for those still looking to get themselves a nice setup for controlling every aspect of their production and/or live set, these a a couple of nice affordable options, and the best thing is, they all work fine simultaniously !!!
i just ordered an
M-AUDIO 25 (3d gen) = for 80 euro's,
is a sweet little thing for its price, easy to map the faders to whatever DAW you are using !(i am going to use it for bass & synths in live & reason)
i also use an AKAI 24 (about 170 euro )
(to trigger samples & rex in reason , rewired to live suite8) and
an AKAI APC 20
(the live controller,for about 180 euro's which is really nice !)
and i use the KORG NANO KONTROl (only 50 earo's) to controle different effect channels & settings
the four controllers will put you back less than 600 euro's but will give you live, realtime controle of every aspect of your project, this is really nice for playing live sets , but also a nice way to play around , experiment and take many different versions of the tunes you are working on !!!!