patrick_richardson's Drum Kit

The various sampling modes make it a breeze to capture what you want. The onboard sequencer can help not just sketching out patterns, but also automate the keys (to trigger sampling when armed). Each part leads to each other part, making for very fluid fun. The recessed buttons and putting all menu-diving and control/data knobs extreme right are a pain, but the software editor is slick and hepful. If they made a V2 "MACROsampler," I'd buy it !

The KP1 was a great proof of concept, but it could not be sync'ed or remote-controlled by MIDI, as it only had a MIDI Out. The KP3 had tons of features, almost too many that it required sub-menus, operations that took several steps of button pressing, and a text display... all of which tended to slow down the "chaos".

Having owned ALL the Kaoss pads, the KP2 is my favorite, since 1) all the interfacing is direct, no submenus or SHIFT button shortcuts. 2) sampling is quick and dirty 3) several FX sync to clock on the MIDI Input 4) the FX programs tend to feel more "general purpose," and not specifically made for electronic dance music/dubstep/etc... 5) the "BPM Looper" program (#60) is so cool they re-created it for the KP3 "plus model"

At one point, I owned three, and I still own two...

Novations "Circuit" groove-box is a puzzling piece. Internal Virtual-analog style synth, based on the (Super/Ultra/Mini)Nova wavetable synth system. Very expressive system with EGs and LFOs for oscillators/filters/distortion. Presets in "packs" feels cheesy and designed to show off superficial range. No screen and blank knobs, where most presets map multiple parameters non-systematically to "macro" knobs make this a "tweak and see what happens affair. Requires a (very well done) software editor to personalize... which i've been working to do. The modes/menus become very intuitive for context switching of the 8x4 grid of pads, allowing yout play parts, mix and match patterns, and control effects, but you have to push buttons to jump around alot. This is made less-clunky by momentary context-switching, but it still feels like it requires two hands to drive. I really like how the pads can be set to a specific key and scale, and send out MIDI control. It allows me to explore notes/chords/etc on external synths without using a conventional piano layout. Many of the Circuits very inspired design ideas were used on later Novation gear, such as their MK3 controllers and X-series LaunchPads.