MIDI Percussion Controller Roundup

The rhythm track gives life to a song, and is probably fussed over more than any other musical element. In a recent low fidelity cartoon, our hero was about to finish up a track for the party, and was heard groaning eight hours later, “I’m sure that kick groove can be just a little tighter.”

There is an abundance of technologies and techniques for creating rhythm tracks, from MIDI sequencers to drum machines, from audio loops to beat makers. Or you can play the rhythm yourself. Admittedly this takes a degree of skill, and some practice, but the results are less mechanical, the tracks can be created more rapidly, and you have a different sort of control over the creative process.

You don’t necessarily need any special equipment to do this. Some people are very proficient at playing drum parts on their MIDI keyboard – see this Youtube tutorial, for example. If you’re a real drummer, you may already have an electronic drum kit, or have experienced the pain or pleasure of mic-ing an acoustic drum kit for recording. We won’t be looking at any of those options in this roundup. We also won’t be looking at keyboard controllers like the M-Audio Axiom that have rhythm pads as part of the package.

What we will be looking at is the range of specialized MIDI controllers that are designed to help you input your rhythm tracks without taking the space of a full drum kit. Many of these you play with your fingers, others you play with sticks. They all give you new options for inputting rhythm information, and new options can often lead to new creative ideas.

Even if you don’t have a drummer’s timing, quantization can make your rhythms quite usable. Or you can manually clean up your most promising section and use it as the basis for a loop. What has your experience been with MIDI percussion controllers?

If you missed our MIDI keyboard controller roundups, you can find them here:

• MIDI Weighted Keyboard Controller Roundup
• MIDI Keyboard Controller Roundup – Unweighted

Roland Percussion Controllers

Roland were very early on the MIDI percussion scene, and the original Roland Octapad gave drummers options they didn’t have before. I’ve owned and loved my Roland SPD-11 for almost a decade now. Here is their current range of controllers:

Percussion Pads:

• The SPD-20 Total Percussion Pad (around USD$600) is their flagship product, with eight pads, four dual-trigger inputs for attaching additional pads or pedals, 700 sounds and multi-effects.
• The SPD-S Sampling Pad (around USD$500) is a similar device, but has a focus on sampling. It can accept up to 380 seconds of 44.1kHz user sampling, has a resampling function and onboard pattern sequencer, has 30 multi-effects, and can be expanded with Compact Flash cards. It has six pads and three edge triggers.

Hand Drum Controllers:

• The HPD-10 Handsonic 10 (around USD$600) is a percussion pad designed to be played by hand. Though it looks like a single pad, it is made of 10 separate pads, and is pressure sensitive. It features 400 sounds and 20 multi-effects.
• The HPD-15 Handsonic 15 (around USD$900) is its bigger brother, and is based on V-Drums technology.

Out of all of these, my favorite is the SPD-20. It is reasonably priced, can be played like a real kit, has lots of useable sounds, and can be used for MIDI sequencing.

Yamaha Drum Pads

Yamaha’s drum pads are not as professional in quality, but are still very usable, and much more affordable. My drumming son initially learned to play on these. They were less expensive, took up less space, and can be played with headphones on. And unlike the Roland machines, they include a basic drum machine.

• The DD-65 (around USD$240) features eight pads, 2 pedals and AUX IN for playing along with your favorite MP3 player. It also has a hand-percussion mode, 254 sounds, and lets you record your playing.
• The YDD-60 (around USD$160) is similar, but a more cost-effective solution.

Alesis Electronic Percussion

Alesis have brought out a range of devices to compete with Roland’s percussion pads.

• The PerformancePad (around USD$240) features eight drum pads, inputs for kick and hihat pedals, 233 sounds, line-level input to connect your iPod or CD player, and a programmable drum machine.
• The ControlPad (around USD$150) is more affordable – it is designed for use with a computer, so doesn’t have internal sounds or the drum machine.

KAT Alternate Mode Percussion

KAT offer some higher-end MIDI percussion controllers, including the following:

• The DrumKAT Turbo 2000 MIDI percussion controller (around USD$1300) features 10 pads in a semi-circle arrangement, allows the user to stack up to 8 notes on the same pad, and create chords and melody lines in one simple step with melodic modes.
• The TrapKAT XL (around USD$1800) is a versatile and responsive controller featuring 24 playing surfaces in a size and configuration that rivals an acoustic drum kit. With 10 large flat pads, 14 surrounding raised edge or “rim” pads and individual kick and hi-hat foot pedal inputs, the trapKAT offers a complete electronic percussion system in single, compact instrument. Up to 16 sounds can be triggered per pad, and an array of built-in percussive and melodic “grooves” which can be completely controlled from the playing surface.

Korg Pads

KORG offer several small and portable devices that allow you to trigger drum parts.

• The KORG nanoPAD (around USD$60) is a highly portable device with 12 finger-playable drum pads, and an X/Y trackpad-type surface that allows flams and rolls to be played. The device contains no internal sounds.
• The KORG padCONTROL (around USD$190) is a slightly larger device includes 16 pads and an X/Y controller, and buttons for programming a more complex setup.

Akai MIDI Pad Controllers

Akai have a range of high-end MIDI percussion controllers which are designed to be sampling drum machines on steroids. “Drum machines come with preset sounds. What’s programmed from the factory is all you can work with. The MPC series introduced beat sampling and the music world was changed forever. Producers could now sample any drum sound they wanted and bang out pro-grade tracks in minutes.”

• The MPD24 (around USD$160) is the budget version, and includes 16 velocity and pressure-sensitive pads, 6 assignable faders 8 assignable knobs, and transport controls.
• The MPC500 (around USD$500) and MPC1000 (around USD$1000) add a pattern-based linear 64-track sequencer with 32 MIDI channels and a 32-voice drum/phrase sampler with up to 128MB RAM.
• The MPC2500 (around USD$1400) and MPC5000 (around USD$1800) add a 3-oscillator virtual analog synth engine with built-in arpeggiator, over 300 Virtual Analog synth presets, over 40 effects, and a built-in hard disk drive.

Zendrum

Zendrum have a range of interesting and unusual MIDI percussion devices “designed by drummers to allow musicians to express their creativity in rhythmic and intuitive ways.” They are not cheap, with prices ranging from USD$1000 up to $1800, with most of the products at the higher end of the scale.

How do you create your rhythm tracks? Do any of these devices appeal? Let us know in the comments.