Novation LAUNCHPAD: new dedicated controller for Live!!!

[pawcut]

hi hi , hello everybody , im the new kid in town. im using ni 's machine with ableton, im new to ableton and like to know what people think i should get to control live. apc 40 or launchpad

with machine i already got a groovebox with swing & note repeat features (no midi cc-export sucks), so i thought i'll be good with the launchpad plus perhaps the novation vst -contr.
am i missing sth important on the akai, i'll have double my budget for that and im quite happy with machine as groovebox ( aaaah the pad sensivity)

[davepermen]

What seems like a really useful feature on the Launchpad that I haven't seen on any other controller is in the Mixer mode where you can reset volume/pan/sends settings (per track or for all tracks) to default settings, not to mention disabling arm/mute/solo/stop (per track or for all tracks):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pQ2f_T6K3g

i'd love to be able to toggle send from 0 to 100% and back, that would be perrrfect...

what, like using a mute button?

i said toggle SEND. so i can reroute dynamically by just pressing around on the launchpad.

[hybridjosto]

just put my order in, I can't believe they are so cheap. lets hope they are good quality too.

[rikhyray]

Someone actually tried it here
http://www.thebreakdown.co.uk/2009/10/0 ... he-launch/

[$4mU3l]

just put my order in, I can't believe they are so cheap. lets hope they are good quality too.

Me too... From November 2nd this board will be divided in two parties... The apc's and the lp's.

[delicioso]

hi hi , hello everybody , im the new kid in town. im using ni 's machine with ableton, im new to ableton and like to know what people think i should get to control live. apc 40 or launchpad

Maschine + Launchpad will be a sick combo. I already have Maschine which already has a "mackie" template for Live to control Live devices. An APC40 will be redundant and a waste of space for me.

[stealthbopper]

My only concern is that it seems I'm becoming preoccupied with the next exciting controller and it's distracting me from music-making (er.. that's what it's all about isn't it?)

[bendybones]

Looks very cool.
Someone already mentioned this but I'm also concerned about whether I'll be able to see the difference between the non-red colours.
My colour blindness is red-green type. The most common, I believe.
It would be nice if this was considered more often in design considerations.
Especially as LED feedback seems to be becoming more popular in controllers.

I'll have to get my hands on one to know for sure (which unfortunately, in Ireland, means buying one from abroad).

Also it is a bit of a pity about the position of the USB port considering their daisy-chain-ability.
Other than that, great price and a cheap, accessible way to emulate monome!!!

[hoffman2k]

Looks very cool.
Someone already mentioned this but I'm also concerned about whether I'll be able to see the difference between the non-red colours.
My colour blindness is red-green type. The most common, I believe.
It would be nice if this was considered more often in design considerations.
Especially as LED feedback seems to be becoming more popular in controllers.

I'll have to get my hands on one to know for sure (which unfortunately, in Ireland, means buying one from abroad).

Also it is a bit of a pity about the position of the USB port considering their daisy-chain-ability.
Other than that, great price and a cheap, accessible way to emulate monome!!!

For the grid you get Red, Blue, Bright Green, Yellow, Orange and Pink rectangles. Depending on which of the 6 remote control surface slots you assign the launchpad to.
A color working for you really depends on the skin you're using. Though I imagine it be hard to miss the pink one in any skin.

[Android Bishop]

Looks very cool.
Someone already mentioned this but I'm also concerned about whether I'll be able to see the difference between the non-red colours.
My colour blindness is red-green type. The most common, I believe.
It would be nice if this was considered more often in design considerations.
Especially as LED feedback seems to be becoming more popular in controllers.

I'll have to get my hands on one to know for sure (which unfortunately, in Ireland, means buying one from abroad).

Also it is a bit of a pity about the position of the USB port considering their daisy-chain-ability.
Other than that, great price and a cheap, accessible way to emulate monome!!!

For the grid you get Red, Blue, Bright Green, Yellow, Orange and Pink rectangles. Depending on which of the 6 remote control surface slots you assign the launchpad to.
A color working for you really depends on the skin you're using. Though I imagine it be hard to miss the pink one in any skin.

I think he's more concerned about the LEDs on the buttons of the launchpad itself and his inability to differentiate between green buttons and red ones

[djsynchro]

Also it is a bit of a pity about the position of the USB port considering their daisy-chain-ability.
Other than that, great price and a cheap, accessible way to emulate monome!!!

From the review:

Once it was hooked up Steve mentioned it does come with a right angled USB adapter if needed so your USB cable isn’t sticking right out of the side and would be sticking up leaving space for another unit to live adjacent to it.

Pretty kewl.
Sux with the colourblindness dude! Maybe you/someone can whip up a Max patch where you get your info from how fast an LED blinks?

[djsynchro]

...

[hoffman2k]

Looks very cool.
Someone already mentioned this but I'm also concerned about whether I'll be able to see the difference between the non-red colours.
My colour blindness is red-green type. The most common, I believe.
It would be nice if this was considered more often in design considerations.
Especially as LED feedback seems to be becoming more popular in controllers.

I'll have to get my hands on one to know for sure (which unfortunately, in Ireland, means buying one from abroad).

Also it is a bit of a pity about the position of the USB port considering their daisy-chain-ability.
Other than that, great price and a cheap, accessible way to emulate monome!!!

For the grid you get Red, Blue, Bright Green, Yellow, Orange and Pink rectangles. Depending on which of the 6 remote control surface slots you assign the launchpad to.
A color working for you really depends on the skin you're using. Though I imagine it be hard to miss the pink one in any skin.

I think he's more concerned about the LEDs on the buttons of the launchpad itself and his inability to differentiate between green buttons and red ones

Ah my bad. Long day and read with a half eye.
Bendybones should probably look into the Ohm64 or an Arduinome. Either could possibly be built with a custom preference of color. And the Arduinome can be RGB.
I don't think you'll see an RGB unit mass produced like the launchpad soon, but I would definitely love more colors.
Currently there are 4 colors, each with 3 levels of intensity. Though 2 of those colors are Amber and Orange which may be hard to tell apart.

[delicioso]

I'm also concerned about whether I'll be able to see the difference between the non-red colours.
My colour blindness is red-green type. The most common, I believe.
It would be nice if this was considered more often in design considerations.
Especially as LED feedback seems to be becoming more popular in controllers.

For color blind folks, one alternative is to use NI Maschine which has an Ableton mode for navigating the session view matrix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9RC0lkJsto
It has orange leds for the pads which lights up when a clip is loaded, blinks when it is playing, and is off when there are no clips.

[bendybones]

Don't lknow much bout electronics (yet) so...
for the pads to give 3 diff colours does that mean that there are 3 different LEDs for each pad?
Or is it something like a single LED per pad being sent a different 'frequency'.
In either case, how possible would it be to swap them out for LEDs that can do, say, blue instead of one of the non-red colours?

Maschine's 'blinking' feedback is good, altho the unit is a bit pricey.
Maybe that kind of handling of the feedback could be implemented with M4L...