My experience with Novation Launchkey 61 MK4 on Linux

Jan 17, 2025
Launchkey 61 MK4 on my desk

I previously owned the Launchkey 37 MK3, which was a great controller for producing music but not for playing most songs with two hands. After moving, I decided to upgrade to Launchkey 61 MK4 since I finally got big enough desk space for 61 keys. These semi-weighted keys are much better quality in comparison and a lot more pleasant to play.

I love using the clip launcher in Bitwig Studio, which is my DAW of choice and has a great support for this controller, despite having some initial difficulties setting it up (see further). The knobs, sliders and DAW controls work great.

I daily drive Linux, and it’s mostly flawless except for one thing - sometimes the controller is not picked up by the system until I replug it. I use PipeWire and I’m not really sure whether it’s a problem with my configuration, but I didn’t ever have this issue with MK3. Also, the controller interfaces don’t have MIDI and DAW in their names, they are just named Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 and Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 #2 respectively, and Bitwig didn’t set them up correctly out of the box, so I had to do some trial-and-error to figure out which is which. In case anyone faces the same issue, the correct order in Bigwig is:

  1. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 #2
  2. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4
  3. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4 #2
  4. Launchkey MK4 61 Launchkey MK4

That said, after performing this initial setup everything works great. Except for the occasional replugging issue that I mentioned above. By the way, the first thing I did was updating the firmware version, which can be done surprisingly easy via a browser on the Novation Components website, which I didn’t expect was even possible.

One more minor gripe (though not a dealbreaker) is that this controller doesn’t have a dedicated button to switch between MIDI programs. The MK3 had a ··· button for this, which was useful for quickly changing programs in Qsynth. I should’ve caught this detail in the photos, though, so that’s on me.

I’m just a hobbyist producer and piano player, and I’m still a beginner, so I can’t yet review more advanced features that this controller supports. Nevertheless, I did a lot of research and this seems to be, at the moment, the best “neutral” controller on the market at this price range. By “neutral” I mean not married to a specific ecosystem like Native Instruments or Arturia, resulting in needless price markups for those who don’t need those ecosystem features. So, if you don’t mind the issues above (which shouldn’t even be issues if you’re on Mac or Windows), I’d say go for it!