I tested a bunch of MIDI keyboards side by side and in this video I'm sharing my top six. So which one has the best key feel, the best drum pads? How about mixer and virtual instrument control? I'll cover everything including the pros and cons for each, and even some features you never knew you needed.

Let's get started with one of the newest keyboards in this list, the MiniLab 3. I've used several mini keyboards through the years and I found that the MiniLab 3 by Arturia has two standout features, and the first one may totally win you over.

The Arturia MiniLab has the best key feel of all the keyboards in this list.

The keys are larger than all the other keyboards here and have an excellent down weight and upweight, making this the best keyboard if you're a pianist or used to more traditionally weighted keys.

Yeah, I actually measured the down weight and upweight for these keyboards, it makes a difference if you know, you know.

Now let's check out this second standout feature and then I'll talk about some drawbacks. The MiniLab has the best virtual instrument integration, only rivaled by the Native Instruments M32 in this list.

It comes with Arturia's own Analog Lab software that gives you hands-on control of so much right out of the box.

if you love vintage synths or if you've already invested in Arturia VSTs, this is the keyboard for you.

With the endless encoders and the faders, you get a total of 12 tactile controls, more than any other keyboard in this list. And with endless encoders, the virtual knobs in your plugin always match the physical knobs on the MiniLab controller.

And as you turn a knob or touch a fader, you'll see the parameter you're controlling and the value right on the screen.

Now with Arturia's Analog Lab software, you can use the ninth black knob here to cycle through presets and load them.

The screen also shows you parameters from your DAW's plugins. The DAW feedback on the MiniLab is excellent, so what's not to like? Well, the drum pads aren't the best in this list, Akai are better.

Also, the drum pads have a secondary function as transport controls: stop, play, record. I prefer dedicated transport controls for optimal efficiency. The four faders are useful to have, but check it out, they don't control your first four track volumes as you'd expect in Ableton Live, for example. They control a single active track's volumes, sends, and pan. The Mini Lab has good compatibility with the most popular DAWs.

For Ableton Live, you have basic clip and scene triggering. But FL Studio users won't get extensive channel rack control.

We'll explore the FL Key later in the video for that. The MiniLab has nice arpeggiator and chord features, comparable to other keyboards in this list, but for the ARP, you will menu dive a bit to edit it.

This is one of my favorite new keyboards, and as a pianist, I truly appreciate the key feel.

By the way, the keyboards here range from $99 to $170, and the MiniLab comes in on the lower end at $109. That's a good price for what you get, especially considering the software package included.

I'll put links to the best prices for these keyboards in the description and the first comment below. All right, number two, and this one might surprise some of you. You probably see this keyboard's little brother a lot.

The Akai MPK Mini is everywhere, it's very popular, but it's also missing features.

But just recently, Akai released this, the MPK Mini Plus, and it gives you all the features the regular MPK Mini was missing, but that comes at a price. Let me explain. The MPK Mini Plus is $169, at the top end of the price range of this list, but if you want great drum pads and another unique feature I'll get to in a sec, you'll be happy with this keyboard.

The MPK Mini has 37 keys, the most keys of all the keyboards here in this list, so that makes it the biggest keyboard in this roundup.

Do the extra keys make a difference? Yes, for sure. It's so much more comfortable to play with more keys, but the Native Instruments 
and M-Audio keyboards also offer more than your typical 25.

I'll get to those in a bit. 
So let's talk about the drum pads if you  want to do a lot of finger drumming with your 
keyboard, this is the one to get.

The Akai drum pads are my favorite. The stiffness and feel is 
excellent, and Akai always includes that useful note repeat button.

Now, the key feel isn't 
as good as the MiniLab, and these are the narrowest keys here, but this keyboard has a very 
cool trick that none of the others has: a built-in sequencer.

The built-in sequencer allows you to 
program drums or note patterns to send to your DAW or to an external synth with the MIDI outs.

You get more connectivity for external synth with this keyboard. Most keyboards here have MIDI outs, 
but they are even more useful with this built-in sequencer.

And that's not all, the MPK Mini Plus also 
has dedicated transport controls, which are missing on the regular MPK Mini. The DAW features are decent with mapped DAW plugins, but you don't get the excellent 
feedback on the screen like other keyboards here.

Another reason to get the MPK Mini Plus 
over the regular MPK Mini is the included pitch and mod wheels, much better than the single 
joystick you get with the MPK Mini, but you get that too.

Now, with all the encoders you've 
got here, you actually don't get mixer control with Ableton Live, and this keyboard won't give 
you the virtual instrument integration that the Native Instruments and Arturia keyboards give you.

Chord scale and R features are included on this keyboard, but honestly the best features of the 
MPK Mini Plus should have been included on the MPK Mini.

But hey, if you're into Akai keyboards 
and want the best drum pads, this is the better Akai keyboard to buy.

But wait a sec, you can get 
almost all the same features that this keyboard has at a much lower price with the Oxygen PRO 
keyboard. Let's look at that next. By the way, if you're new around here, I'm Sanjay C.

I have tons 
of videos about music production and the latest gear reviews. Consider subscribing if you haven't 
already. I'll be sure to make it worth your while.

this keyboard is still one of my favorites 
because of the price to feature ratio. You  get a lot for your money with the M-Audio Oxygen 
PRO Mini. This keyboard has faders and knobs and  32 keys.

The keys are a bit shorter and narrower 
than others in this list, but the feel is decent. Now, you only get four knobs, but 
they map nicely to your DAWs plugins.

And the faders automatically 
map to your first four track volumes. Faders are a nice feature because 
because you can adjust multiple faders at  once with just one hand.

They've actually 
built in the configurations for different 
DAWs right into the Oxygen PRO Mini, 
so you have Ableton, MPC Beats, Protools, Bitwig, Studio One, QBase, Logic, Reaper 
and Reason, and FL Studio.

So choose 
your DAW and you're ready to go. You've 
got transport controls, arpeggiator, chord  and scale features, and for Ableton Live you 
even have clip and scene triggering.

And check it out, you've got pitch and mod wheels 
instead of strips on other keyboards, but remember  the MPK Mini Plus also had the wheels, so the 
Oxygen Pro takes a lot of boxes for $119.

Well, the knobs are not 
endless encoders. They have a start and stop 
point, so they don't communicate as efficiently as 
endless encoders, and you've just got four of them, so you don't have as much control of plugins 
by default.

Also, this keyboard does have a loud, 
clicky sound when pressing down on buttons. I don't 
really care for that, but I'm nitpicking here. This is an excellent keyboard for the price, but one 
thing I love to have on a keyboard is missing: 
tight integration with virtual instruments.

Let's 
look at the Native Instruments M32 next because that really excels in that area.

By the way, I've 
been using Universal Audio's virtual instruments 
to demo many of the sounds you've heard so 
far, and they are sponsoring this part of the video.

Universal Audio plugins work with any DAW, and 
they've created some amazing instruments including 
the Mini Moog, the Polymax Synth, The Monster Opal 
Morphing Synth, The Waterfall B3 Organ, The Ravel Grand Piano, and my favorite, the Electra 88 Vintage Keyboard Studio.

If you know me, you know I'm a sucker for electric piano sounds, and this one is special because you get a full studio of control with it. Pedals, processors, mic, and speaker options, and it sounds so good. The Polymax Synth is their vintage-inspired synth that gives you an easy way to create anything from warm sounds to piercing leads, and it includes UA's effects built in.

Universal Audio is well known for their plugins, and now with these instruments, you can put these keyboards to good use. You can try any of the Universal Audio instruments for free using the link below, and they are also included in their Spark subscription plan, which gives you lots of effects plugins as well.

These are plugins I actually use in my music, and you'll hear more sounds from these instruments throughout this video.

So let's get back to the keyboards. We can't talk about keyboards without including Native Instruments.

This is the M32. It has 32 keys like the Oxygen PRO. It's a little longer in size, but still very minimal.

There's something about the simplicity of Native Instruments keyboards that keeps me coming back. And if you use Complete Control and have one of the Complete bundles of instruments, you will really appreciate having this keyboard.

But that simplicity comes with some drawbacks, and this keyboard is still missing some features. I'll get to that in a sec. First, the M32 integration with Native Instruments software is second to none.

And because Native Instruments opens their NKS standard to other software makers, you have excellent virtual instrument and effects controls with tons of plugins, including those from Arturia, Nexus, Waves, UA Output, and more.

Don't underestimate that it's super easy to scroll through presets and audition sounds through tons of NKS compatible plugins with the additional encoder knob here that other keyboards don't have.

This makes the M32 a great second keyboard to own. Team this up with a bigger keyboard from another company, and you can have the best of both worlds.

The M32 is also compatible with the most popular DAWs, including Ableton, Logic, and QBase. Now, what about the M32 drawbacks?

Well, there's a big one: it doesn't have pads. It's the only keyboard without drum pads in this list. That might be a deal breaker for some of you. Native Instruments really wants you to buy one of their Maschine products to get drum pads control.

Of course, you can just play drum sounds on the keys. Another missing thing is onboard ARP scale and chord features.

Native Instruments handles those features through software instead, so you can only use them if you're running the Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol software.

Now, you can do a lot of that stuff with your DAW, so it's not a deal breaker for me, but the M32 is also missing a MIDI out, the only keyboard in this list without it, so you won't be connecting this to any hardware synths, but that's not what it was made for.

The DAW features are basic. You've got transport controls, and the eight encoders will control your mixer.

You have some clip triggering for Ableton Live, but without pads, you can't zero in on a clip. The M32 typically sells for more than other keyboards in this list, but it's hard to put a price on those exclusive, unique features that it offers.

Now, here's something to keep in mind. I've realized this after reviewing tons of keyboards: there really isn't one keyboard that has every feature that will satisfy every person's needs, so choose what works best for you.

It's much more important to be making music anyway. Get what you think you'll really use and beware of keyboard envy.

There are some features that you may not even need. For example, most DAWs already have an arpeggiator feature. You may not need it on your keyboard.

So what if a keyboard was made for your particular DAW? It should be the best, right? Well, that's what Novation has done with the LaunchKey and the FL Key. Let's start with the one built for Ableton Live, and then I'll talk about FL Key, which is built for FL Studio.

Novation really optimized the layout of the LaunchKey for Ableton Live.

Clip and scene triggering is just a breeze. The pad colors match up to the Clips in Ableton Live, and your knobs auto map to your devices in Ableton as well, or the mixer pan sends session view device control, everything is here.

It even includes the capture MIDI button, which uses the Ableton Live feature that captures what you were playing even if you didn't have record activated.

The ease of controlling the mixer, the pens, the sends, all topnotch for Ableton users. But where this keyboard falls short is the key feel.

The keys are soft, mushy, and pretty uninspiring for me as a pianist. This keyboard actually has the worst upweight of all the keyboards here.

So yeah, it's far from a solid piano key feel. So what about the drum pads? Although they're a little small, they feel excellent. The knobs are not endless, so they have that start and end point, and there's no screen on the LaunchKey Mini, so you don't get any nice feedback from your DAW that some keyboards here offer.

The LaunchKey Mini typically sells for less than other keyboards in this list, so you'll save a few bucks too.

All in all, this is a super compact keyboard that will do wonders for your Ableton efficiency and even includes a nice arpeggiator. I should mention that you can use this with Logic as well.

So if you use those DAWs, it's worth a look. Now the FL Key looks identical with the button and knob placements, but Novation has reconfigured this keyboard to work with FL Studio, and they've solved a problem no other keyboard has done so well: controlling FL Studio's channel rack.

You can play drums with these pads and you can also switch the mode to a sequence mode to start creating beats.

This is a feature you won't find on other keyboards, and if you use FL Studio, you'll love this. This keyboard has transport controls, and they've also given us a note repeat button as well, which is not on most keyboards.

The FL Key also auto maps to the plugins in FL Studio. [Music] By the way, this keyboard also comes in versions with full-size keys, and with those versions, you get a little screen that gives you some feedback from your DAW and helps with added features as well, like the LaunchKey.

The knobs are not endless, and the keys feel about the same as well. The FL Key includes some chord and scale features but does not include an arpeggiator, which would be nice considering they included a MIDI out.

This Keey keyboard really excels at channel rack control, which is unique to FL Studio, and other keyboards in this video just give you general control of FL, so for an FL Studio user, this may be just what you're looking for.

Like I always say, buy what you can afford and just start making music. Don't wait until you build the perfect studio.

And hey, if you're looking for headphones at any price point, I just dropped a video listing the best I've ever tried. You can watch that video right here. The best price for all these keyboards are linked below.

Make the music you love, and I'll see you in the next video.

Top 6 NEW MIDI KEYBOARDS for 2024

Music production, gear, and tips. I post videos about the latest music gear including keyboards, audio interfaces, plugins, microphones, and more. I also create music production tutorials - how to make beats, how to produce tracks, and process vocals. I compare some of the best new gear out there and always brings you the latest news happening in the music production world. Sanjay C News is a one of a kind source for the latest in music gear and plugin releases, free plugins, and the best deals. Watch my Music Gear News series every Saturday morning. 