Korg nanoPAD 2 black

I use these for finger drumming and MIDI input outside the studio. Personally I have owned two of them. Turns out they are not extremely robust. That's acceptable.

I put some decent effort into finger drumming, and I'll be honest, the pads are fine. The velocity response is good and quite useable. The haptic on them is better than expected for this budget. The sensitivity and feel does vary from pad to pad slightly. I think you won't even notice this unless you already invested enough time and attention into learning finger drumming.

The XY pad is a fun bonus and very useable for automations and instrument control. I use it to simulate opening the hihat with my custom programs.

By 2020 standards, the reprogramming software to rearrange the pad MIDI assignment is crude, but functional.

I really like this little thing. I don't use it as much as I intended to, but when I do it works very well. The pads/triggers feel solid and have good response, the control surface is good as well, and the banks function enables versatile usage scenarios.

I mainly tend to use it for triggering drum samples and beats, although it has many other uses and could probably be a big help for DJs or sample players in live situations - it might even be used as a proper instrument if one configures their software meticulously, which I have not yet done.

Still I am happy that I bought this and it sits nicely next to my nanoKEY and nanoKONTROL, and some day I might even expand my collection.