AstroLab Synths Get Enhanced Sound Design Features from Arturia

Arturia’s AstroLab series has long been a standout in the realm of stage keyboards, effectively transforming the company’s AnalogLab suite of vintage synth emulations, sampled pianos, and original instrument plugins into hands-on hardware. Initially, these keyboards functioned primarily as advanced preset browsers, allowing for minor tweaks through four macro controls and some effects adjustments, but lacking in-depth sound design capabilities. That has all changed with the introduction of the AstroLab 2.0 update.

This latest firmware brings a Sound Edit menu that allows users to dive deep into the individual parameters of any instrument. While it may not be the most intuitive process to start with a blank patch from your chosen instrument, and the advanced sound design tools require some navigation through menus, once you get the hang of it, crafting custom sounds becomes quite straightforward.

To quickly create patches from scratch, you can set up a custom category for templates and save initialized patches for each instrument. For instance, you can upload a basic Moog bass patch template from the AnalogLab desktop app, tweak it to your liking, and save it as a new sound directly on the hardware.

Since a firmware update can’t add more knobs and buttons, you’ll still be making adjustments using the four macro knobs and cycling through settings four at a time. This can be a bit tedious, and on-the-fly tweaking isn’t the most efficient, but it certainly gets the job done.

Additionally, Arturia has introduced a new collection of multisampled instruments, including pianos, strings, and brass sections, which enhance the realism of acoustic sounds. This was an area where the competition had previously outperformed the AstroLab, but these additions should help bridge that gap, bringing the total to 67 new patches.

Finally, Arturia has implemented several small quality-of-life enhancements. The octave LEDs now indicate transposition, aftertouch has been refined for better responsiveness, and app connectivity has reportedly improved. While the connection with the desktop AnalogLab is solid, the mobile AstroLab Connect app still seems to have its share of issues.

AstroLab 2.0 is now available as a free update for all AstroLab keyboards.