10 Best Midi Controller Keyboards

This midi keyboards review is sorted by price, from the cheapest to the most expensive, ranging from $100 up to over a $1000, including brands such as AKAI, Native Instruments, Novation, M-Audio and many more.

Anything from best studio midi keyboard to professional midi keyboard for people who want durability during their tours and shows.

What makes a good midi will always be a topic of debate, but that’s why we tried to include as many different midis as possible. Hence, this list includes top midi controllers for any purpose.

As the price becomes a main aspect of the listings the midi keyboard keys become a significant aspect of identification. As some entries are 2 octave midi keyboards, they highlight an important difference in price and purpose.

While one of the 2 octave entries might be a good midi keyboard for production, other is a high end midi controller for a very specific use with 5D VSTs (the first being a popular option from AKAI – the MPK Mini MkII and the latter the inventive ROLI Seaboard Block).

When reaching the upper end of 8 octaves we start encountering the best midi keyboards for live performance, from AKAI Road 88 to M-Audio Hammer 88 which are not just great choices for musicians but are also the best midi synthesizer and the best touch sensitive midi keyboard that replicate a piano to the highest standard.

But that’s not all you’ll find on the list, as we also focus on the best small midi keyboard controllers, that allow you to travel with ease, not worrying about big, cluttered setups.

We end up with a mix of midis designed for comfort and midis design for the comfort of production.

From both the start and the end of the list, we have the best mini keyboard for music production and the best music production keyboards in general – reaching the high mark of over $1000.

We also didn’t forget about ease of access, some of these are desktop midi controller while others studio midi controller, showing a wide range of keyboards, guaranteeing you’ll find at least one that will grab your attention.

At the end of the video, we also include comprehensive charts that show that if you’re looking for the best midi controller keyboard with drum pads, you might not need to shell out that much money, as the price doesn’t always translate to the number of knobs or buttons you get, but if you look into all of them individually, you’ll quickly realise that they are the best midi keyboard for a reason.

We hope you enjoy our midi controllers reviews and find at least one keyboard you would like to grab for yourself.

We tried to include as many options as we could, looking at the top midi keyboard controllers from the most prestigious brands in the market.

Obviously, trying to cover everything in one list, might have lead us to not include a keyboard that you would regard as the best midi keyboard out there, but please understand that we are limited by only 10 slots, so we have to carefully choose what to include, to cover as much as we can.

But if you feel like you have a better entry for the best midi keyboard controller for live performance or the best midi keyboard with drum pads, we encourage you to share your opinion in the comment section below so we can see your opinions and see what else would be a good choice.

Also, don’t forget that all of these are great midi keyboards and even though some are more expensive than the rest, it doesn’t mean that a cheap option is worse.

Depending on your budget or skillset, a lower end midi might just be exactly what you’re looking for as midi controllers with aftertouch might be a just what you’re looking for or that sentence didn’t even make any sense.

Equator Update Released

Equator v1.13.0, is now available to download from ROLI Connect.

This update introduces VST3 support, as well as support for LUMI, presets and sound packs that have recently been installed alongside the release of the NEW Sound Store.

Equator v1.13.0

• Browsing and loading of ROLI Studio Player soundpack and LUMI presets with dedicated filtering
• VST3 support
• Updated MPE MIDI settings to adhere to MPE spec

Learn more about Equator here.

Cypher2 Expander: Dimension Art

Choose from a range of smooth, reedy and organic sounds with a synthetic edge that responds to a variety of touches and gestures, keeping you inspired and adding new flair to your MPE performances. Clavinets and electric pianos are available in a range of timbres, as well as percussion, synth, and mallet sounds that are incredibly responsive to MPE touch, all with performance & XY controls that can be used to gently augment each sound further.

Dimension Art is for the players — a selection of delicate, malleable and rich sounds for a variety of styles and genres, carefully crafted by sound designer Geoffrey Gee. Geoffrey Gee is a pianist, composer and sound designer based in upstate New York. His sound design career dates back to the 1990s at Kurzweil Music Systems, where he served as a chief voicing artist for a number of the most sought after keyboards, modules, and workstations of the day. He worked with the company’s famously high quality sampled instruments and added detailed models for the real-time control of articulation and vibrato. He also pioneered a technique of voicing multiple sampled instruments in such a way as to allow keyboard players to create expressive and realistic orchestral arrangements live with their two hands.

Dimension Art joins Elemental EDM, Textured Waves, and Vivid Sequences in the growing family of Cypher2 expanders. Each expander contains both 2D and 5D sounds featuring performance and XY controls.

• 100 presets (50 x 5D and 50 x standard)
• Each preset includes performance and XY pad modulation
• Easy drag & drop installation
• Compatible with both Cypher2 and ROLI Studio Player
• Requires Cypher2 v2.5.1.2 and above
• Geoffrey Gee preset demo film

Sounds in Dimension Art have been optimized for the ROLI Seaboard RISE. For those using conventional controllers, there are standard versions of each sound featuring dedicated modulation via channel pressure/aftertouch.

Available now on FXpansion.com, Dimension Art features a selection of 50 delicate, malleable, expansively dimensional sounds, in both MPE and standard formats. Download today for $25 (£20):