Vestax Pad-One review

IN THE EDIT
A major feature of the Pad-One is the ability to edit the velocity, MIDI control code and note of each pad. This makes it highly configurable. As an example, suppose you’re using Ableton Live and you want to have your bass and snare drums assigned to adjacent pads for your own playing comfort. The Pad-One lets you do this.

To set velocity, MIDI note and MIDI control data for a pad, you press Select to choose which of the three you want to change. Then you press the Edit button followed by the pad you want to change. You then twist the rotary encoder until you reach the MIDI code you want to assign to the pad. Press the Edit button again and it’s set. A neat editing feature is the ability to play the note you’ve selected before you commit it to the pad, so you can be sure you’ve chosen the correct setting.

MODULAR CONTROL
We also tested the Pad-One with Traktor and proved incredibly useful. We mapped it so that we could set loops, change the size of loops and set loops of specific sizes using the pads. As an example, we had a specific pad for setting a 1/8th-beat loop, another for ¼-beat loop and so on. This meant we could quickly set stutter loops for effect when needed.

With four different banks at your disposal, the Pad-One makes a great modular controller for Traktor Pro 2.5, and its excellent build quality means you can take it to gigs with you without worrying about it breaking mid-set.

We really like the Pad-One. It’s an incredibly versatile unit, letting us create beats in our music production software one minute and trigger hot-cues in DJing software the next. The ability to assign specific MIDI codes to specific pads increases that versatility. If you need an easy to configure modular controller, check out the Pad-One.