This is limiting, but given the smaller pads it’d be hard to be very precise anyway.

Fire’s pads are velocity sensitive, but there are only two velocity levels available - for standard or accented notes. As a result Drum mode feels cramped and doesn’t make use of much of the control surface.Ĭompared to controllers such as Push or Maschine, Fire lacks access to features like quantise settings or beat repeats/rolls, leaving Drum mode feeling a little shallow. In this mode the left-hand 4x4 block of pads is used to trigger FPC’s sample tracks, but this leaves the remaining 24 pads unused. The Fire’s pads are small, and can feel fiddly for precise playing. That version certainly has it's limitations (like no audio recording), but it's enough to get a budding producer started.The finger drumming-focused Drum mode is less successful. That gives you an 8x32 grid of pads to play with, which should mean a little less scrolling and button pushing on longer loops and bigger projects.Īt $199, this is significantly cheaper than the comparable APC40 ($299) and it comes with the Fire Edition of FL Studio, which is really just a rebranded version of the $99 Fruity Edition. One unique feature here is the ability to combine up to four units into a single virtual control surface. It's not quite as comprehensive as Ableton's Push, but you can perform at least most basic tasks in FL Studio right from the Fire.

And of course there's all the controls you'd expect for record, playback, muting and soloing channels.

And you can even browse and select samples from a small OLED screen without having to touch a mouse or keyboard. But there's also four knobs that can change anything from volume and panning to oscillator tuning or filter sweeps.

Of course if all you could do was control the sequencer Fire wouldn't be that exciting. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy.

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