From professionals to hobbyists, an increasing number of musicians are migrating to hard-disk recording and editing systems to take advantage of the seemingly limitless possibilities that personal computers offer. However, the new technology has brought about a sea change in the way musicians think about and execute their music-production work. In the not-too-distant past, music tracks were mixed entirely by sitting at a mixing console and pushing faders up and down, turning knobs, and reaching for a rack of gear to tweak an effect or EQ.

In today's digital audio workstation (DAW) environment, everything is presented graphically on a large-screen color monitor, and your head never has to venture too far from the sweet spot. Although the power of proprietary and native DAW systems seems to increase exponentially from year to year, the basic interface design of a desktop music system has remained virtually unchanged for about a decade. A monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse are still the primary methods for manipulating all of the bits and bytes in a computer-based music project. Unfortunately, as many desktop musicians have discovered, a mouse and a keyboard are not the best or most intuitive tools for mixing audio.

Enough time has passed since the introduction of the DAW that musicians now have a better perspective on the advantages and disadvantages of both the old and the new ways of manipulating music, and traditional mixing tools are attracting new interest.

Enter the MIDI control surface. This hardware interface offers a more immediate and intuitive command of an array of common mixing, recording, and editing tasks by providing varying combinations of faders, knobs, buttons, Jog wheels, and dedicated transport controls. In short, many traditional hardware-interface elements are now available for the virtual desktop studio. Most musicians are accustomed to and comfortable with these more tactile controls, and they often provide an efficient method for maintaining work flow that is not as easily achieved with a mouse and keyboard alone.

Which control surface is right for you? That depends on several factors, including the specific functions you need, your available desktop space, your ergonomic requirements, and your budget. (For a list of full reviews of MIDI control surfaces in EM, see the sidebar “In Review.”) To better manage the growing number of MIDI control surfaces on the market, we'll divide the units into two broad categories: basic control surfaces for less than $900 and high-end controllers that range from about $1,000 to about $3,500. We'll also take a look at two high-priced control surfaces from Digidesign for professionals who want to combine the power of a DAW with the working environment of a traditional high-end console (see the sidebar “Top-Notch for Pro Tools”).