Native Instruments Maschine MK3 vs Novation Launchpad X

The Maschine MK3 is Native Instruments' flagship pad controller, and it's the one r/makinghiphop's thread singled out flatly: "Best pads are on Maschine hands down." It's also the step up from a MIDI controller into something closer to a self-contained production system.

Sixteen large, touch-sensitive pads sit above a 96kHz/24-bit audio interface built into the unit, with two switchable line/instrument inputs, two balanced outputs, a mic input, headphone output, MIDI in/out and a footswitch jack, so it can record and monitor without any other interface. Touch-sensitive knobs and a Smart Strip for pitch bends and effects round out the control surface, and Native Instruments bundles its Maschine 2.0 software with the 25GB Komplete 11 Select library at the time of writing.

The cost is real: about four times the budget pick, for a controller that leans on Native Instruments' own Maschine software to unlock its deepest features rather than working as a plain MIDI device. At 4.8 pounds with an aluminum shell, it's also the heaviest pick here.

The Launchpad X is Novation's 64-pad RGB grid controller, the clip-launching answer to the MPD218's MPC-style pads. The same r/edmproduction thread that called the MPD218 "the obvious choice" also gave votes to the pricier Launchpad Pro MK3, and the X carries the same core grid at a lower price.

Sixty-four velocity- and pressure-sensitive RGB pads mirror your Ableton Live or Logic Pro session in color, matching clips and scenes on screen. Dynamic note and scale modes let you play in-key basslines and chords, and the grid switches to show a drum rack automatically when it detects finger drumming. Four custom modes, set through Novation Components, remap the pads to almost anything else over USB-C.

The pads are the tradeoff: these are grid pads built for visual clip launching first, smaller than the MPD218's dedicated MPC pads, so pure finger drumming feels less natural. The deepest features are tied to Ableton Live and Logic Pro specifically, other DAWs get plain MIDI. There's no built-in audio interface or standalone sampling.