Arturia Astrolab: Analog Lab flies free

Marking Arturia’s 25th anniversary, the new Astrolab synthesizer sees a return to the French firm’s origins – or should we say, Origin. While that 25 years is counted from the formation of Arturia and its first product, the Storm Software Music Studio, the Astrolab is closer in spirit to the 2009 Arturia Origin. In execution, it clearly benefits from 15 years of evolution and the growth of Arturia’s V-Collection of instruments.

The ‘Lab’ part of the Astrolab name gives a clue as to what to expect. This is not a V-Collection in hardware as such, but rather a spaceship to take your computer’s DAW instruments on the road, and it’s driven by the Analog Lab preset and layer player model. It does include Pigments as well as the emulated classic synths, but it’s not quite the same as Origin which provided a hardware interface to the VSTs from the outset and focused on sound shaping and creation.

Astrolab is a 61-key synthesizer designed for players and performance. At first glance, it’s the answer to all the musicians who are using Arturia V-Collection in the studio, but end up carrying a Nord Stage or controller and laptop on tour. But Arturia things are rarely as simple as they appear at first glance.

Astrolab: hardware overview

• 64-bit six-core ARM processor
• Stereo audio interface, bluetooth and WiFi
• 61-key piano-style, semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch

Press images don’t always tell the whole story, but for anyone familiar with Arturia’s hardware the quality of the control surfaces and fit and finish should be predictable. The smooth wrap-around wooden end cheeks give the Astrolab a mid-century modern architectural feel, rather Eames-esque – worthy of the blurred lines between the aesthetic of futurism as seen when the emulated synths were brand-new hardware, and living in the actual future of 2025.

Under the hood there’s a six-core, up to 1.8GHz ARM processor with 4GB RAM and 32GB of flash storage (hard disc, in Arturia documents). This sounds likely to be a Rockchip RK3399, in which case it’s a little-big setup with the two A72 cores running at up to 1.8GHz and a quad-core A53 at 1.4GHz – but that’s speculation on my part, and I would hope it’s something a little more up to date.

Installed libraries are small for presets, though sample-based instruments can eat space. This means that the Astrolab’s 32GB storage should be plenty as there’s no audio recording feature – Astrolab’s recording is MIDI-based. Polyphony varies per instrument, and is allocated per instrument – up to 48 voices for some, though some lack the processing headroom for convolution reverb.

The polyphony limit is per part, so with some two-part instruments you may get 96-voice polyphony. Multitimbral capability is defined by the virtual instrument; the obvious candidate for this being Synclavier V which is 16-voice polyphonic. CMI V is also 16-voice, but that can be reduced by the configuration of the virtual Fairlight.

Astrolab can function as a USB host for MIDI devices over USB, and is also a USB device itself including a two-channel, 24-bit/48K audio interface with balanced combo XLR/jack inputs but no phantom power, and two balanced outputs on 6.25mm (1/4 inch) TRS jacks with a 104db dynamic range. It’s not as good as a basic Arturia Fuse interface, but it should be good enough for the Astrolab’s intended audience.

In addition to USB and audio connections, the Arturia Astrolab features WiFi and bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth supports MIDI and audio streaming to Astrolab (though the stream cannot be processed in instruments – that feature is only available on the hardware inputs) and WiFi is primarily to support the iOS/Android Analog Lab preset browser, online store and librarian. It may show a wireless MIDI port in a DAW, but Arturia don’t recommend using it that way due to the instability of MIDI over WiFi.

It’s generally shown resting atop wooden angled legs, and although the keyboard is semi-weighted, it has piano-style flat-face keys. It reminds me of another retro-futuristic instrument, the Casio Privia PX-S7000 piano. I bought one of those last year to replace a Kurzweil PC88, and the angled legs, tubular pedal support and pre-tobacco-stained yellow ‘mustard’ finish made me think of ’60s combo organs when I first saw it. The Astrolab is equally stylish, and would look at home in any upmarket living room or performance space. It needs a couple of space-themed module speakers to complete the look, such as a pair of white KEF Eggs.

You can see the full features and limitations of Astrolab on Arturia’s FAQ page. It’s worth remembering that even the latest Nord Stage 4 only provides 2GB of memory for the Piano and 1GB for the Wave 2-based synth section, so if Arturia just made Astrolab into a sampled-based stage piano it would have a significant advantage over rival products in some respects.

Arturia Astrolab controls and features

• Performance-focused control set, with clear graphics and easy UI
• Doesn’t provide the same editing depth as Origin
• MIDI recorder and looper is closer to home keyboards than a Keystep

The front panel is minimalist compared with the Keylab and Keystep range, dominated by a circular colour LCD display that shows you which instrument and preset you’re using. Keyboard controls for pitch bend and modulation are Arturia’s pleasant-feeling metal wheels, and this metal tactile aspect continues to the encoder knobs, of which there are eight with pre-mapped controls divided between four preset adjustments and four effects controls.

These have LED encoder rings, similar to the Arturia Keystep Pro – a feature that I’d love to see return on a proper hands-on virtual synth editor, but they seem a little wasted on an ‘adjust to taste’ preset player.

There’s no keystep-style sequencer, and the Astrolab isn’t multitimbral in the style of a performance keyboard – though it offers a key split to select between layering two instruments or playing two individual ones, and it also includes a MIDI recorder and looper in addition to an arpeggiator. At present it doesn’t even record MIDI automations for the loaded instrument (though it can replay recorded events to external sequencers or devices).

Having read the manual – and a shout out to Arturia for mentioning the wonderful, affordable (at the time) and often-forgotten Use Audio Plugiator in there – it doesn’t look like the Analog Lab effects can be applied to audio inputs unless they are part of an instrument that processes vocal effects or other sources. Likewise, it doesn’t look like there’s a mixer feature, but bluetooth audio can be streamed to Astrolab to be played along to – summed before the main volume control so mixing is ‘turn down the volume on the streaming device’.

Analog Lab: sounds of the Arturia Astrolab

Given that the Arturia Astrolab is an instrument that seems pitched at opening up the world of Arturia Analog Lab, V-Collection and Arturia’s software instruments to a new and less tech-invested audience, it’s worth going over what Analog Lab actually is.

Having evolved alongside Arturia’s V-Collection as a preset-player patch browser of each individual instrument’s qualities, Analog Lab has become the go-to product to include with most of the keyboards and controllers – and it’s a very generous library for anyone who just likes to find a sound and play. At last count I think there were over 4,000 presets, though that may be down to my having legacy ones carried over, and you can get the sound of everything from a classical piano to an advanced modern hybrid synth (the Arturia Microfreak), and layer it with performance controls, arpeggios, effects and mixing to suit.

These presets are arranged into songs – performances – in Astrolab’s interface, underlining the ‘virtual instrument on stage without the laptop’ ethos. I’m a fan of that idea.

Creating new sounds is usually done within the host instrument, so Analog Lab users usually only get a few controls to play with, perhaps a subset of hardware controls on a virtual synth, or macro-style shortcuts on more complex models.

The biggest drawback of Analog Lab is that while it’s a wonderfully nuanced, performance-ready set of sounds with an excellent browser, the very nature of the emulated instruments as unrelated hardware that was sold in competition with the others means there are an awful lot of ‘similar’ standard patches. Once a demand for a particular sound was determined, every synth manufacturer tried to create a preset or patch to meet that demand – narrowing down what’s actually unique, or musically useful to your genre, can be quite tiring.

Thankfully the novel ‘Augmented’ series is part of Analog Lab, so you can enjoy some modern, complex sounds as well as 13 different synth’s interpretations of Van Halen ‘Jump’ brass or DX7 rubber-band basslines.

Editing the sounds: V-Collection is an optional extra

Arturia has designed the Astrolab around Analog Lab’s ‘tweakable preset’ model. This means most sound expansions are based around preset packs, and for artists who really like to get into the bespoke art of shaping their own sounds V-Collection (or at the very least, individual instruments from the collection) is an essential companion. I have no doubt that Astrolab buyers will be presented with very competitive upgrade offers over the lifetime of the instrument, but of course, they’ll need a computer to run the software.

This seems a little at odds with the WiFi-connected, buy preset packs model of the Astrolab as it stands now, reliant on an iPhone, but I can’t help but notice that the area where the pads live on Keylab Mk II is unusually sparse. A little over an octave wide, it’s just about big enough for a typical 9-inch tablet.

Could Astrolab mean V-Collection on iOS is coming?

Arturia has offered standalone V-Collection-style instruments on iOS in the past, and now Apple Silicon is unified between desktop and tablet, could we see a V-Collection for iPad that works in harmony with the Astrolab? It seems likely – and it seems like the missing element of the hardware as it is presented now, including proper step-sequencing and workstation features, could be addressed at the same time. It makes the WiFi capability of Astrolab seem more rational, too.

Given the last updates to Arturia’s iPad apps were over three years ago, and the apps never migrated for universal support, something new is probably in the pipeline. I’d bet good money on that being Astrolab Connect becoming a gateway to buy or subscribe to a new, redeveloped family of iOS/iPad instruments perhaps sold as the Astro-Collection.

It doesn’t look like the existing suite of iPad instruments – iMini, iSEM and iProphet – have been updated to act as Analog Lab editors for Astrolab as yet. However, patches created could be shared with the contemporary V-Collection equivalent instrument, so the groundwork is already there.

Bringing Pigments on the road?

The excellent virtual instrument, Pigments, is also supported in Analog Lab and thus, Astrolab. Pigments allows a variety of oscillator and filter models, complex routing and modulation, and is a wonderfully visual synthesizer that reveals all elements of sound shaping.

This is where I feel something more interesting could have been created – a hardware, hands-on host for Pigments would have been more of a follow up for the Arturia Origin in spirit, but also could have offered a virtual analogue synth worthy of 2024. Perhaps something else is in the works, bridging the world between the Freak and Lab series, to make that a reality.

Buying sound libraries: smartphone shopping

Long-term Arturia users will know that the firm is generally good at squeezing extra revenue from V-Collection – it’s one of the reasons this website started to look at the wider softsynth market, because it’s remarkably easy to find yourself duplicating not just the emulated synths, but sometimes the base code and libraries they work with.

That’s ignoring the fact that synthesizers are tools to create a sound – one (emulated) device could be famous or appealing for a particular patch or preset, but you could potentially create it with a synthesizer you already own.

Verdict: is Arturia Astrolab out of this world?

At a glance the Astrolab is very appealing, though part of that appeal is down to already knowing what Analog Lab can provide in terms of sounds. It isn’t an all bells and whistles super-controller for the professional studio producer wanting to unlock the power of V-Collection with a smart, dynamic controller – rather, it’s a performance keyboard for keyboard players to take that studio on the road, or for home musicians to get a high-quality taste of multiple classic (and modern) instruments in a very easy to use package.

I’m hopeful that the Astrolab 61 is the first of a family of products, as an Astrolab 88 with built-in or sylish accessory speakers would definitely have had my attention over the Casio PX-S7000. In that context the piano-style, but semi-weighted keys are a good sign (retaining the aesthetic for a hammer action Astrolab 88 option).

But I’m not sold on the idea that it’s a good alternative controller for V-Collection users, as the Keylab II and Keylab Essential both offer more hands-on access to editing and shaping, and the Keylab II’s pads offer access to poly aftertouch effects as well. I like the aesthetic of the Astrolab and the high-res colour screen is a serious upgrade – so perhaps we’ll see a CPU-less Keylab III that brings those advantages to the controller keyboard.

With the clear slimming-down of control compared with the Keylab models, and potentially limiting polyphony ceiling, it’s obvious that the Astrolab has been kept simple for a broad range of musicians and it definitely needs a computer to unlock the full potential of Analog Lab and the V-Collection instruments. However, at £1,390 typical pre-order price, it costs as much as buying a Keylab 61 Mk II, a full V-Collection X license, and a new Mac Mini. Producers and home studio musicians will get more out of that combo than the combo-organ style Astrolab.

Author