My new favorite controller for effects is the novation nocturn, it has as many shifts as you like, a hud so you can see what the controls are doing all the time. It’s incredibly versatile, small, light and strong. No rubber knobs but you don’t really need them and you have led feedback for the position of the knob currently.
I have mapped the crap out of it for vdj pro for pc with full transport controls, eq, rmx-1000 inspired scene effects, sampler and efx-1000 inspired effects. so it can be self contained if need be, or just an addon for effects.
this is how the transport bit works, the rest is pretty obvious how it works, the breakdown effects are on the left and build effects are on the right. the rest is laid out left to right
***this isn’t the actual unit it’s just an image I drew in photoshop***
