Writing your own music is no easy feat.
It’s one thing if you’re a career musician—it’s quite another if you’re just a long-time music lover who wants to take a first shot at creating your own stuff.
The Novation Launchkey 49 keyboard comes chock full of ingenious new ways to create chords, build melodies, and compose your own songs, making music production accessible to literally anyone who’s interested—from Berklee grads on down.
I’m an avid musician and producer myself, and so Novation was kind enough to ship me my very own Launchkey 49. I spent a lot of time with this puppy, getting to know the ins and outs of all of its features—and trust me, there’s a lot to cover.
In this review, we’re going to take a comprehensive look at the new Launchkey 49, but we’ll focus especially on its innovative new features that make music production easier—and more fun—than ever.
Overview
The Novation Launchkey 49 is a feature-packed MIDI controller designed for musicians, producers, and live performers (it’s called the Launchkey “49” because it has 49 keys. Novation also has other versions of the Launchkey with different key counts—but we’ll get into that a bit later).
For starters, the Launchkey 49 can be used as a basic piano keyboard—its realistic, semi-weighted keys are right up there with the best of them—but it’s also so much more than that.
Undoubtedly, the crowning jewel of the Launchkey 49 is the way it promotes a hands-on workflow for music production. It does this through a combination of velocity-sensitive pads, faders, encoders, and powerful creative tools like Chord Map.
It also comes with custom scripts for most major DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) such as Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Cubase, Reason, and FL Studio.
What I Love About the Novation Launchkey 49
- The Chord Map and Scale Mode features eliminate many of the technical challenges of music production, promoting smooth workflows and enhanced creativity.
- The step sequencer integrates seamlessly with Ableton Live, allowing both drum and melodic sequencing.
- The touch pads utilize polyphonic aftertouch, which means you can expressively control the volume and modulation of individual notes as they’re being played.
- The semi-weighted keys are some of the best I’ve ever played, allowing precise dynamic control and emotional playing.
Features & Benefits
Before testing out the package from Novation, I came up with four separate categories that I think are vital performance areas for any MIDI controller: creative tools, DAW integration, touch pads, and overall playability.
After a week of hard use with the Launchkey 49, paying attention to its performance in each of these four areas, I had quite a lot to report back on.
Here are my findings.
Creative Tools
Like I said earlier, making music isn’t reserved only for the classically educated. Whether you're a seasoned producer or a beginner, having access to things like chord generators and arpeggiators can seriously spark creativity.
Previously daunting music tasks become much easier, making the creative process more intuitive and allowing you to just follow where your inspiration leads without needing deep theoretical knowledge.
The Launchkey 49 has two key features that will majorly help enhance your song-crafting skills:
Chord Map: Select your song’s key, and choose from a bank of 400 chords per key, with a huge variety of styles and voicings. Once you choose your chords, you can assign each one to a touch pad. Then you can play your song’s chord progression simply by pressing the corresponding pad.
Scale modes: One of the most confusing parts of playing keys is learning when to play a black key and when to play a white key. The Launchkey’s different scale modes put an end to this problem, allowing you to improvise in peace. First, select your key and scale—major, minor, etc. Then choose your scale mode:
- Scale Snap adjusts any off-key notes to fit the chosen scale;
- Scale Filter blocks out any notes that don't belong in the scale, so you only play the right ones;
- Scale Easy maps your scale to the C position, so you only have to play the white keys.
The Launchkey 49 is the best of both worlds: Seasoned pianists can tickle the keys and control everything manually to their hearts’ content, and lay musicians can take advantage of the creative tools and have fun making music without running into any roadblocks due to lack of technical training.
DAW Integration
DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation, which is just the fancy category name for music software like Logic Pro or Ableton. The DAW is where you layer your tracks and where your songs actually get built.
Most MIDI controllers are capable of recording into some type of DAW—though they’re often used simply to control desktop synths or other pieces of hardware. It’s a bit rarer to come across a fully compatible MIDI controller that was specifically built to integrate seamlessly with your favorite DAW.
The Launchkey 49 does this handily, letting you control the volume and effects of different tracks via the controller’s own faders and knobs. This significantly reduces how often you need to switch between your computer and your MIDI controller, which is actually a huge time saver—especially when you’re deep in the throes of composing.
The Launchkey 49 also features special integration capabilities when used with Ableton Live. In particular, you can control Ableton Live instruments via a step sequencer in two different modes: drum sequencing, which is for creating grid-locked beats, and melodic sequencing, which allows you to experiment with different notes without worrying about staying on time.
To be clear, the Launchkey line is very unique in this—the only other MIDI controller that offers this level of integration with Ableton is Ableton’s own Push line of MIDI controllers.
Touch Pads
Touch pads are those little rubber squares that allow you to play finger drums, trigger samples, or control loops. Sure, you could just manually drag and drop your samples into your DAW, but that can really take away from that organic “live” percussion sound—not to mention most of the fun of making music in the first place. Well-designed touch pads give you that tactile control over your sounds that can really help bring your tracks to life.
These days, touch pads are a pretty standard feature for most MIDI controllers. But it turns out, not all touch pads are created equal. The Launchkey 49 stands out because its 16 touch pads don’t just map velocity—they also feature polyphonic aftertouch, a technology that can take your dynamics to a new level.
- Velocity, which you’re probably familiar with, measures how quickly (or forcefully) a pad or key is pressed, and it determines the initial volume or intensity of the sound when you hit the pad.
- Polyphonic aftertouch, on the other hand, responds to continuous pressure applied after the pad is pressed, allowing for real-time control of modulation, pitch, or effects for each individual note, even after it's triggered.
This means that you’ll be able to use the touch pads not just for staccato sounds like drums, but also for long, legato sounds that require continuous dynamic expression.
Overall Playability
So much of playing music is about feel. If you want to create a song that emotionally resonates with your listeners, you have to be able to funnel your emotions into the track—and this is impossible if you can’t get the keys to do the things you want them to do.
The Novation Launchkey 49 features 49 semi-weighted keys. Semi-weighted means each key is made of light plastic, but with a spring mechanism that simulates the feel of a real, weighted piano key.
I learned to play keys on a real piano, so I usually always prefer real, weighted keys. But I must say, I was very pleasantly surprised by how well the Launchkey replicates this feel.
Whether I was laying down piano, or something less dynamic like a synth, I was able to accurately convey the dynamics of the piece I was playing—something that’s usually pretty hard to do with semi-weighted keys, especially if you’re not used to them, like me.
Finally, the Launchkey 49 also excels in playability in an entirely separate way: The Split feature allows you to split the keyboard up into two separate playing areas, with the bottom half of the keys controlling one instrument—say, bass—and the top half controlling another instrument—say, piano.
And if you count the touch pads controlling drums, that’s three instruments you can control simultaneously—basically a one-man band, though you’d probably need to look into growing another arm first.
Alternatives & Things To Consider Before Buying
Novation’s Launchkey range doesn’t stop at the 49—it actually has six keyboard controllers in total. Here’s a quick summary in case the 49 isn’t for you:
- The Launchkey 61 is literally the exact same thing as the Launchkey 49, except it has 61 keys. For seasoned pianists who are used to playing with both hands at the same time, the 61 does help a lot with playability, as you won’t have to worry about switching octaves as frequently.
- The Launchkey 37 and Launchkey 25 models are almost the same as the 49 and 61, except their reduced size means there’s no room for faders, and the keys are synth-style instead of semi-weighted.
- The Launchkey Mini 37 and Mini 25 have 37 and 25 synth-style keys respectively, but the keys themselves are also smaller than regular piano keys. They’re narrower and shorter, which means the keyboard is more portable, but less playable. The Mini range also features touch strips instead of pitch and mod wheels, and has a 3.5mm (auxiliary) MIDI out as opposed to the standard 5-pin.
Finally, here are three things I always like to take into account before making a decision on a new MIDI controller or keyboard—I’d carefully consider each one before choosing a Launchkey model.
- Playability: We already discussed this briefly earlier on, but are you a skilled pianist? Are you going to want to lay down tracks where you’re playing chords with your left hand and melodies with your right? If so, you’ll need space—so I’d go with the Launchkey 61.
- Portability: Will your main studio space become this keyboard’s permanent home, or are you planning to take it on the road with you for live performances? If it’s the second option, the 61 might be just a bit cumbersome—though it’s still doable. The 49, 37, and 25 models—along with either of the Mini models—are all very easy to transport.
- Knobs, faders and wheels: If you make electronic music, or even if you’re just really into effects and samples, the Launchkey’s knobs, faders and wheels will be essential to your craft. For this reason, I’d advise sticking with the 49 or 61, since these models have the full set of nine faders, a mod wheel, and pitch wheel.
Conclusion
In 2024, a MIDI controller needs to offer creative tools to assist with song creation, integration with modern DAWs, and a high level of playability so you can really express yourself with feeling. The Novation Launchkey 49 checks all those boxes, and then some.
To recap the Launchkey’s key features:
- Creative tools like Chord Map and Scale Mode;
- Seamless DAW integration with all major software;
- Velocity-sensitive touch pads with polyphonic aftertouch;
- High-quality semi-weighted keys for dynamic playing.
Cheers once again to Novation for shipping me my own Launchkey 49 so I could actually test it out myself and write an honest review based on my experience.
Now, if only it could brew my coffee and write lyrics, I’d be all set for a Grammy.
