Re: Novation Launchpad, controller of the gods?

[Art Simon <simart@gmail.com>]

Thanks Jeff,

That's really interesting.

Have you used an Akai APC40? Do you know if it addresses any of the
Launchpad's limitations or if it has different ones. They seem similar
just because of that grid of lit buttons that looks like the Session
view in ableton.

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 10:11 AM, Jeff Larson <jeff.larson@sailpoint.com> 
wrote:
> I just received a Novation Launchpad and thought some of you might be
>
> interested in some technical details.
>
>
>
> It works fine with Live, I won't go into detail on that since I'm more
>
> interested in using it with other applications, but if I were a heavy
>
> Live user I would definitely get one.
>
>
>
> It speaks normal MIDI so with some work it can be used with other
>
> applications.  If you have Novation's Automap utility you can do some
>
> basic mapping of pads to plugin parameters but to get the most out of
>
> it you will need to write code or Max/MSP patches to control it.
>
>
>
> It's about 10 inches square and 1/2 inch thick.  Build quality is
>
> okay, the case is plastic but it feels solid enough.  If you dropped
>
> it it would probably survive.  It has to sit on a table, there is no
>
> stand socket on the bottom.
>
>
>
> The pads are smaller than on most drum pad controllers like the
>
> Trigger Finger, less than an inch square.  They are not velocity
>
> sensitive which makes this of limited use as a drum controller.
>
> Pressing a pad produces a soft "click" that you can feel but not hear.
>
> This let's you know the button has been engaged but I found it
>
> slightly annoying.
>
>
>
> The pictures and most of the videos make it look like the default
>
> state of the buttons are bright white but they're not.  When a button
>
> is off, it has a slightly translucent dull grey color which is not
>
> that bad but not nearly as pretty as it looks in pictures.  Under each
>
> pad are two LEDs one green and one red.  These can be set to one of
>
> three shades (low, medium, and high) and combined to produce shades of
>
> yellow and orange.  They don't do white.
>
>
>
> In theory you have 16 shades available for each button (4 states
>
> squared).  In practice many of the shades that combine red and green
>
> are so slightly different that they can't be used as static
>
> indicators.  You can use them to show "movement" by cycling through
>
> the shades, you'll see the difference when they change.  But for
>
> buttons that just glow one color it's hard to tell the difference
>
> between "Red Low + Green Low" and "Red Low + Green Medium".  Also
>
> there is variance in the brightness of the leds from pad to pad so
>
> when combining them to make yellow it looks quite "splotchy", some are
>
> very yellow and others look like pale green.
>
>
>
> So in practice I found around 6 or 7 really distinct shades that could
>
> be used as static indicators.  The rest could be used to make
>
> pulsating lightshows like the Kaoss pad.  Overall I was a bit
>
> disappointed in the colors, it is not as pretty as the videos or the
>
> picture on the box, but hey the price is still reasonable.
>
>
>
> It is not programmable.  It only sends a fixed set of MIDI notes for
>
> each pad and CC's for the buttons along the top.  All are on channel 1
>
> and this cannot be changed.  So if you want to combine this with MIDI
>
> from another source, say an FCB1010, you'll have to reprogram the FCB
>
> to send on a different channel, or do channel mapping in software.
>
>
>
> The videos make it look like it has "pages" for example in Mixer mode
>
> there is a page for volume control, one for pan, etc.  This is all
>
> done in Live.  The Launchpad itself doesn't change what notes the pads
>
> send when you select page buttons, the application has to watch for
>
> the page buttons and dynamically change note mappings to do different
>
> things.
>
>
>
> For example, in the demo for controlling track levels, each column of
>
> pads acts like a "fader".  The pads light up from the bottom to
>
> whatever pad you press, press the top pad and the fader is all the way
>
> up, press a pad in the center and the fader is around halfway up, etc.
>
> The hardware is not magically converting this into CC7 for the
>
> application, it's just sending notes and it is up to the application
>
> to respond to them and turn the other lights in the column on or
>
> off.  This is why with Automap you can't do much with this besides
>
> trigger things.  There are no knobs and the virtual faders are a
>
> trick supported only by Live.
>
>
>
> So in summary, if you're a Max hacker or write your own applications,
>
> it is possible to do everything Live does and more but it will take
>
> some work.   This will work well for controlling Mobius since
>
> the architecture is fairly close to Live.  But the fun part
>
> will be making pulsating light shows :)
>
>
>
> Jeff
>
>



-- 
Art Simon
simart@gmail.com
myspace [dot] com/artsimon