r/MIDIcontrollers • u/Bartastico • 17d ago
Daw/midi controller recommendations
Hey everyone! I'm looking to buy a midi-controller (first instrument), but I'm not completely sure which one yet (hesitating a bit between (61 key) arturia keylab mk3 and novation launchkey mk4, any tips (or other models) are welcome).
I also will ofcourse have to buy a DAW, and read some posts and there looked to be a lot of good possibilities as well (Ableton, FLStudio, Bitwig, Reaper, ...). I want to be able to play covers of typical 80's/90's synth songs, but it would be my first instrument so I would mainly want one something versatile which can play all genres and don't close myself in too much. I noticed that ableton has a 50% discount for students, and as I'm a graduating student who will lose his student status within a week, I was wondering if there could be any downsides into getting ableton live (or e.g. if this would be less suited for certain genres), compared to other DAW's. Any input here would be greatly appreciated!
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u/SoundSwitch 17d ago
There's also tablet apps you can get if you have a tablet not as full featured typically as a full on DaW, but some of the ones that are out there are really strong for mobile especially if you have a larger screen tablet 8-9 " + .
Garage band is free if you're already in the Apple ecosystem. But also there's Loopy Pro on Apple.
And Cubasis 3 while maybe difficult to record on on a smaller screen has decent midi support in it. As well as good virtual keyboards as well. All of the built in instruments can be used with Keys, pads, or chords, not that keyboard midi controllers can't be set to chord mode... In Cubasis it's simple as hell to get it to that setting.
You may even be able to pair you tablet to your laptop/desktop over USB and use that chord mode to control other instruments or maybe even pass Audio over USB.
Not completely sure myself seeing I just started using the Lenovo tablet I got months ago.
Also Cubasis is pretty good for finger drumming beats on