Under $200

The sweet spot for a full-size controller or a real pad grid.

Two hundred dollars buys a genuinely good 49 or 61-key controller, or a pad grid built for real finger drumming, not a scaled-down mini board. This tier tends to be where the compromises fall away: expect proper aftertouch, better build quality and deeper DAW integration than the entry tier, screened for the same 4-star-plus rating and at least 20 reviews as everything else on the site.

60 picks, best value first