Arturia AstroLab 37 synthesiser

General

The Arturia AstroLab synths that had already appeared have large keys, and so are also hefty devices. And that's fine for traditional keyboardists who want a normal, solid keyboard, especially for piano sounds. But can there also be a considerably smaller one for keyboardists who use it as a compact lead synth on top of a keyboard-rig? Exactly that is the raison d'être of this small AstroLab 37, which is of course also a lot more attractive in terms of price.

The idea of the AstroLab

Like its bigger brothers, this AstroLab is basically the most comprehensive synth you can find. Although? It is a synth, a stage organ and stage piano, perhaps even more than it is a synth. After all, the AstroLab doesn't let you create your own sounds. You do, however, get a huge mountain of presets of sounds from the Arturia V-Collection. And so that means you get a monstrous synth that is also a JP8, and also a Minimoog, and also a DX7, and also a CS80, and another huge mountain of synth classics. If you're not into making your own sounds, the AstroLab simply gives you a gigantic bin of sounds. However, if you have the software versions of the built-in synths, you can tweak your own sounds. You might wonder if there's a need for this, as you already get so many sounds. Perhaps the best description of the whole thing is that it is a kind of physical V-Collection.

Further features

In terms of controls, it is not very different from its bigger brothers, the buttons are in a different place, but the quick operation remains. This cute little keyboard also has aftertouch, and that is always a real added value within the synth world. You can also connect a microphone to the AstroLab 37, very nice for vocoder work. This keyboard also has the rather unique round colour display. So well; what else can we say about it: a small AstroLab, a huge container of sounds, aftertouch, and a nice price, that's the recipe for a hit!