Arturia BeatStep Pad Controller and CV/Gate Sequencer Reviews

I was looking for something reasonably priced and well built to pair with my Beat Buddy and to help create midi drum pattern files for it. But it's become useful in many other ways due to its versatility. Five stars.

Great controller all around ... A great creative start for musical ideas

I have grown to rely on this unit for many elements in my live show. The pads feel great and issues polyphonic aftertouch, which is a feature that makes the unit worth the price alone. Editing the assignment is straightforward with the software. The knobs feel good, certainly for a $99 device but I'm not hugely fond of endless encoders, especially when the device itself cannot handle values above 127. This is one of my biggest gripes, NRPNs above 127 can't be used, so there goes my hope of programming my Mopho's Step Sequencer. I also would like it if the unit could program SYSEX, but alas it cannot.
I thought I was going to use this for it's Step Sequencer functionality but so far have yet to be wowed by it. It doesn't sync to Logic properly, restarting where you stopped rather than from the first step. It can't be transposed from a keyboard and there is no way to set a tempo in to the sequence. With no display that makes it not terribly useful unless this is the master clock. It also would be nice to be able to import MIDI sequences to it. The lack of MIDI in doesn't bother me as much as some users, USB is fine.
Most of these issues can be address with future firmware upgrades, and I hope they are. Arturia doesn't have the best record of continuing to work on released products.
I know that I'm pointing out the flaws, but I have to reiterate, I like this product a lot. The construction feels very solid and hopefully will last.

Got the BeatStep to use as a MIDI mixer controller for the Arturia 16Rig, thinking the 16 encoders and 16 buttons would be able assignable to control all 1-16 inputs on the 16Rig. Not really what it was intended for... I just wanted to use it as a mixer to mute and control faders of each channel.

It kind of works, except 2 issues:

1. The Arturia 16Rig's current MIDI capabilities prevents simultaneously controlling all 16 inputs via MIDI--you must bank PREV/NEXT in 8 channels. Not the BeatStep's fault, just know this if you get a BeatStep thinking you can control all 16 channels of your 16Rig. Only 8 at a time. I guess I could assign the other buttons and encoders to solo and pan.

2. Even though documentation says the STOP and PLAY buttons are assignable, they must be outputting multiple messages because I cannot get them to assign and control anything on the 16Rig. This means everything under the larger encoder is useless to me.

First, I'd like to start off by saying how well built this controller is. Like a lot of Arturia stuff, it's built like a tank. Sturdy, metal and plastic, tough construction. But, it's not the quality of the controller. And, it's not the functionality. It's more of the use of it. I'm a key's guy. But, I also like my pads for drumming away on things and making some complex drum loops/patterns. The Beatstep is....tedious. I could plot a better arrangement of notes on a keyboard, do it much faster, and have it sound all around better. As a drum machine, it's pretty much non existent. It definitely is setup as a sequencer. But, again, you could use a mouse click or keyboard and do it a lot faster and nicer. So, assembly wise it's great. Usefulness? Meh.

Compared side by side with other controllers, this has a huge latency that is not caused by the software or other hardware. The Beatstep is simply put, a flawed device. The pads are also not sensitive enough and require a massive amount of force to trigger.

As stated, I really wanted to like this controller and was very disappointed in having to exchange this for something else. I was mainly looking at the BeatStep to add more rotary encoders to my setup. I saw this had 16 rotary knobs plus 16 pads and thought this was great! The construction is solid, the pads are decent and it had a sequencer, what a bargain. Unfortunately, the "endless" rotary encoders are pointless and have terrible performance for controlling anything. There is so much resolution to the encoders that in order to go smoothly from 0 to 127 on a VI parameter, you have to turn the encoder 5-8 times. Arturia also added a feature caller "Acceleration" which if you turn the encoder very fast, it accelerates quickly in that direction, but it is too quick. So you either get extremely fast and extremely slow with no in-between smoothness. This is probably an easy fix with a simple firmware update but as Arturia is notorious for their lack of support, there has not been a firmware update that fixes the encoders after years of users asking for one. Just disappointing and leaves you to question, "Why would you make something this cool, suck so bad???" Makes no sense.

If you don't care about the rotary encoders and are looking for decent pads, this is a great option for the price. But if rotary encoders are an important part of your workflow, look somewhere else. And if you do not take my word for it, go to the Arturia user forum and look at the non-responsiveness from Arturia support and read the user-complaints.