Start with the phone you already own: the mixer is free, so you can judge the fader feel before you buy anything. For mixing, a bigger tablet shows more strips and bigger controls. The one thing to avoid is a budget Android tablet with an imprecise touchscreen, because it misses the start of slow fader moves.
- Install MixSurface on your phone and connect it to REAPER. Ride a few faders slowly and quickly.
- Pick the screen size for how you work. MixSurface runs on iPhone, iPad, Android phones and Android tablets, and rearranges its layouts for the screen and for portrait or landscape.
- On iPhone and iPad, check that the device runs iOS 15 or newer.
- On Android, try the tablet in a shop if you can: drag a fader very slowly and see if it moves from the first millimetre.
- If you already own a tablet that feels sticky, look for a Touch sensitivity option in its display settings (on Samsung: Settings → Display → Touch sensitivity) and turn it on.
Why this happens
- Cheap touch controllers. Some budget Android tablets do not report very small or slow finger movements, so a slow drag has a dead spot at the start before it catches up. Other mixer apps show the same thing on the same tablet. It does not happen on iPads or higher-end Android tablets.
- MixSurface reacts at once on good hardware. Controls start moving on the first pixel of movement, with no dead zone of their own, so what you feel is the screen.
- Fast moves always track. Faster, more deliberate drags work fine even on a budget tablet.