Not at all. For me, my Launchpad + Nocturn + nanoKontrol + usb keypad setup is still more capable, more flexible, and still more portable/all usb-powered compared to APC40.Hidden Driveways wrote:This thread is missing the point of the APC40. The beauty of the APC40 is not only the auto-mapped controls, but also the labeled chassis. I love having a dedicated & labeled button for the metronome. Etc etc etc etc. Plug in, ready to go, done. Yes, the APC40 is big, but, with its exclusive auto-map handshake features the current answer to this equation is:
X + Launchpad = X + Launchpad
It's just a more customizable setup for those who want to do more than what comes with the APC40. I have my nanokontrol set up to have the first 2 scenes automap to arm, volume, solo, trigger, pan for 1 - 16 tracks. The 8 knobs of the 3rd scene instant automaps to any selected device in Live. The 8 top buttons for the 3rd scene also selects tracks. That leaves the remaining controls in scene 3 and 4 to be mapped to any dedicated controls and labeled using 1/4" paper tape. So I have 18 buttons between scenes 3 and 4 which essentially gives me 27 buttons that are labeled (color coded between scenes 3 & 4). I have those buttons mapped and labeled for things like track left, track right, device left, device right, device on/off, add audio track, add midi track, hide/show in/out, freeze track, flatten, slice to midi, consolidate, select loop (I have this working in session view not just arrangement), scroll, zoom, different grid sizes...etc. with a little help from an awesome utility called QuicKeys that is always on and stays out of the way with minimal CPU usage.
And I have my usb keypad customized with Controllermate and labeled as such: undo, redo, delete, duplicate, copy, cut, paste, shift tab, insert scene, insert captured scene, add midi clip, metronome, tap tempo...etc. And with Num Lock on, the arrows act as alt+arrow, and revert to regular arrows with Num Lock off.
Nocturn provides things like Quantize, pitch transpose (for both audio AND midi clips), loop start and loop length which work without having to select the loop, tempo, scrub, clip scrub...etc. It can also do a lot of the same stuff that nanoKontrol can like transport, triggering, selecting tracks, instant automapping to macros..etc so it allows for more flexible workflow. Not to mention Novation Automap itself for all third party plugins.
My point being, APC40 is still far less capable as it is and way more bulky than I like. It doesn't even come close to what I have going on with Launchpad + Nocturn + nanoKontrol + usb keypad. In other words, there's nothing that I cannot do with my setup that APC40 while the reverse is just not true.
