35 Best Selling MIDI Keyboards & Controllers Buying Guide

Hey there again! Back again with another helpful buying guide for those who seek a MIDI controller and keyboard (up to 25 keys) for their audio production needs. In this post, we will be looking at the best-selling MIDI keyboards and controllers for different budgets and needs!

As the subject naturally includes a broad range of products by many well-known manufacturers, I want to filter down our options to small midi controllers and control pads (up to 25 keys) aimed at mostly us, who are not able to play the piano or keyboard 🙂

If you ever spent some time creating audio on your PC or Mac, you would know that it takes a tremendous amount of time to enter MIDI data into your digital audio workstation. In addition, working without a MIDI controller has another drawback.

In order to pour your musical ideas into your computer, you need to spend some time figuring out how to enter this data with your mouse and actual keyboard only and you have to try many times to imitate what you hear in your mind unless you are a master at writing and reading music.

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Most of us like quick results that leave us the minimum amount of editing effort after we are done with inputting musical data. During my 20 years of bedroom guitarist career, I spent loads of my time “writing” drums, keys and sometimes bass with my mouse only.

And it is a fact that anything is possible if you spend enough time. But to me, it is really painful. So in order to save some of my time, I got myself a MIDI Controller by M-Audio Keystation 49e (12 years ago?), but since it did not have any pad sections, it wasn’t enjoyable to play finger drums which I was interested in the most. Probably sold it a year later…

Small, portable and efficient MIDI controllers and pads had been always on my radar. Until two years ago, I was still trying to work with my mouse only. But decided to get one for me.

While I was doing some research on this, I got hooked on the Keith McMillen brand in terms of their uniqueness and innovation and I am still using their Keith McMillen QuNexus MIDI controller today.

If you want to check out my review of “Keith McMillen QuNexus Review Portable MIDI Keyboard & Controller“, please visit the individual page 🙂

As I always mention, I am not affiliated with any brand. But I’m a big fan of this brand I should say. Always following what they are about to release. I have my own opinions about QuNexus and will let you know at the end of this post.

As can be seen here in my “The Ultimate Comparison of 44 Best Selling Studio Monitors” and “50 Best Selling USB Audio Interface Buying Guide“, I love providing comparison tables for my readers here.

I believe it makes everything easier to choose. So for this article, I’ll keep the same approach and will give you the ultimate comparison of the 35 best-selling MIDI controllers (small midi controllers/keyboards) of 2020.

Also, please let me tell you that this article has been thoroughly renewed and updated!

Which Parameter Should You Be Looking At?

As you can see from the tables below, again I have separated 35 best-selling MIDI controllers into three price ranges.

The prices are not so different from the others, because it’s a highly competitive market segment here since anyone might like to buy one of these regardless of their musical background.

On the other hand, if you are a trained piano or keyboard player, these probably won’t be enough for you but of course, there are other benefits of having a small MIDI controller such as being able to take it everywhere and make music.

In addition, there are some parameters that might help your purchasing decision directly. So let’s talk about them briefly here below.

Aftertouch

Think this is a feature added to MIDI devices in order to apply vibrato, volume and other parameters. Imagine keys and pads have only on and off functions. So when you press down, you activate it and when you lift your finger it is off. But with aftertouch, you can add expressions to your playing by having sent different data on the same while your finger is still down.

Pitch Bend and Modulation

As the name suggests, it allows you to bend the pitch of particular notes.

Rotary Encoder

Rotary Encoders are the knobs that you can assign to any MIDI message and turn. I think Thomann’s comparison section does not work properly. I also believe the product parameters are being labelled by different employees which results in some conflicts. For example, there are Rotary Encoders, and Rotary Knobs x 2 in comparison tables but when I look at the actual products 95% of the time they meant knobs. 🙂 So I have omitted all the necessary rows down here in order to make things a lot easier for you!

Faders

Again, this is kind of the same thing with rotary knobs, pots or encoders but in fader form just like the ones you see on a mixer. You can assign parameters to faders such as volume, effects mix…etc anything you like really.

Pads

Pads mean softer keys that you can play finger drums, and percussion and they are usually placed upon the keyboard itself. But for some products, such as QuNexus it says 25 pads. Let’s take Samson Graphite M25 as an example. It has black & white keys + pads. But QuNexus has 25 pads in the form of a keyboard. On the other hand, nanoKeys by Korg has the same form but I believe they are more like keys rather than pads.

Display

It suggests a small digital screen for monitoring some parameters. Most products here do not have it. You don’t need to worry about this as all of these controllers are quite small-sized MIDI devices so most of the time you’ll be monitoring everything via your DAW.

MIDI Interface

You might ask if they are all MIDI controllers but what is it all about the interface? It means you can have traditional MIDI outputs so you can use your USB MIDI device to control other MIDI devices. Let’s say you have a MIDI interface on your device and you connect this MIDI out to your old MIDI-enabled synth and you can trigger sounds with this.

Sustain Pedal Interface

This helps you to connect a sustain pedal and use it with your MIDI device as you would do on a digital piano.

Mains Operation

With mains out, you can use an external adapter to power up your device. This might help when you connect lots of USB devices such as your audio interface, MIDI device, mouse..etc and run the risk of choking your PC or laptop. I don’t remember having experienced this but again an extra option for you.

Battery Operation

Quite clear I guess? It means you can use your device with battery power which will give you more freedom. 🙂

Special Features

These are unique features that the manufacturers market their products here. The ones that get my attention are Bluetooth, Battery Powered, Arpeggiator, and CV Input/Output.

Well, please have a look at the tables below for more information. As in my other article, you can directly go to product pages by clicking the model names (Opens in a new tab).

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you are able to scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

Small MIDI keyboards & controllers €40 to €75

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you are able to scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

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Here in this first table, I have listed some options priced between €40 to €75. As you can see, even though the prices are relatively cheaper than the rest, we only have 2 options that have made it to the top 10. Akai LPK 25 and Alesis V mini seem like good options for those who don’t want to bust the bank!

Small MIDI keyboards & controllers €75 to €110

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you are able to scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

Here in the second table, we have a more interesting overview of products. As you can see, Arturia MiniLab MKII and Akai MPK Mini MK3 seem to be the top seller! However, it was due to a glitch in terms of the categorisation of those products.

Arturia MiniLab MKII has been categorised as Virtual Instruments and Samplers by Thomann and it’s the number 1 selling item that deserves it by all means! However, when you want to have an overview of MIDI keyboards and controllers (up to 25 keys), Arturia also shows up.

But since it’s an excellent choice and very affordable, I would like to add it to the list!

Also, note that Akai MPK Mini MK3 is pretty assertive too! It’s the number 1 selling product in the MIDI keyboards and controllers (up to 25 keys) category. So would be one of the safest bets you can try here!

Small MIDI keyboards & controllers €120 to €250

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you are able to scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

And finally, our third table! Here we have a bit more expensive models. Even though they are less affordable in comparison to the above models, we still have some of the best sellers in this table.

Native Instruments Kom­plete Kon­trol A25 is a complete product that offers a wide array of controls. On top of this, we have also Novation Launchkey 25 MK3 which has pads and rotary encoders which makes it a complete winner while being still really affordable for many customers.

I have also included my choice which is the Keith McMillen QuNexus MIDI controller as I’m really impressed with how small yet capable of doing everything I need. To me, it’s not an affordable option, however, I’m blown away by the fact that you have a piano-style layout while having smart sensor pads in a very small layout.

I have just released a dedicated review page for my QuNexus, so please keep reading and also don’t forget to check it out!

Which MIDI Controller/Keyboard have you picked up?

As I mentioned, I had already chosen one for me around two years ago and went for the Keith McMillen QuNexus MIDI controller. Do I like it? Yes, a lot actually I’m in love with it!

It’s very expressive and very durable and with its software, I can just switch to different presets very quickly. The unique thing about QuNexus is that you can actually “Tilt” every key up and down.

This gives you a pitch-bend effect on every key. But one thing I don’t like about it is that the “Bend” button is not that precise. Since I have this, I can create the base of my songs and projects really quickly. I highly recommend any Keith McMillen products because I am a huge fan! 🙂

I have also just released an individual review of my QuNexus, please visit my content and let me know what you think; “Keith McMillen QuNexus Review Portable MIDI Keyboard & Controller“.

Also, there are really strong products here on these tables. I personally have experience with Alesis, AKAI, M-Audio and Nektar devices. During those years in the musical instruments industry, I also had the chance to meet quite influential people from these brands.

The only brand I am NOT going to recommend is Samson. Sorry!

I was working as the imports manager and we made a big purchase from another dealer. We ended up having many Samson products including all of their MIDI keyboard lines, speakers, microphones…etc

But all the MIDI keyboards were returned by customers. This is why you should be following my reviews, I have insider information in the musical instruments industry. 🙂

Please keep in touch and do not hesitate to contact me with any questions. Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!

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