Novation's Launchpad X is one of our top MIDI pad controller buys.

And these are the best audio interfaces.

Our handy price widgets also display the latest and best prices at our trusted retailers. We've listed the controllers in price order to make it easier for you to find the right one for your budget. If you'd rather discover our top picks, keep scrolling! Here you can read more about what pad controllers do, with useful guidance on their main features. If you want more advice on pad controllers before you decide which is for you, click the 'buying advice' button above. While they include some MIDI control, their focus is more as hardware DAWs for complete song production. We are not including music production workstations like NI's Maschine+, Roland's Verselab MV-1 and Akai MPC Live II. The pad controller market is certainly a fast-moving one, and we have all the latest releases in our round-up, and look out for new devices over coming months including Behringer’s BCR32 MIDI controller and sequencer, the Erae Touch MPE-compatible expressive MIDI controller, and the OXO One. So don't think of a pad controller as just for tapping out beats or triggering notes, as many have been designed to be so integral with today's gear that they are almost an extension of it, instruments in their own right, enabling you to compose and record melodies, chords and basslines, or sequence entire songs together to trigger both your music software and other hardware – great news for players and non players alike.

Pad controllers are available in all sorts of shapes and sizes to suit just about every production and performance task, from small-form pad-based sequencers, equally as home controlling a Eurorack setup as they are virtual instruments, through NI's Maschine range of controllers with dedicated software, right up to Ableton's Push 2, a pad controller specifically for controlling the company's Live DAW.

Pad system pricing