keyLab 61 engineering

[retroip]

I was playing with The great instrument from Arturia (except few small firmware bugs).



Demo video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5MlEiedFlk

Currently I'm heading to create control surface in Ableton, to send text messages to the Keylab when I'm switching between scenes. For me it will be useful for live performance, when each my scene has setup instruments for that particular song. So then I would see text on my keylab, on which scene am I, and I could be completely free of notebook.

Maybe some tech information:
Button LED turn on/off
F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 10 12 7F F7 (1st button)
F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 10 13 7F F7 (2nd button)...

Turn LED on on buttons 1-8 (9-10 are not responding to SysEx message, also i did not found transport buttons, for example light up on PLAY button would be very practical)
Command: F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 10 12 7F F7

Turn LED off
Command: F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 02 00 10 12 00 F7

Send text message to KeyLab:
(header) F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 04 00 60 01
text - convert your characters with any convertor from ASCII to HEX
new line - 00 02
footer - 00 F7
Entire message example:
F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 04 00 60 01 53757065722054657374 00 F7

It works with latest firmware (1.33)
I used MIDI-OX with message translator/replacement to have proper function on my KeyLab with VirtualMidi Driver. So I'm intercepting incoming messages (which are not handled in KeyLab) and translating them to SysEx messages (Where KeyLab is somehow listening)

Why I started this ?
1.Because my buttons under knobs/encoders/ are not lightning UP when they are set in CTRL Toggle mode (I need visual feedback without looking into notebook if my instrument is on /off). Just loop button acts properly. I see MIDI message coming from Ableton (toggle message) but keyboard (firmware) is not handling that - not managing button light.

2. Pads: When are they set to toggle mode, they are not toggling values 0/127, but they are still sending velocity. For Ableton >64 means turn on, <=64 turn off. So when I want to turn on my instrument I need to tap harder, to turn off I need to tap slightly (but what if not) , this is not safe toggling. Every other instrument hiwch is having Pads (Akai, M-audio, novation), when is set to CTRL toggle mode, PADS are sending either 0 or 127 (or as you set). I miss this for my KeyLab.

I like this keyboard so much, just small bug fixes would make this keyboard perfect.
Any attention from Arturia ?

[retroip]

I'v tested older Firmware and I created Firmware comparison sheet.
.

Can somebody confirm this ?

[maranite88]

Yes - this is the behavior I'm seeing too.

There are other odd quirks going on with the Keylab...  If a sysex is send to set the display of the keylab while you're playing, the next note-on sent by Keylab has velocity=127 (max).
It's surprisingly noticeable (and irritating) when using the out-the-box driver for Bitwig.  I've alerted the Arturia support folks, but fixing this doesn't seem to be a priority.

I asked Arturia whether they would consider open-sourcing the firmware so that we (the customer community) could fix these issues ourselves, but again Arturia shied away. I don't get it... they have a product that could be great, but has bugs, and are refusing help from their customers!

[maranite88]

BTW - for anyone wanting to know a little more about Keylab sysex, here's a quick guide:

With the exception of MMC messages, all Keylab specific sysex messages (out/to and in/from Keylab) follow the form:

F0 00 20 6B 7F 42 PAYLOAD F7

Where the PAYLOAD is one of the following:

Request a Value:	01 00 PARM CTRLID
Response from Keylab	02 00 PARM CTRLID VALUE
Set a Value:	02 00 PARM CTRLID VALUE
Set LED on/off:	02 00 10 00 00 CTRLID ONOFF
Set Display Line 1:	04 00 60 01 LINE1 00 7F
Set Display Line 2:	04 00 60 02 LINE2 00 7F
Set Display Line 1&2:	04 00 60 01 LINE1 00 02 LINE2 00 7F
Load Keyboard Preset:	05 PRESET
Save Keyboard Preset:	06 PRESET

Where:

LINE1 & LINE2	16 character ASCII string.
ONOFF	on=7F, off=00.
PARM	See Parameters section below.
CTRLID	See Controls section below.
VALUE	The 7-bit value either being set or reported by Keylab

Parameters
The PARM values are different for global settings vs control settings.
Generally, a control is configured by sequentially sending 6 command values (numbers 1 through 6).
For faders and encoders, parameters 0x40 and 0x41 can optionally be sent to.

For controls, the following trush table describes the meaning of each command:

PARM:

1

2

3

4

5

6

40

41

Faders

Encoders

Buttons

Pads

Transports

Off

00

-

-

-

-

-

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

CC Fader

01

CH

CC

MIN

MAX

0

0

1

Yes

CC Encoder

01

CH

CC

MIN

MAX

0

1

5

Yes

CC Relative

01

CH

CC

0

7F

1

1

5

Yes

CC Duration

05

CH

CC

CC

CC2

0

0

Yes

Yes

CC Toggle

08

CH

CC

OFF

ON

0

Yes

Yes

Yes

CC Gate

08

CH

CC

OFF

ON

1

Yes

Yes

Yes

Note Toggle

09

CH

NOTE

0

VEL

0

Yes

Yes

Yes

Note Gate

09

CH

NOTE

0

VEL

1

Yes

Yes

Yes

Keyboard Preset

0B

0

0-9

0

0

0

Yes

Yes

Yes

MMC

07

0

MMC

0

0

0

Yes

Yes

NRPN

04

CH

RPN

MIN

MAX

0

Yes

Yes

Yes

RPN

04

CH

NRPN

MIN

MAX

1

Yes

Yes

Yes

Program Change

0B

CH

PROG

LSB

MSB

1

Yes

Yes

Where:

MIN, MAX	Midi cc values from 0 - 0x7F to be sent by the control.
ON, OFF	Midi cc values to be sent by buttons for on/off or down/up actions
CC	Midi CC number for continuous controller messages or brief-press messages.
CC2	Midi CC number for long-press (duration) messages.
CH	Midi Channel: 0-0x0F=1-16, 0x41 = Part1, 0x40 = Part2, 0x7E = All, 0x7F = Panel.
MMC	The MMC identifier to be sent in a MMC message when a button is pressed. Sysex received on click is F0 7F MMC 06 F7.

Control identifiers:
The following values represent the CTRLID used in the aforementioned messages:

Volume	0x30
Param	0x31
Value	0x33
Param Button	0x32
Value Button	0x34
Sound	0x1E
Multi	0x1F
Bank1	0x1D
Bank2	0x1C
Play	0x58
Stop	0x59
Record	0x5A
Rewind	0x5B
Forward	0x5C
Loop	0x5D
Switch  1-10	0x12 - 0x1B
Encoder 1-4 Bank 1	0x01 - 0x04
Encoder 6-9 Bank 1	0x05 - 0x08
Encoder   5 Bank 1	0x09
Encoder  10 Bank 1	0x0A // can be 0x6E on some firmware. Seriously Arturia?
Encoder 1-4 Bank 2	0x21 - 0x24
Encoder 6-9 Bank 2	0x25 - 0x28
Encoder   5 Bank 2	0x29
Encoder  10 Bank 2	0x2A
Faders 1-4 Bank 1	0x0B - 0x0E
Faders 5-9 Bank 1	0x4B - 0x4F
Faders 1-4 Bank 2	0x2B - 0x2E
Faders 5-9 Bank 2	0x6B-0x6F
Pad 01-16	0x70 - 0x7F
Mod Wheel	0x40

Global Configuration
Configuration of global values is similar to controller configuration, except that PARM is always 0x40, and the CTRLID stipulates which global value is being set or requested.

Global Parameter:	CTRLID	Values
Relative Knob Mode	0x02	0x01 = Absolute, 0x7F = Relative
Drawbar Mode	0x01	0x01 = Normal, 0x7F = Drawbar
Part 1 Midi Chanel	0x06	0x00-0x0F = Midi Channel 1-16
Part 2 Midi Chanel	0x05	0x00-0x0F = Midi Channel 1-16
Keyboard Split Mode	0x07D	0x01 = Off, 0x7F = Split Mode On
Keyboard Split Point	0x0D	number - Midi note value. 0x3C=Middle C,  0=C-2
After Touch Chanel	0x0B	0x00-0x0F = Midi Channel 1-16, 0x7E=All, 0x40=Part1, 0x41=Part2, 0x7F=Panel }
Part 1 Transpose Octave	0x03	number: 0=No Transpose, 1/2=Octave+1/2, 0x41/42=Octave-1/2
Part 2 Transpose Octave	0x10	number: 0=No Transpose, 1/2=Octave+1/2, 0x41/42=Octave-1/2
Part 1 Transpose Chromatic	0x06	number
Part 2 Transpose Chromatic	0x11	number
Octave Buttons Assign	0x12	string, { 0=Part1, 1=Part2, 2=Both" })

Notes:
Keylab handles signed values as 6-bit signed integers, so that bit 6 (0x40) is the sign bit.
This means that positive numbers are in the range 0x01 to 0x3F, and negative numbers span 0x41 to 0x7F...

Actual Number:	3	2	1	0	-1	-2	-3
Keylab 6-bit value:	3	2	1	0	0x41	0x42	0x43

SysexIdentity Request:    F07E7F0601F7
SysexIdentity Response: F07E00060200206B0200054806000201F7

[Pablop]

maranite88, thank you so much for such a useful and detailed piece of information!

Does anybody know how does Analog Lab detect the identity of the Keyboard Controller??
Is it just by the MIDI Port name??

I tried sending the identity sysex string from a program to Analog Lab but it didn't work.

Thanks in advance!

Pablo

[simonegiusti]

Hello ...
any updates for Mk II ...
what about PAD & buttons led colors

Sysex messages are the same but I did not succeed in display text on LCD except for DAW mode. In USER mode no text is displayed.

thanks

[LBH]

any updates for Mk II ...
what about PAD & buttons led colors

You have posted in (Keylab MK1) forum.
In Keylab MKII you can select between 16 different colors for both the pads and the buttons beneath the faders.

[simonegiusti]

any updates for Mk II ...
what about PAD & buttons led colors

You have posted in (Keylab MK1) forum.
In Keylab MKII you can select between 16 different colors for both the pads and the buttons beneath the faders.

Yes, I know this is MK1 section but Sysex commands are the same. I was wondering if there further commands for Mk2 new functions, such as colors.
I will create a post in Mk2 section.
Thanks.

[maxsnet]

Hello! Is there a way to activate Chord from Sysex ?

[jabrams1964]

Hi, I just bought a Keylab 61 to replace the previous one which stopped working after working for 1 month after I bought it 1 month ago.  I don't think I upgraded Logic Pro before the old one stopped working. 

This new keyboard installed and registered fine on my Macbook running Catalina 10.15.7 but this new one too won't play through Logic Pro 10.6.1 when I create a new software instrument track. 

The midi is definitely sending notes to the Macbook since I CAN play it through my Garageband 10.3.5 on the same Macbook.  And the midi control center thinks the midi is connected and sending. 

Any suggestions for how to get this midi working again with Logic Pro 10.6.1?

[rvosse]

In the quick guide of maranite88 there is a little mistake:

Set LED on/off:   02 00 10 00 00 CTRLID ONOFF

has to be:

Set LED on/off:   02 00 10 CTRLID ONOFF