Once you get to a certain level of production, using a mouse is a major hassle. To optimise your workflow, you may consider grabbing a MIDI controller. While controllers rarely offer any additional functionality, they do free up a lot of time and make production much easier. By offering a tactile workflow, they allow you to control various parameters simultaneously, which cannot be achieved with a mouse. They also offer a much better feel for producers, by mimicking the industry standard mixers and control surfaces which are well above the average person’s budget. This list offers insight into some of the different brands and types of controller so you don’t have to trawl through pages of shop offers to see what you need.

MIDI controllers are typically devices which only control features in your DAW. They do not offer any sound generation or processing themselves. They will not generally work alone, and so before buying, I recommend you look up their compatibility with the DAW of your choice.

Step 1, before you even look online for a controller, is to address your needs. Controllers are designed to make your life easier and so figure out the bottlenecks in your workflow, and what could really boost your creativity.

Controllers are expensive and come with a lot of gadgets but most people only really need two or three features to get the best value for money. Consider your budget as well, controllers won’t have any impact on the sound directly so it may be a better investment to get high-quality plugins instead.

If you are new to a DAW, a controller might seem the best option for hands-on learning your way around, but I recommend you learn the DAW first so you get a grasp of what you need – keyboard shortcuts are often customisable and can be a free way of getting many of the features an expensive controller offers.

So now, for those of you whom I haven’t put off, and are ready to look into buying their first controller, read through this guide fully to see what there is to offer.

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Native Instruments Maschine Controllers



Made by Native Instruments, these controllers integrate especially well with NI software. If you use Maschine, you almost certainly have one already. For those of you looking to buy an NI controller, look out for the ones that come bundled with the software. Most will come with some form of Maschine and/or Komplete 11.

These controllers normally offer great value because of their build quality, functions, and the bundled software that comes along. I wrote a feature on taking advantage of this to save money on buying the software alone. Yes, that’s right, it is often cheaper to buy the software with the hardware, than without.



