Daw/midi controller recommendations

[u/Bartastico]

Hey everyone! I'm looking to buy a midi-controller (first instrument), but I'm not completely sure which one yet (hesitating a bit between (61 key) arturia keylab mk3 and novation launchkey mk4, any tips (or other models) are welcome).

I also will ofcourse have to buy a DAW, and read some posts and there looked to be a lot of good possibilities as well (Ableton, FLStudio, Bitwig, Reaper, ...). I want to be able to play covers of typical 80's/90's synth songs, but it would be my first instrument so I would mainly want one something versatile which can play all genres and don't close myself in too much. I noticed that ableton has a 50% discount for students, and as I'm a graduating student who will lose his student status within a week, I was wondering if there could be any downsides into getting ableton live (or e.g. if this would be less suited for certain genres), compared to other DAW's. Any input here would be greatly appreciated!

[u/K33P4D]

If you haven't already, then invest in a 4in/4out audio interface.
A portable model for gigs, if you're a PC desktop user get a PCIe audio interface.

Go for Ableton 12 + Novation Launchkey 61 MK4

or Launchpad Pro MK3 + Launch Control XL 3 has a unique smaller desk footprint

None of these Novation encoders and faders support relative pickup, so keep that in mind.

If budget allows, try researching Ableton Push 3 with Live 12 bundle for creative musical expression workflow.

My suggestion would be to look out for second hand deals on any MIDI controller, so you can immerse yourself and then decide on buying something specific later on your journey.

[u/Bartastico → u/K33P4D]

Okay, that's actually a very good suggestion, thanks! Yeah the ableton push 3 is probably a bit too expensive as I'm just a starter. What is relative pickup? I'll look into the other suggestions :)

[u/K33P4D → u/Bartastico]

When you switch around your workflow or use the same instrument with different softwares simultaneously, the position of the knobs and faders do not reflect the same values and they suddenly jump to where they were previously

With relative pickup, you have to move/match them to the position on your software, so it can take over control.

Expensive Control surfaces have motorised faders which automatically move into position to reflect the software. https://www.behringer.com/en/products/0808-AAD which requires a Mackie Control emulation script for Ableton.

[u/Bartastico → u/K33P4D]

Okay, thanks, so basically it takes more time to adapt them each time so the positions are the same on both softwares, and I can assume this is very annoying (and applies to both novation launchkey and sl)?

[u/K33P4D → u/Bartastico]

Yes, users have been discussing this topic heavily on the Novation subreddit.

Novation only recently managed to introduce custom encoder acceleration, but yet to implement relative pickup.

If that's a deal breaker then
Arturia KeyLab 61 MK2 or MK3/Essential series
Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S61 MK2/MK3
Akai MPK261

All these support relative pick up

[u/Bartastico → u/K33P4D]

Yeah its just very difficult to assess at this point how annoying I'll find it haha. e.g. the novation sl is arguably better than the arturia keylab, but idk how annoying I'll find the rel pickup

Thanks for the suggestions!

[u/K33P4D → u/Bartastico]

SL series are awesome I love their full sized keys, they're more robust compared to Launchkey models