All user reviews of 3/5 for the M-Audio iControl

Ever need a GarageBand controller for your mixes? If so, this device could have been for you. The goal that M-Audio had in mind was to create a versatile mixer to use with a simple DAW like GarageBand that every Apple user had pre-installed on their computer. The device contains eight rotary encoders to control volume, pan, sends, effects and whatnot, seven mode buttons to assign encoders to tracks or effects, eight sets of mute, solo and record buttons, +/- buttons for more assignable functions, master volume fader, dedicated buttons for play, stop, record, fast forward, rewind, and tons more features.

The device itself meant well. I mean, you could use the device to add some versatility to a limited DAW. However, I felt that GarageBand was simply too limiting as a DAW for this to be worthwhile. I heard that it works with Logic, but I never tried it with that, so I can’t comment.

I really like that it has built-in MIDI support. That’s a must have, in my opinion. Too many devices out there are trying to do away with MIDI, and I don’t understand it. The more you implement MIDI into devices, the less nonsense we have to buy. The buttons weren’t too bad, but they kinda felt a tad cheap. In fact, the entire device felt a bit cheap to me.

I heard issues of these breaking, so maybe it’s not the best thing in the world. The price itself wasn’t too bad given all the features this had. If you ever come across one of these and just want to mess around with it, it might not be a bad buy. However, I can’t really recommend it due to its limited usage. There are too many other good devices out there that work better.