This problem will have to be fixed by Arturia as a matter of urgency.
This it quite an expensive keyboard, and it has great features, but is totally unfit for purpose at the moment. I used to stick with the big names (the 3 big Japanese brands), but I thought I’d give Arturia a chance, and boy how I regret it now… 
I’ve uncover another bug; I’ll make a new post for it in a minute.
Hi! Exactly the same problem. Just got my keylab 88 mk3. The sustain pedal is delayed. Even the hold button lights up with a small delay after I press the pedal, seems like around 0.1s. It’s enough to make the keyboard unplayable for me. And yes, I tried 2 different pedals from Yamaha and M-Audio with the same result. Never had any issue like this on any other keyboard. Arturia!!! Any comments?
P.S. The firmware is the latest 1.1.1
Hello
I owned an 88 mk2 for a long time and just upgraded to the 3. I too, am struggling with how to make my sustain pedal work. Currently, I’m setting up my rig for live performances, so I don’t need to dive deep into the keyboard. My Roland DP-10 has been on my pedal board this entire time without any issues. When plugged into my 3, it doesn’t work. When I plug it in when the controller is on(a no-no), it’s a continuous sustain, or at times, a half sustain type effect is created, whether I press the pedal or not. When I plug in a Yamaha FC4A, there’s a continuous half sustain occurs whether or not the pedal is depressed or not. I’ve been reading through this thread and cannot get my mind around if there are any workarounds or not. Since I’m a complete newbie to the 3, the pages addressing the pedals is confusing to me. I tried to use the AUX inputs, but have not had any success with those either When I open up MCC to see if I can fix things, I still get lost. I noticed in MMC when I click on the AUX inputs, they aren’t highlighted as the Sustain and Control inputs are.
So what I’m hearing from all of you who are not happy with this bug, is there anything I can do? I have a performance in 7 days and am getting a bit nervous, as being a pianist, I desperately need one!
Thx Mark
I spent a whole day yesterday to get it work. There are several issues with the sustain pedal, there are workarounds for some of them - there is some info about it in this topic. But the worst thing is the latency. At now it seems like there is no way to make the keyboard send just the 127 value for cc64 at the time you press the pedal. There is a slight delay and that makes the keyboard unplayable. As for me - I’m waiting for a couple of day for Arturia to react to this thread and may be - they will at least confirm the issue and also will confirm that it can be solved in the future software upgrade. Otherwize I’m taking it back to the store. And getting really angry…
Hello, just to add my name to this chorus, sadly
I bought my Keylab Mk3 49 pretty much right at launch and the fact that they still haven’t addressed this after updating the firmware once already is totally insane.
As I have said on other threads, and confirmed here, there is some kind of problem with the command to make the “Hold” button light up and its relationship to CC64 that causes latency.
What is perhaps most worrying is that they surely know about this bug by now and still have not fixed it - this means the problem doesn’t seem easily solved or they surely would have done it by now. …
As for me - I’m waiting for a couple of day for Arturia to react to this thread and may be - they will at least confirm the issue and also will confirm that it can be solved in the future software upgrade.
They won’t respond to this thread. They are aware of the issue. Please contact tech support via the link at the bottom of this page:
https://www.arturia.com/support/ask-for-help
It will help us all if everyone contacts them about the problem. Be polite no matter how infuriating this is, and expect a standard response first, but you can reply and ask for the issue to be escalated to their technicians, since those responding to customers are not technicians themselves.
Yes, I think there is a risk that they might never be able to solve this without taking the keyboards back and replacing a flawed part… Whether it’s a chip, or processor, whatever kind of electronic circuit which may be causing the problem. This would be a horrible outcome.
On the other hand, there might be a high number of users who don’t really use any control pedals, or rarely do and don’t play well enough to notice that there is an issue. A lot of people who use MIDI controller are not accomplished pianists. It means that those users are never going to complain to Arturia about the bug, and that could also explain why they haven’t completely fixed it yet, 7 months after firmware 1.1.1.
Either way, please make sure you contact them via the “Ask for technical support” menu at the bottom of this page:
https://www.arturia.com/support/ask-for-help
They need to understand the urgency of this situation. I spent a lot of money on a useless keyboard, and this needs to be resolved in a way or another.
It seems you’re having more problems than the rest of us, based on your description…
But if it is about the notes being produced with random delays, it can be improved (not fully fixed) by setting maximum value of the sustain pedal to 126 instead of 127 (only possible when pedal is set to “control” rather than “switched control”). This won’t light up the “Hold” button, and will help at least with this specific issue.
Please contact Arturia via their website to explain the problems you have with the keyboard. The more of us get in touch with them, the more chances we have to see a solution someday…
Thanks, just contacted them. Waiting for an answer
Contacted tech support. Their suggestions so far are to reset unit to factory specs, and reinstall 1.1.1 firmware which has not solved anything. MIDI monitor shows no MIDI activity when I depress the sustain pedal that I have used successfully with my KeyLab mk2. As others have stated, this is rather HUGE issue that has gone on
The Native Instruments S88 Mk3 is looking better and better…I can get around not having all the controls, as I use Gig Performer for live performances. From what I understand, the Fatar action is superior as well. I really think this issue goes way beyond a technical support fix around. I need fully operational sustain control, Fortunately, I have my Yamaha P-525 digital piano for a temporary band aid. My eyes are glues to this thread. Anyone know if any other topics exist on this problem?
I wish there were many more discussions online about this problem, to force Arturia to fix it.
I bought the Keylab 61 mk3 specifically for live performances, and so far it’s not only been a waste of money, but an absolutely insane waste of time troubleshooting, contacting tech support etc. This issue has cause major delays in my ability to prepare for gigs.
Looking at alternatives for you, the Kontrol S88 mk3 is certainly a good option.
If you don’t need aftertouch, the Roland A-88 mkII is a fantastic keyboard. It has 8 pads and 8 knobs (I wish they were endless encoders) on the side above the pitch-bend stick (this was designed to save space in a studio environment). It also has 3 pedal inputs, which is enough for most players. The feel of the keyboard is very subjective, but it’s the best fully weighted action I’ve ever played in this category of keyboards. I’ve had mine for a few years now and it’s super solid. The A-88 mkII was even good enough for Tony Banks on the last Genesis tour.
Yes they’ve sent me the same template earlier today. My previous email to them said explicitly to escalate the issue to the technicians because it needed to be investigated and not just treated with a standard response. And what did they do? They replied with a standard response… 
One possibility is a scenario I’ve actually encountered in another context… Maybe the programmer who created the firmware has left Arturia at some point after version 1.1.1 was released, and none of the programmers that are left can figure out how to fix things… 
And then everyone’s totally screwed. That sort of stuff can very easily happen.
In addition to my keylab 3 88 (I already reported having the same troubles as everone here) I own a MiniLab 3. Since it also has a HOLD Button and an external Input for a Hold-Pedal I wondered how MiniLab 3 would handle the same issue …
And - surprise - MiniLab 3 works perfect, but with another approach:
Just sent Arturia technical support 3 separate short videos of a Korg, Yamaha and Roland sustain pedals MIDI information recorded by MIDI Monitor. I’m guessing that his response is going to be to download 1.1.1 again, restore my mk3 to factory again, all of which I’ve already done. I really hope this gets addressed very soon, as even though though I love the 3’s upgraded action, I’ll be forced to return it and take a closer look at the NI S88 mk3.
Mark
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On Monday, July 14, 2025, 4:43 PM, JeremyRobertsHQ via The Sound Explorers Community noreply@arturia.com wrote:
JeremyRobertsHQ
July 14
musicbysterling:
Contacted tech support. Their suggestions so far are to reset unit to factory specs, and reinstall 1.1.1 firmware which has not solved anything.
Yes they’ve sent me the same template earlier today. My previous email to them said explicitly to escalate the issue to the technicians because it needed to be investigated and not just treated with a standard response. And what did they do? They replied with a standard response…
Visit Topic to respond.
To unsubscribe from these emails, click here.
I’ve also sent them an a report, hopefully the more people that do, the more they’ll pull the finger out and do something.
Hi all,
Add me to the list of frustrated users experiencing the same sustain pedal issues,
I’ve just sent through my support request and have explicitly asked for them to provide me a different solution and not to suggest resetting the device or applying any templates.
I’m not holding my breath, but fingers crossed.
I wont repeat any of the above information, and have spent the last week or two trying various work arounds (though we really shouldn’t have to).
Though, I will say that the closest I have come to mitigating the issue (in DAW mode) is to use the Aux pedal port and set the max send value as low as a specific software instrument will allow it to go before it stops registering as a sustain signal. Of course, this is by no means a sustainable (no pun intended) practice, as constantly making changes to the send values really hinders one’s workflow.
Otherwise, even in Switched Control mode, something is happening in the devices internal logic that’s causing that latency that everyone has described.
I agree, it makes playing with a pedal a very poor experience.
Reposting as I’ve re-written this to be more clear.
Hi all,
After a lot of testing, I have found a workaround that has completely eliminated the sustain pedal issues for me.
This write up will specifically address set up in DAW mode using the AUX input, as DAW integration is one of the main reasons most of us bought this controller, and we are all familiar with the sustain pedal input on the Arturia trying to emulate a continous pedal by sending all the values between 0 and 127 to the DAW on each pedal use.
The same settings I cover below can be applied to the pedal settings in user mode. I am using a KEYLAB MK3 on Firmware 1.1.1 and Logic Pro 10.7.9.
Some background:
Aside from the obvious sustain issues (missing notes, weird, laggy note behaviour), I noticed that when using a sustain pedal via the AUX input and configuring it as such, my DAW was treating it as a ‘Damper’ pedal, and notes were playing softer and couldn’t reach full velocity while the pedal was depressed. This lead me to dive deeper.
Using a MIDI monitoring tool, I have found that when the following conditions are met in DAW mode with the pedal plugged in via the AUX input:
AUX PEDAL IS SET TO USE MIDI CHANNEL ‘ACTIVE’
AUX PEDAL IS SET TO USE MIDI CHANNEL ‘2’
AUX PEDAL IS SET TO USE THE SAME MIDI CHANNEL AS SET GLOBALLY ON THE KEYBOARD, AKA the ‘ACTIVE’ MIDI Channel (Set when pressing and holding the ‘MIDI Ch’ button and pressing a key that corresponds to a MIDI channel number.)
That the keyboard sends an extra ‘OFF’ signal on Channel 2 when the pedal is pressed and released.
I have concluded through extensive testing in different scenarios that this is the cause of the issue for me.
The workaround:
My workaround is as follows and you can make the changes you see fit depending on how you use MIDI in your own environment:
In this case, we will use Midi Channel 1. Make sure your keyboard is set to use this by pressing and holding the ‘MIDI Ch’ button and then pressing the first C key ‘labelled 1’ on the keyboard to change the active channel.
Plug your sustain pedal into the AUX input
Press the Settings button
Press the Global button
Select AUX PEDAL
Set TYPE to ‘Switched Control’
Set MIDI CHANNEL to 3
Set OPTION to ‘Gate’
Set CC NUMBER to ‘64’
Set OFF VALUE to ‘0’
Set ON Value to ‘127’
Now play around and see if the issue is gone for you.
As long as you’re not using Channel 2 or the Active channel for the pedal, the above should work.
I will share my findings with Arturia via my support ticket but please let me know if this works for you as well.
I’ve created a new topic for this specific workaround so it can get more eyes on it if it ends up helping people while we wait for an official fix. It’d be great if you can post your experiences here:
Best of luck, and I look forward to hearing your experiences with this workaround.
Arturia tech support have asked me to do all sorts of things with MIDI monitor, etc. but I won’t be doing any of that. I’ve wasted too much time on this keyboard already.
I’ve decided to give up until they release a new firmware. In the meantime, the keyboard is back in its box. I cannot return it, as I’ve had it for too long, and the shop I bought it from has gone under (PMT UK).
I’ve ordered a Novation 61SL mk3 as a replacement.
This Keylab mk3 has left me utterly bitter and defeated. Well done Arturia.
Bye for now.
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