DONNER

DMK25 MIDI Controller

The DMK25 comes in an attractive blacked-out finish, and a two-octave keyboard that’ll get any budding producer started, whether it’s adding bass lines, melodies, drum samples or chord changes to their tracks.

It’s all USB powered, so you can plug it into your computer without the need for big ol’ power bricks. From there, control the soft synths and drums in your DAW using the comfortable keyed, or the built-in pad controls. There are also faders and assignable sliders to help control some of your most frequently used parameters, which makes tactile control over your sound a breeze.

The OLED screen is super nice and bright, and easy to read which means navigating menus isn’t a chore. Once you’ve got your sounds loaded, both the keybed itself and the drum pads are velocity sensitive, so they’ll respond to light and heavy touches accordingly over MIDI. Meaning you can add more dynamics to your music in the way you would on a traditional keyboard or drum set.

Finally, you’ve got the ability to use the arpeggiator, chord functions, and map the keyboard to scales as opposed to the standard chromatic keyboard, making soloing and melodic playing easy for everyone.

The new MIDI controller from Donner is ultra-affordable, compact and a joy to play. We recommend it for a backpack rig, or the starter piece for your first home studio.

Benjamin Ricci

PROS great functionality, excellent OLED display and options for DAW mapping

CONS under $100 USD