Ableton Forum

Nektar has introduced the Impact LX49+ and LX61+ USB MIDI controllers for iOS, Mac OS X, Windows & Linux.

The controllers offer custom integration with Bitwig, Cubase, Digital Performer, FL Studio, GarageBand, Logic, Nuendo, Reaper, Reason, Sonar and Studio One.

Notable absence.

Its weird.

The designer / manufacturer demos Bigwig around the world....

It's a snub...

Cheers
D

So, Ableton doesn't allow them access because they demo Bitwig, or the other way around?
I'm confused.

My guess, and it's purely that is that it's the other way round... Bitwig dictate...

Cheers
D

That seems very unlikely to me - even based on purely monetary grounds, business development reasons, or even inter-personal reasons. I don't believe it. Bitwig is a very small company with a small footprint and as such hold very little sway over what other affiliates do or don't do.

As an affiliate relationship they've offered each other support such as sharing expensive booths, promotions etc. But it seems very unlikely that Bitwig have the financial clout required to dictate terms to Nektar, or that Bitwig somehow own Nektar and that they dont want to make money from Ableton? Note: selling into your competitors marketplace is GOOD, see Apple/ Microsoft.

Ableton Live has a huge market base, and it's very music-tech based (as apposed to the DAWs targetting the guitar band market) - so Ableton forms a huge potential market for any dedicated controllers. To Nektar I'd estimate the potential market value of Ableton users is perhaps 100 times that of Bitwig.

It would be like saying "If you want to sell Nektar in Belgium then I don't want you to sell Nektar to the USA. In fact snub the largest market so you can never sell there". It's not logical, in business people are generally pragmatic, and people like money.

Do Bitwig determine trading terms to their affiliates? Occam's razor suggests not

Additionally - While am not party to the grievances of past or present Ableton employees, I do assume they all maintain a cordial or at least a businesslike relationship based simply on the fact that they are logical businesspeople who all know each other well and AFAIK see each other around Berlin!

I would hope that the reason for no Nektar support is purely technical.

I would concur, that's a compelling Argument... There can only be so many hours in the day I imagine and supporting Ableton must be a full time job...

Cheers
D

S4racen wrote:supporting Ableton must be a full time job...

you mean supporting the ever changing API, and small developers trying to make sure their products stay working as Ableton developers neglect to inform them of the gotchas between X.x.3 and X.x.4 which then revert in X.x.5



yeah, who would want that job!
eh?

IMHO Nektar doesn't like Ableton Live at all. I've been waiting in vain for Live support for two years now. I'm not expecting it anytime soon.

I just recently bought the Impact LX88+. I knew they don't support Ableton that well as some other software, but as I mainly planned to use it for practicing piano it seemed kinda good bang for a buck. And as it has knobs and faders I was hoping to use them as well, just a generic MIDI controller. Otherwise I would have picked a cheaper M-Audio keystation 88. But I can't get the knobs/faders working. They seem to be custom mapped and I cannot change it.

I am perfectly happy to map them one by one in every project, but it doesn't seem to be possible.

I am using Live 6.0.11. Yes, it's old, but generic functions should still work, correct?

The Nektar Pacer seems to support Live according to their website. Nektar dont have a logo for Live along with the other daw logos showing support.
This makes me think that they do have an affiliation with Bitwig like the second poster says.

https://nektartech.com/pacer-midi-daw-f ... ontroller/

Almost every DAW is compatible with MCU including Ableton Live, FL Studio, Pro Tools or Sonar.

I dont know how great the support is. I plan on buying the pacer soon so I will report back.

Well, as far as I undertsand the good support they offer to other software means that the keyboard is automatically mapped to the DAW so that you can control everything with your board and don't have to waste time for mapping the controls etc.

But the controls should still be mappable even without that support. Just that then you must map every knob and button manually one by one. Which would be totally fine with me.

I can see the MIDI signal coming in when I turn knobs for example. I just can't (re)map them. It's like they are locked or something.

Solved.

All I had to do was switch on "Remote" option for the Impact under Live's MIDI settings.

I'm pretty sure it is Ableton that don't allow Nektar "in" to allow the deeper integration seen in other daws. Considering the very rudimentary integration, mapping, and customisation options offered for Ableton's own customers on the Push 2 after all these years, I'm not surprised.

tokintmash wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:49 pm

Solved.

All I had to do was switch on "Remote" option for the Impact under Live's MIDI settings.

Annnnnd... how did you do that? I can't figure it out.

dna598 wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:59 am

I'm pretty sure it is Ableton that don't allow Nektar "in" to allow the deeper integration seen in other daws.

This is what Nektar support has told me but hinted there were some "possibilities" on the horizon.

The MCU functionality added to recent Nektar products like Pacer and Panorama T is an end run, since Live does implement some of the MCU protocol but far from all of it...no device control, no sends.

I use a Panorama P6 for Logic, I would not recommend anyone considering Nektar only for use with Live. Maybe this will change someday, I am not holding my breath.