a few of the control surfaces have velocity sensitive pads, does mixvibes sampler support this? meaning will I be able to notice the difference in hitting the pad faster or slower?
At present, only “MIDI NOTE” and “MIDI CHANNEL” data is supported by Mixvibes, “KEY VELOCITY” as described in your question along with the remaining MIDI data is not supported as yet...
It is still possible to use a MIDI sequencer to control the Mixvibes sampler and can be very effective, you should wait for now and have a look at the Mixvibes Sampler Competition entries to see what other hardware Mixvibes users are using and how they use them... may give you some better ideas on what hardware you want to get.
if so is it possible to get a realistic roll say similar to a Roland R8 drum machine or one of the newer Boss dr670 machines?
I use a Roland Dr-202 and the sequencer produces very effective rolls during performances. Again “KEY VELOCITY” data is ignored by Mixvibes but the MIDI learn feature makes manual control easy.
Regards,
Bryan.