My number one problem learning to play the pads so far is slop… that is, accurately hitting the pads in the center, especially when switching hands on the same pad. My understanding is that the pads on the highest end gadgets… i.e., Maschine… are very forgiving of slop, but many other controllers aren’t.
My Aura still registers hits on the edge of the pads, but the hits have less velocity, therefore the notes don’t have the same loudness. Still, I would argue that the problem isn’t really my controller… it’s just sloppy playing on my part. This may sound naive, but I’m glad I didn’t get a Maschine because as a beginner, I feel I’d be learning bad technique and sloppy playing because the pads on the Maschine don’t require near as much accuracy.
So I’m curious if any Maschine users have ever experienced a surprising loss of accuracy when trying to play more budget controllers… and blamed the controller instead of their own accuracy? Conversely, have any Maschine players discovered that they get out-performed by someone who originally learned on less forgiving pads?
Could it be such a big deal that it might be best for beginners to learn on cheaper units, so that they develop better hit accuracy, despite losing some pad sensitivity? I feel velocity and dynamics are less important than accuracy. After all, for most instruments, the “feel” tends to come later after you’ve got some chops… once that happens, you’ve got a good excuse to upgrade to a higher end controller anyway. Thoughts?
Aren’t more expensive pad even more sensitive? I don’t think they’ll mask mistakes when playing, although you might have more options regarding sensitivity settings.
I think the problem with this reasoning is that a lot of cheap controllers are inconsistent. So one pad reacts to softer hits and another doesn’t. That type of inconsistency will not really help you in becoming a better player since you’d be training yourself to for example always hit pad 8 louder than the other ones, while that’s just a ‘correction’ you trained because of your specific controller.
Another thing is the minimum velocity a controller needs before registering the hit. Some controllers who dont respond to soft hits will, when they respond, start at for example 30 velocity. Everythinb below that is ignored. The more senitive controllers will also output those softer notes, giving you this range of dynamics on the lower end that you’d otherwise never even realise you have.
Starting out on a cheaper controller is fine, and if you have a cheap one that seems to work for you, I’d just be happy with it and play it and get the most out of it. The most important thing is the fact that you play regularly, no matter what controller you have. But with that said, I don’t think it neccessarily makes you a better player if you start on a cheap controller.
In my experience with launchpad it makes a huge diference, from MKII to Launchpad X omg, I just though ok now we are talking.
On 4x4 I’ve been playing with the MPD218 for 6 months and I`ll never get bored of it for metal drum kits (you can smash that thing hard for hours during long time and still like the first day).
Few weeks ago I had a chance to play arround with a friend’s maschine mikro MKIII and had the exact same though, In concllusion is better and you can play arround with dynamics but as new starter you don’t focus on hitting harder or softer, you first just get used to rythm, metric, patterns and then go for the groove.
BUT for example i don’t see the point off getting a Maschine X or expensive AKAIs if you still having most of the workflow on the DAW (I’m so just used to if than everything else feels unconfortable)
I have to agree with @TheJackpot with his basic reasoning. I was originally looking at the MPD218 and the MPD226 as my first option but due to reports on this platform and others I ended up with a Machine Mikro Mklll. I am very happy with the pads and you can tweak quite well the velocity of the pads and acommpanying software. I do all my finger drumming through Ableton LIve, so as The Jackpot says, you don’t need an expensive standalone product. As an absolute beginner, you are more concerned with getting the rhythms right more than the amount of pressure you apply to the pads. However, with most of the Pad Controllers you still really need software that can be easily setup for dynamics via pressure. I have more recently thought that I would have been better off with a Launchpad X as it would serve the purpose of learning finger drumming and it works seamlessly with Ableton live. Thats life though, you don’t realise the quirks of a product until you have spent your money.
