Novation's latest addition to its Ableton Live controllers has an expansive semi-weighted keybed. Novation already makes five different versions of its venerable Launchkey series of MIDI controllers , ranging from the travel-friendly Launchkey Mini all the way up to the studio centerpiece Launchkey 61. But for some, 61 keys isn’t enough. And a serious piano player might balk at the unweighted keys. But now Novation offers the Launchkey 88 with a semi-weighted keybed. The latest addition to the family essentially bridges the gap between the budget-minded Launchkey and the higher-end SL series, which starts at $600. The Launchkey 88 keeps the cost to just $400 by leaving out more advanced features like CV outputs, color screens and built-in sequencer. But, if you’re primarily producing in-the-box you probably won’t miss the extras that much. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
This is to be expected, and it’s not a con, but the Launchkey 88 is huge. It’s not the controller for you if space is at a premium. I honestly had trouble finding room for it in my small attic studio. That being said, the keybed is excellent. I’m not a piano player, and have no particular allegiance to weighted keys, but these were clearly a step above your average MIDI controller. They lack the springy bounce of the cheaper members of the Launchkey line and I found it much easier to get nuanced velocity response. Otherwise, the hardware is basically the same as the rest of the Launchkey line. It’s all plastic, but feels solid enough. The 16 velocity sensitive pads are passable but nothing to write home about. The faders have an excellent amount of resistance, but are a tad wobbly. And the knobs are incredibly solid but a tad small. The pitch and mod wheels are lovely though, full stop. The resistance is perfect, and they’re rock solid. Going back to the touch strips on other controllers feels like punishment. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
Of course, the big selling point of any Launchkey device is its tight integration with Ableton Live. It’s not quite good enough to go completely mouse and keyboard free, but you can get a lot accomplished directly on the controller. You can launch clips from the pads, control macros with the knobs and mix your tracks with the faders. You have control over send effects, the panning, and there’s a dedicated button for looping a portion of your track to jam over, as well as a capture MIDI button in case you play something truly inspired but forgot to hit record. You can do quite a bit with looking at the computer, though it can be a bit tough to navigate larger projects. There are some odd quirks right now, though, that will presumably get ironed out in firmware and script updates pretty quickly. Specifically, Live gets confused by playing in the upper octaves. There’s a couple of dead zones, from G4 through E5, for example, and some keys in the highest octave trigger various recording modes instead of notes. But this only happens in Live. The arpeggiator is still incredible, though. The random, Mutate and Deviate features make it easy to create unique patterns and introduce a little unpredictability to a composition. This is the feature that has me coming back to the Launchkey line again and again in my personal studio. And the five-pin MIDI DIN connection allows you to bring that top-notch arpeggiator to hardware synths. However, I still think the controller is best suited to a primarily software-based setup. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
The Launchkey 88 isn’t a true luxury MIDI controller. It’s really an affordable workhorse. But it does go a bit beyond some of its more affordable competitors, and even its siblings. The expansive size probably isn’t necessary for most producers, but the semi-weighted keybed does make a huge difference in playability. And I’d love to see Novation bring it to the smaller members of the family like the Launchkey 49, which is probably a bit more my speed (and easier to shove on my cramped desk). The Launchkey 88 is available now for $400. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Popular on Engadget

Launchkey 88 brings a luxurious keybed to a budget MIDI controller

The FLKey 37 and FLKey Mini put FL Studio's most important features at your fingertips. It’s hard to believe that FL Studio (née Fruity Loops) has been around for 24 years. It’s even harder to believe that it took 20 years for someone to make dedicated hardware for the DAW. And that it was another four years before a second company had a stab at it, after Akai’s Fire . Now Novation is taking its well regarded LaunchKey series, giving it a light facelift and rebranding it as FLKey – the first keyboard MIDI controller designed exclusively for controlling FL Studio. FLKey comes in two varieties, the FLKey 37 and FLKey Mini . Novation sent over the 37 key version for me to test, and I can tell you that, physically, it’s nearly indistinguishable from the Launchkey 37. It’s got the same full-size keybed, 16 velocity sensitive pads and eight knobs across the top. They even both have the same amount of buttons and pitch and mod wheels placed somewhat awkwardly above the keys. The only real difference is that the FLKeys are gray instead of black, and the labels on the controls are slightly different. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
The build is solid, but not what you’d call rugged. I probably wouldn’t take the FLKey out on tour. Everything is plastic, and the keys have a slight springiness to them. The pads are velocity sensitive, and have polyphonic aftertouch, but are a tad stiff and small. They’ll get the job done for finger drumming, but can’t compare with those found on an Akai device . There's a small screen that gives you useful info at a glance, like preset names. And the eight knobs across the top are smooth and have a nice amount of resistance, but are quite small. They make sense on the Mini model, but on the 37 they look slightly out of place. Still, considering the almost rock-bottom price of $200, this is all pretty impressive. What makes the FLKey stand out, though, is its out-of-the-box mapping for controlling FL Studio. With the pads and pots you can easily control volume and panning both from the mixer and channel rack, control many of Image Line’s native plugins, and play chords with a single button. You can’t ditch the mouse completely, but you can perform most basic tasks directly from the controller. If you’re intimately familiar with FL Studio, chances are you’ll be able to get further with the keyboard than me. I haven’t used FL Studio much since I was in college and it was still called Fruity Loops. I had to relearn some terminology and try to unlearn some habits I’d developed after years of using Ableton Live as my primary DAW. But once I got over the initial hump, I found it relatively easy getting the rough outline of a track down with just the keyboard. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
I actually think that the FLKey lineup offers deeper control than its Ableton-focused siblings in the Launchkey series, at least when it comes to producing a full song from start to finish. Whereas the Launchkey lineup seems more focused on Live’s performance features, FLKey feels built more with production in mind. That probably has as much to do with the difference in the DAWs approaches as anything else, though. It’s super quick and easy to lock the keyboard into a particular scale, or to assign the pads across the top to the chords in said scale. The latter is especially useful for me since I am what is commonly referred to as a terrible keyboard player. It also takes just a single button push to quantize a performance after you’ve recorded it which, again, is super handy for someone like me who’s simply faking their way around a keyboard. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
If you’re sticking to FLStudio’s built-in plugins the knobs are often mapped to controls automatically, though, it seems a little random in terms of what they actually control. This is probably the biggest issue with the FLKey (again, probably more to do with FLStudio’s quirks than anything else) – consistency. Ableton Live was built very consciously from moment one with UI consistency being high on the list of priorities, so mapping controls is a much simpler and more predictable affair. FLStudio is a bit more hodgepodge. Every plugin has its own unique interface with controls scattered around, and sometimes presented in oddly skeuomorphic ways. In some plugins the mapping is completely nonexistent. For instance, while the buttons for changing presets work flawlessly in DX10 and Harmless, they don’t work at all in Sawyer or GMS. And the mod wheel doesn’t seem to do anything in most plugins. Terrence O'Brien / Engadget
It's also worth quickly mentioning that while the back is largely spartan, there is a full-sized 5-pin MIDI DIN there. So, when you're not knocking out beats with FPC or chopping up samples in SliceX you can control your hardware synths too. FL Studios quirks can be part of its charm. But it does make it hard to build on top of what Image Line has already done. Still, if there’s any company I’d have faith in making it work, it would be Novation. Over the years it’s developed a reputation for relentlessly updating its products and adding new features. So there’s a decent chance that FLKey’s rough edges will get smoothed out. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Popular on Engadget

Novation's first keyboard for FL Studio offers a lot of utility for $200

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Novation also improved integration with Ableton Live 10. Novation
Last year Novation updated its portable Launchkey Mini MIDI controller. The new Ableton specific features and powerful arpeggiator quickly made it one of, if not my favorite, portable MIDI controller . Now, all those features are making their way over to the larger mainline Launchkey series. As always, the Launchkey MK3 line is tightly integrated with Ableton Live , making it a great choice for controlling that DAW. But now, in addition to launching clips and starting recordings, you have control over which tracks are armed, quantize settings, the click track and loop controls. There’s even a dedicated button for activating Ableton Live’s Capture MIDI which makes it less likely you’ll forget that riff or lose that jam forever. Just as exciting though, is the addition of some new features like scale and chord modes which locks all the notes to a particular scale or easily transpose a chord around the keyboard with just a single keypress. Then there’s the arpeggiator which has unique rhythm options and generative style controls like mutate and deviate which allow you to randomly change the notes and rhythm of your arpeggio on the fly (but unlike the full random mode, locks into a repeating pattern). And, since each each Launchkey has 5-pin MIDI DINs you can control your hardware synths directly, and take advantage of that incredible arpeggiator, even if you’re not into making music on a computer. The Launchkey in a portable 25-key version, as well as 49- and 61-key versions. Novation also introduced a 37-key model this year that gives you enough room to play with two hands, while still being relatively compact, especially since the pitch and mod wheels are above the keys on that particular model. Novation didn’t specify pricing and launch dates, but it’s unlikely that prices would be much different than the current lineup which starts at $150 for the 25-key and goes up to $250 for the 61 key.

New Launchkey MK3 MIDI controllers add a powerful arpeggiator

Friday 10 February 2017 | 09:53 AM CET
iovation , a provider of device intelligence-based authentication and fraud prevention solutions, has announced the general availability of its LaunchKey mobile multifactor authentication solution. The platform empowers global consumer brands to improve security and consumer experience by delivering a risk-aware alternative to passwords and two-factor authentication, at scale, via an easy-to-use mobile SaaS solution. Consumers are increasingly comfortable authenticating into their online accounts via mobile devices, but 2017 will mark a coming-of-age where these devices become the authentication gateway across a broader array of consumer touch points like ATMs, call centres and even in-person retail experiences. iovation’s platform can leverage insight into the unexpected anomalies in a user's session and, when and if these heightened risks arise, LaunchKey can present additional assurance measures based on the brand's appetite for risk.

iovation rolls out LaunchKey mobile multifactor authentication platform

Company Will Use RSA as a Forum to Show How Major Brands Balance Risk-based Authentication with the Flexibility Their Consumers Demand
PORTLAND, OR--(Marketwired - Feb 9, 2017) - iovation , the provider of device intelligence-based authentication and fraud prevention solutions, today announced the general availability of its LaunchKey mobile multifactor authentication solution . LaunchKey empowers global consumer brands to improve security and consumer experience by delivering a risk-aware alternative to passwords and two-factor authentication, at scale, via an easy-to-use mobile SaaS solution. Consumers are increasingly comfortable authenticating into their online accounts via mobile devices, but 2017 will mark a coming-of-age where these devices become the authentication gateway across a broader array of consumer touch points like ATMs, call centers and even in-person retail experiences. LaunchKey's new dynamic security policies make it possible for consumer brands to balance the level of assurance they need with the experience their customers demand, by adapting these policies in real time. It does this by leveraging insight into the unexpected anomalies in a user's session and, when and if these heightened risks arise, LaunchKey can present additional assurance measures based on the brand's appetite for risk. "Today marks a milestone in the path to passwordless security for consumer brands," said Scott Waddell, chief technology officer at iovation. "Consumer authentication is always a balance between risk and user experience, and we wanted LaunchKey to raise the bar on that balance. Now, consumer-facing brands can deploy and manage highly secure multifactor or passwordless authentication across every touchpoint the brand owns, at scale, while consumers benefit from increased security in a user-friendly experience." With LaunchKey, consumer brands can choose which multifactor authentication options to extend to their customers, creating an interactive solution that lets users choose the authentication approach that best fits their needs, within the brand's defined security parameters. LaunchKey's expanded capabilities include:
Dynamic Security Policies: administrators can use dynamic, risk-aligned authentication methods that add immediate, additional assurance wherever new risks appear in online sessions and transactions. Decentralized and Anonymous Architecture: removes the target created by large, exploitable caches of user credentials, lessening the impact of a breach and subsequent damage to a brand. Multi-User Authorization: verification of real-time interactions such as large money transfers that rely on the authority of two or more persons. Uptime Peace of Mind: delivered via iovation's mature, privately managed, active-active infrastructure -- one that has experienced zero downtime in over 24 months -- LaunchKey can run at the highest possible transaction scale. White Label Authenticators: an extensive set of SDKs and APIs allow consumer brands to retain their own look and feel while integrating LaunchKey's advanced MFA features seamlessly into their apps. Dynamic For End Users: Consumers have more choice in the authentication process as well, with the ability to select their preferred style of authentication from among the methods the brand builds into its mobile apps. This product release also paves the way for brands to implement an end-to-end, risk-based authentication strategy by using LaunchKey in tandem with iovation's ClearKey device-based authentication service . ClearKey is a natural companion for LaunchKey because it uses device fingerprinting and intelligent risk assessment to transparently authenticate users without explicit input. Leveraged together, they represent a cohesive and robust security platform capable of satisfying every consumer authentication need across every business process. "Brands want to give their customers a better experience, few subscribers want to rip-and-replace the usernames and passwords their customers have relied on for decades," continues Waddell. "Now brands can employ LaunchKey and ClearKey alongside their current solutions to create a path to phase out passwords completely, over time, in favor of multifactor authentication and device-based solutions that simultaneously enhance customer experience and security." iovation is set to demo its LaunchKey mobile multifactor authentication platform at RSA , the world's largest security conference, coming up February 13-17 in San Francisco. Attendees can stop by iovation's booth S-2628 to learn more about all the newest features found only in LaunchKey or visit https://www.iovation.com/launchkey . Can't make RSA? See our RSA recap webinar, The Consumerization of Authentication , on March 1 at 10:00 a.m.
About iovation
Headquartered in Portland, OR, iovation was founded with a simple guiding mission: to make the Internet a safer place for people to conduct business. Since 2004, the company has been delivering against that goal, helping large brands protect their end users against online fraud and abuse that's increasingly more common in today's hacker culture. Using an intuitive and high availability product suite that focuses on authentication and fraud prevention, iovation identifies trustworthy customers through an advanced combination of device authentication and real-time risk evaluation. Armed with the world's largest device-based fraud prevention database, iovation safeguards tens of millions of transactions against fraudulent activities each day. And the world's foremost fraud experts regularly contribute their learnings as members of iovation's Fraud Force Community , an exclusive virtual crime-fighting network. Contact Information

iovation Delivers Passwordless Consumer Authentication at Scale with LaunchKey Mobile Multifactor Authentication Platform

Rivetz makes it simple to connect web services to trusted hardware in phones, tablets and PC's. Rivetz uses sophisticated technology to provide easy and dependable security for apps and online services.

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`` Our partnership with Rivetz Corp. allows us to broaden our next gen authentication service to further protect users from insecure legacy authentication methods , '' said Rich Wheeless , LaunchKey CFO .

Mountain View, Calif. and Las Vegas, Nevada (PRWEB) July 31, 2014.
Rivetz Partners with LaunchKey to Offer Next Generation Authentication for Accounts Leveraging Trusted Execution Technology.

Local Motors designs, manufactures, and deploys vehicles. Founded in 2007 with a belief in open collaboration, Local Motors began low-volume vehicle manufacturing of open-source designs utilizing a micro-factory model. It is the company behind the autonomous, electric vehicle, Olli.

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LaunchKey is the first identity and access management (IAM) platform built specifically for the next generation of authentication: password-free, multi-factor, anonymous and mobile. With LaunchKey, the company has created a platform agnostic solution ideal for authenticating to any application, online or offline, and via the mobile devices end users already own. No need for expensive key fobs, OTP hardware tokens or smart cards. Since LaunchKey utilizes an anonymous architecture, developers and organizations can ensure user privacy while cryptographically verifying their identity.

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