to AstroLab Connect, a mobile app for browsing presets and purchasing new sounds, AstroLab comes bundled with Arturia's Analog Lab Pro software which can be used to access more sounds, customize the keyboard's sound library and assign custom macros. Owners of Arturia's software instruments can also go beyond Analog Lab's four macro controls to design customized patches on the computer to be loaded on to the keyboard.
As for connectivity, AstroLab is equipped with both WiFi and Bluetooth for hooking up with its companion apps, USB-C and USB-A ports, MIDI In/Out, a stereo line output and a headphone output. You'll also find a stereo combo input for running a microphone into the keyboard, along with jacks for sustain and expression pedals.
AstroLab is priced at $1699.
We've already spent some time with AstroLab prior to launch - if you want to hear our take on the keyboard, read our review.
Find out more at Arturia's website.
