Trouble is, with the new MIDI Remote you can’t go all that deep with the plugins as you’re limited to the 8 focus quick controls, with no form of paging either - so could never be as good as the standard integration. You can then move straight onto assigning a sound to another pad if you wish and audition sounds as you go. Sure, it's only going to take a second each time, but add up how much extra time this is going to cost you when you're constantly flicking between plug-ins and you'll probably agree that it's a bit of an unnecessary pain, right? This is a problem that you'll find with all MIDI controllers with fixed faders (which let's face it, is pretty much all of them! That said, the unit packs a lot of controls into a stylish-looking device and does so for a relatively low cost.

If you spend a lot of time in front of your DAW, you may also spend a lot of time with your computer mouse.g. Novation's SL MkII keyboards and Zero SL MkII control surface), I personally prefer the endless encoder approach where possible. Or, if you are using ReWire to link Reason in with another DAW, you can use one controller to trigger an instrument in Reason and the second to control an instrument in your second DAW!

After all, even if I were to use a Panorama in its current state with Ableton, it still gives me more than most other MIDI controllers on the market (e.Build quality is not the best maybe, the fades feel a bit flimsy and as other's noted knobs and buttons are hard to see in low light.