Seeing people use a piano keybed to play drums hurts me inside. It’s like putting banana on a pizza or something.
I had my eye on the ableton push 3 for a while but cubase is better. So what is the best hardware groovebox for groove agent 6?
I got the akai fire. It does the job but it’s not great. Is the machine mk3 the best bet, or is there a hidden gem somewhere?
True. But I need hardware for playing. Putting in notes with a mouse hits different (pun intended).
My akai fire works fine but the pads are too hard and loud. The machine pads are nice and soft. The ableton push 3 is the best controller out there I think, but I want to use cubase.
NI didn’t bother to integrate their flagship hardware, Machine 3, with their flagship drum sampler, Battery 4. While Groove Agent 6 is looking like the best drum software and there is no controller for it. what is this life ＼（〇_ｏ）／
Have you checked the Nektar Aruba Controller? Maybe that could be something for you. I have no personal experience with it tbh, but the Nektar products always have a deeper integration in Cubase that standard MIDI controllers.
Else, if you are mostly interested in the real time pad playing for GA, maybe just look for a standard 4x4 Pad Controller like the Akai MPC studio or similar (of course, as with keyboards, it is always the problem to find the one that you like the feel of…).
With regard to the AKAI series: the pads on big controller keyboards are excellent. The pads on the Mini series (eg AKAI Mini Mk III) are utterly useless unless you like to play drum pads with a hammer instead of using your fingers.
What @fese said: I would not only look at the software integration but also check out the haptic side of a controller.
Oh nice. Looks like a machine mk3 knock off.
I looked at the novation circuits, and the pads are noisy. So that’s no good. I bet that akai mpc got those lush pads. 
I’ve learned the pads have to be silent or the sound of hitting them drives you up the wall. You’re trying to hear the sounds but you hear the stupid pad hits instead.
I’m willing to map out a controller if it makes sense with whatever software I’m using. I was just wondering if there was already a go-to controller being used for cubase.
Ya, that’s the tradeoff. Nice pads but expensive. But my akai fire has the benefit of more than 16 pads. Having a 16 pad drum kit duplicated and (a mirror of bank A) is so much better. The pads are tiny, hard and noisy, but you can play the same samples with two hands. Your fingers are on separate pads; you can hit them as fast as your fingers can go. And with 32 pads you can have 8 toms and 8 cymbals. Kick hats snare can all be played as fast as you want because they are all duplicated. The fire has 64 pads so I could put the main groove agent kit on one 16 pad section and the patterns next to it. I could fill up all 64 pads with stuff.
I would say least expensive, quality drum pad controller is the MPD218.
I’ve customized my pad sensors so they are very sensitive…sometimes overly sensitive, but I would rather that then the opposite, except when other pads trigger from banging on the poor thing.
It’s not too big, not too small. Software editor still works good. There are some good Cubase controller scripts for it.
I love my BopPad!
Not the simplest to program but very expressive.
I’ve been using an ESI Xjam for a while now and am very happy with it. The device is sturdy and doesn’t take up much space. The pads feel great to the touch, and the dynamics are easy to adjust. The 4x4 pad matrix is identical to Groove Agent, but the Xjam also works well for tonal patterns. An editor for detailed adjustments is also included. Overall, it’s imho a great device at a relatively affordable price.
Cool gear. 
The downside of going from 64 pads down to 16 would only be good if there was some kind of deep integration with groove agent. Ableton push kind of integration. The other gear is nice, with nice pads but for the money I would need more than just nicer pads.
I saw a mention of scripts. That might be a thing. For a drum controller you would want to use the browser, modify the instruments by holding down a pad and moving the knobs, (volume etc.) , make new drum patterns, move around the different patterns, duplicate them etc. , step sequencer, things like that.