New FL Studio Keyboards - Novation FL KEY MK2 First Look and Review

I've got some great news for FL Studio users. Today, Novation have released the FL Key 2, which is their second generation keyboard controller built specifically for FL Studio. I've got all four of the devices here with me today, so we're going to look at some of the core features and also see which size might be best for your setup. But, I do want to thank Novation for sending me these four and partnering with me, cuz otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do a first look on this channel. And as always, I have full control of the video. I'm going to share both the good and the bad, cuz there's a few areas for improvement and there's a few uh sort of mistakes you could make choosing one device over the other. So, I want to start this video with a very quick 60-second overview of what these devices do and how they work. And then, if it sounds like something for you, we can get into some like deeper features later

in the video. So, let's go. So, in 2022, Novation released the FL Key first generation. This was received really well. They then upgraded their other MIDI controllers and now a lot of those features have made their way onto the FL Key 2. The core benefit of these keyboards they map automatically to FL Studio. You can control the step sequencer directly from the pads. All the encoders sync up to parameters and plugins. The faders map to the mixer properly. The new screen displays everything that's being adjusted and even shows you what chords you're playing. Play, pause, record all work flawlessly. And you even have a button to automatically put the last thing you played into the piano roll. There's so many features such as an inbuilt arpeggiator, key split to play different instruments on different parts of the keyboards. And it comes in four sizes from 25 all the way up to 61 keys. The two larger models have semi-weighted keys and faders, and the two smaller models have synth-action keys and unfortunately no faders. My personal favorite is the 49-key version, just to

sort of put my opinion out there right at the start. So, that is what the devices do, that's what they're all about. But, there are so many other features and functions. The manual is just sort of packed with loads and loads of stuff that these keyboards can do. What I'm going to do with the rest of the video is give you an up-close look at the devices and share some of my favorite features, so you can get a better feel for the workflow. I always start my reviews by talking about the build quality. The old devices, I've been using them for 4 years with absolutely no issues, glitches, or anything breaking on them at all. And these ones seem to be built to exactly the same spec. There has been a really nice design refresh. All of the buttons are much more sort of clicky and responsive. The contrast is better on the device overall. Like, it's very easily laid out. People asked me in the last review to just put the camera close up to the keyboard, turn the microphone on, and let them just hear what everything sounds like. So, here you go. The screen is significantly improved. Much, much better resolution and contrast. I do wish it was maybe two or three times the size. I personally don't have an issue reading it, but I know some people might. And all the keyboards have been upgraded to USB-C, which is just much appreciated. Almost all the cables in my studio are USB-C so it was about time. That's enough looking at the device. Let's plug it in and get looking

at some of these features. One of the deepest integrations with FL Keys that we can control the channel rack step sequencer directly on the pads here. There are other modes where you could just finger drum or listen to your patterns, but sequencer is what almost everyone's interested in. So, if I turn the metronome on and press play, — you'll see that it's just sort of cycling through the steps. — And if I just mute the kick and snare for a moment, I want to show you a really cool feature. So, if you click and hold the pads, you can also adjust all of their properties. And I'll turn these back on. — Let's add just a little of swing to that. — Now, you can also extend the patterns, of course, and to navigate between you just use these buttons here, but I'm just going to keep it really simple here, but you can see how you can easily and quickly um build up patterns, but also switch things up. So, if I press play, — let's try that. Nice. — Taking a closer look at the faders here

you can see that they control the level of tracks on the mixer, and you can bank between eight at a time using this button here. And just sort of mix things by ear, not worrying too much um about what you're seeing, just sort of adjusting them till things sound right. You can see that the colors of the tracks are all displayed here, which is quite handy when you want to mute particular tracks, or you can solo. In fact, you can solo as many tracks as you want, and un-solo them like this. And while I do like using this to sort of mix with the ears, it does show you the level of the track and what you're adjusting on the screen just here. Now, one thing to note is say I take this all the way down over here, and then I bank to the second set, you'll see this fader here just jumps down to sort of catch the same position that it was at. And this might seem really annoying, but actually you can change this. So, in the settings, I have it set up to jump, but you can set it up to pick up so that it won't move until you run the fader over the same position. So, there's going to be loads of um things where you think, "Oh, I wish you could just do this one thing. " And it's probably hidden away in the settings. It's worked flawlessly over the last couple of weeks. The one thing I wish it did do differently is the master fader here. So, I wish that it just snapped back to zero. — The software does sort of hover it over zero for a while, which is brilliant. But for me, I like keeping the master fader at zero all the time and I have knocked it a few times. I just wish it kind of snapped back into place. But I did chat with a few people who said that would be awful if it did that. So, you know, my preference, but other than that, it works exactly as you'd expect. So, at the moment it's in mixer volume mode, controlling the mixer, but you can use it to control key plugin parameters, channel volume, or set it up in a custom mode and assign the faders to pretty much whatever you want in the software.

I want to show you some much more exciting stuff you can do with the pads and encoders cuz there's more than just a basic step sequencer. So, if I select scale and I can choose a scale. We'll just choose D major today. Try to show you a close up of the screen. Now, if I go to chord map, it's going to automatically map a bunch of different chord voicings and chords to these pads. And I can make them much more exciting with this — control here. And of course, you can just perform them here. But while you've got a whole bunch of different chords mapped and it can do a lot of stuff automatically for you, you can also go into a user chord mode. And now the pads have gone blank. And this is because we can input whichever chords we want onto these pads. But firstly, one of the most interesting things for me is that as you're performing, it also shows you which chord you're playing. So, if I give you a close up of the screen. — And this is useful for a lot of reasons, especially if you're not well studied in music's theory. Maybe you're performing with other musicians and they just want to know what you're actually playing so they can play along with you. But anyway, it's cool that it shows you that, but that's not why we're here because we can put whichever chords we want onto those pads. So, if I hold down a pad and play what I was just playing, — it maps it there. So, hold down the pad. What was next? We're doing this. Think I did this. And then let's add something maybe a little bit more interesting or adventurous. Let's go for — That's just a repeat of the first chord actually and then something like that. — Now, where this becomes even more powerful is if you make sure that say your encoder mode is on plug-in and I'll put the plug-in on the screen as well. We can control some parameters in the plug-in. They've all been auto-mapped and I could keep talking but I'll just uh show you what I mean. Maybe I'll push the resonance up and we can adjust the filter again. — I doubled the one of the chords here so I could just delete any chords I want. Just down button. And I like how intuitive that is. It is nice, you know, having a lot of the chords auto-mapped for you but most of the time when I use these sorts of MIDI keyboards, I'm just performing on the keys. So, as long as these feel good, I'm pretty happy. But, having all of this stuff sort of set up and mapped for you, it just saves you so much time and I have to admit over the last couple of weeks of using it, everything is laid out really intuitively. Most of the functions are just a case of holding shift and then taking a look and going, you know, do I want the pads to be on the sequencer or do I want them to control the channel rack or the drum machine? I just plug it in, I can play and perform and all the extra modes are just really nice, really fun to have and they feel like they sort of add to my workflow uh but they don't feel like they get in the way or that I'm having to, you know, radically change what I do. And to me, that's a sign of a good device. I don't know if that's what you're looking for as well but to me, I don't want my equipment to dictate how I work. I like the equipment to just sort of enhance and uh maybe even uh improve

my creativity and productivity. So, hopefully that gives you a good feel for the devices, but I wanted to talk about which size to get because there is a common pitfall that I see here. And that is that if you are completely new to MIDI keyboards and you're considering buying your first ever MIDI keyboard, I would actually urge you not to go for the 25 key and start with the 37 key. And the reason for this is that the 25 key is a fantastic keyboard. It's really good. I personally enjoy using it. It's great if you're going to travel or you have a really small setup. You can throw this in a bag, take your interface, headphones, microphones, cables, everything with you. Where you know, the larger models, they're not even going to fit in a bag whatsoever. But the reason I would say to start with the 37 or larger is that if you're learning piano, you want to start playing keys, chords, melodies, uh learning on a 25 key keyboard is really difficult no matter which brand it's from. Um I made this mistake uh when I bought an Arturia keyboard back in the day. It was so difficult and crunched up trying to play chords on it. You know, inevitably you'll be playing something and you'll just wish there was just one or two more keys there on the edge. And that's what happens when you're on the smaller devices. You can see the 25 key just fits in any setup. You could put it in front, off to the side, you've got room for everything. The 37 key is like a really good middle ground if you don't have like a keyboard tray. So, it fits on my desk. I've still got space for my monitor controller, my mouse. I could fit a keyboard in here. That works great. But as soon as I get to the 49 key or larger, it doesn't feel like my desk is my own anymore. Like it completely takes over the desk. So, if you're going to use the 49 key or the 61 key, I would recommend that that's for people with maybe a keyboard tray or a keyboard stand off to the side. Then it's going to be perfect. You're going to get the benefit of those beautiful semi-weighted keys, but it's not going to take over your entire setup. Um I've just got sort of like a normal desk in my studio at the moment, so nothing fancy. So, while my favorite device is the 49 key, I would just set it up on a sort of cheap keyboard stand off to the side, and it's works really well in my setup. But anyway, that's pretty much it for this review. Otherwise, it's just going to get super long. I want to say ask me anything in the comments. I've been using these devices, all of them, for many weeks now. There's tons of features where you think, "Oh, I just wish it could do this thing. " And then it's actually just sitting there in the manual. So, if you've got any questions about the devices, or maybe even trying to compare them to other devices, just give me a comment in the comment section down below, and I would love to help you. But thank you very much for watching. Thanks again to Novation for sending all these devices to me, cuz this was really fun. And I'll see you all in the next video. Bye for now.