Packing 44 full-blown synth engines into a compact, travel-ready keyboard sounds almost unbelievable—but that’s exactly what Arturia is doing with the AstroLab 37. This little board is clearly designed to stir up debate: is it a smart, affordable way to take premium software sounds onstage, or a compromise that serious players will side-eye from a distance?
AstroLab first appeared last year as Arturia’s debut stage keyboard line, aimed squarely at live performers rather than studio sound designers. Instead of encouraging deep patch creation, stage boards focus on giving you polished, performance-ready sounds that you can pull up instantly in the middle of a gig. That makes them ideal for touring musicians who need dependable access to a huge palette of tones with minimal setup, rather than producers who love losing hours tweaking oscillators and modulation matrices.
Smaller body, same sound
The original AstroLab models came in big, serious sizes—and with price tags to match, at around $2,999 for the 88-key version and $1,999 for the 61-key version. The new AstroLab 37, by contrast, squeezes the same broad sound library into a far smaller and more budget-friendly format. It’s a portable 37-slimkey instrument priced at about $699, making the AstroLab ecosystem suddenly much more approachable for gigging musicians, students, and home producers who couldn’t justify the larger boards.
What makes the entire AstroLab family stand out is that it effectively turns Arturia’s beloved AnalogLab software environment into hardware. Arturia has built an impressive reputation for its virtual instruments, especially its classic synth emulations that many producers rely on every day. Until the AstroLab line arrived, though, those sounds were tied to a laptop or desktop computer. AstroLab breaks that dependence by providing access to most of those instruments in a self-contained keyboard. The tradeoff is that you don’t get the deep editing you’d expect on a full-blown workstation—it’s a streamlined, gig-ready implementation rather than an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink sound design platform.
A curated greatest hits library
Under the hood, all of this is built on Arturia’s V Collection, a suite known for detailed, highly editable recreations of legendary synths like the Yamaha CS-80 and the Fairlight CMI. Those original hardware instruments are effectively unobtainable for most people; even if you could find one, the cost often runs into tens of thousands of dollars, plus the headaches of maintenance. V Collection gives you deep control and authenticity in software, but AstroLab and AnalogLab act more like curated browsers that surface the highlights—almost like a greatest-hits compilation of patches built from that extensive suite.
In the case of the AstroLab 37, you get more than 1,800 presets drawn from 44 different instruments, spanning everything from acoustic pianos to vintage analog synths like the Minimoog and gritty ‘80s digital machines such as the Ensoniq SQ-80. Many of these synth sounds are genuinely impressive and very usable in real-world tracks and live sets. The Rhodes-style electric piano emulation, for example, stands out as a go-to option in a world already full of competing choices, and having access to Arturia’s modern flagship synth engine, Pigments, in hardware form will be a big selling point for many players.
Where it falls short
Not every sound category is a home run, though, and here’s where it gets a bit controversial. The organ and acoustic piano presets are competent but not exceptional, especially if those tones are at the center of your playing style. They will absolutely get the job done for covers, worship sets, or casual gigs, but players who are very particular about these sounds may feel underwhelmed. If your main focus is realistic pianos and organs, boards from brands like Nord are still often considered the gold standard—and that’s a comparison many players will inevitably make.
You’re not locked into the factory content, either. You can load new sounds onto the AstroLab 37 by using the AnalogLab software on your computer via USB, or through the AstroLab Connect mobile app over Wi‑Fi. On paper, wireless management sounds convenient, but in practice, connectivity can be flaky. Connecting via your own Wi‑Fi network may be finicky or fail outright for some users, while using the keyboard’s hotspot tends to be more reliable but can still disconnect over time. For a product aimed at working musicians, this is one of those design decisions that will definitely spark opinions: is unreliable wireless better than no wireless at all?
Managing a deep preset library
Having more than 1,800 sounds is exciting, but it can also feel overwhelming if you don’t have a clear way to navigate them. To help with this, Arturia lets you filter patches by type (such as bass, lead, pad), by specific instrument source, by favorites you’ve tagged, or by sound bank. On top of that, the AstroLab 37 offers Songs, which group multiple presets into a single entry for quick, one-button recall, and Playlists, which chain Songs together so you can step through your setlist smoothly during a show. For live players who juggle multiple parts and sounds in a single gig, these features can be a lifesaver.
The front panel gives you some real-time control over your presets as well. Each patch includes four macro controls that you can tweak via the knobs on the left, and what those macros do changes depending on the sound you’re using—one patch might tie them to filter and resonance, another to attack, modulation, or other parameters. On the right, you get four more knobs dedicated to effects like chorus, reverb, and delay so you can quickly adjust ambience and character without diving into menus.
Limited sound design, by design
That said, this is not the board for someone who wants to build every sound from scratch on the hardware itself. You cannot start with a blank slate and construct a completely new patch directly on the AstroLab 37, and very detailed sound design is off the table in standalone mode. To unlock deeper editing, you’d need to invest in the V Collection software package, which starts around $199, design your own sounds there, and then send those presets over to the AstroLab. For some, this separation makes sense: keep the heavy lifting in the studio on a big screen, then perform with the streamlined hardware. For others, it might feel like an artificial limitation that forces extra purchases. Is this a fair compromise to keep the interface clean, or a missed opportunity to make a true all-in-one instrument?
Stage keyboards often keep the front-panel controls minimal so players can focus on performance rather than getting lost in menus mid-song. Still, given how powerful the underlying sound engines are, AstroLab’s relatively sparse controls will stand out to power users. Some people will love the simplicity; others will wish there were more knobs, sliders, or at least a deeper edit mode accessible from the device itself.
Build, feel, and hardware tradeoffs
In terms of sound quality, you don’t sacrifice anything when you choose the AstroLab 37 over its larger siblings; the differences are almost entirely in the physical design and playing experience. The smaller model uses a plastic top panel, but it is designed to feel sturdy rather than flimsy, and it retains the attractive wooden side cheeks that give the larger AstroLab keyboards their distinctive look. Visually, it still reads as a premium instrument even though it is more compact.
The control layout has also been adapted for the smaller footprint. The 88-key and 61-key models feature a large navigation wheel with a built-in color display, which makes browsing and tweaking presets feel very integrated. On the AstroLab 37, that interface is slimmed down to a smaller screen with a separate encoder positioned beneath it. It remains functional and usable, but doesn’t offer quite the same luxurious, “flagship” interaction as the bigger boards. Another practical omission is the locking power connector found on the larger models—without it, players who move energetically onstage may rightly worry about accidentally yanking the power cable mid-song.
The most significant compromise is the keybed itself. The AstroLab 61 uses a semi-weighted action that gives a more substantial playing feel, while the AstroLab 88 steps up to a hammer-action Fatar TP40W keybed that closely mimics the feel of an acoustic piano, and many players consider that kind of action a real luxury. If you’re used to inexpensive, springy synth-action keyboards, that hammer response can feel like a huge upgrade. By contrast, the AstroLab 37 uses a synth-action mini keybed with aftertouch. The keys are smaller and lighter, as you’d expect for a compact board, and the feel is likely similar to Arturia’s recent KeyStep mk2 controller.
Who is the AstroLab 37 really for?
The keybed on the 37 is not bad—especially for a portable board—but it doesn’t offer the refined, piano-like response of its larger relatives. Players who prioritize expressive dynamics, nuanced touch, or traditional piano techniques may find the mini keys limiting over longer performances. On the flip side, for producers, electronic musicians, or multi-instrumentalists who just need a small, capable keyboard packed with serious sounds, the compromise might be perfectly acceptable. This tension between portability and premium feel is one of the most interesting—and potentially divisive—parts of the AstroLab 37’s design.
Certain advanced features built into AstroLab, such as splitting the keyboard so that bass occupies the lower range and a lead sound resides on the upper range, arguably make more sense on 61- or 88-key layouts than on a 37-key instrument. With so few keys, splits can feel cramped and harder to play comfortably in real time. Many professional keyboardists will still gravitate toward larger boards for this reason, especially if they are handling multiple parts at once in a band or theater context. But if your priority is to fit the maximum variety of tones into the smallest, most travel-friendly footprint—and to avoid relying on a laptop that could crash or pause for an OS update mid-set—the AstroLab 37 offers a compelling alternative.
In the end, the AstroLab 37 raises an intriguing question: is a compact, affordable stage keyboard loaded with high-end software sounds the future of live rigs, or will serious players always favor larger, more premium-feeling instruments? Does the ability to carry 44 instruments and over 1,800 presets under one arm outweigh the compromises in key feel and hands-on control? Share your take—would you trust a mini-key stage board as your main gigging instrument, or do you think Arturia went a step too far in shrinking the AstroLab down?
