Ableton Forum

Hidden Driveways wrote: If you want a drumpad controller, buy a drumpad controller. If you want a Session View grid lauchner, get a Launchpad.

Agreed, by the sounds of it a PadKontrol or something along these lines would suit you quite well.

APC40 rocks!

See my post "abandoning APC 40" I think you are in a similar boat as me. I purchased Maschine. Check it out. Sounds like it is exactly what you are looking for as well. I should be a spokesman for NI. I haven't been this excited since I got laid the first time and that was a long time ago...

Captain Johnson wrote:APC40 rocks!

+1! Best Control Surface I ever had. To me, its an Ableton Control Surface with a DJ/Dub approach.
You need Native Kontrol presets though. Otherwise its not really much different from other Controllers.

The Native Kontrol presets forces the APC into running the Live GUI in a logic way.
I really don't understand why they didn't focus on this in the first place. But its the same old story, isn't it. The controller developers never seem to care about its usability. Still, its the closest so far, hence its the best Ive had.


Bold statement, but: The designers doesn't seem to have payed much attention to Lives GUI.
Whats wrong with just mirroring the Live Session GUI into hardware, and keeping the size ratio of all the elements, and their placements? Clips are not squeres, they are rectangles! Scroll bars could be thin sensor strips on the sides and bottom. Knobs could be where the Live GUI sends are. With a shift function, they could double as device controls. Volume fade's could also be sensor strips with led feedback, like Stanton System 3. What you see is what you get! The fades would always mirror the GUI. On the APC you never know where they are at, unless you look at the screen.
http://www.enterthesystem.com/system3/

ze2be wrote:Bold statement, but: The designers doesn't seem to have payed much attention to Lives GUI.
Whats wrong with just mirroring the Live Session GUI into hardware, and keeping the size ratio of all the elements, and their placements? Clips are not squeres, they are rectangles!

I've always wondered why we haven't seen a hardware controller for Session View that actually looked like the software. It would be the ultimate philosophical statement piece for Ableton's GUI designers. They didn't want to make software that looked like hardware. Their idea clicked and eventually hardware was made to look like their software.

ze2be wrote: Scroll bars could be thin sensor strips on the sides and bottom.

Eh... okay...

ze2be wrote: Volume fade's could also be sensor strips with led feedback, like Stanton System 3. What you see is what you get! The fades would always mirror the GUI. On the APC you never know where they are at, unless you look at the screen.

Boo! I love real faders. Motorized FTW!

Despite all the APC-40 talk, I'm leaning towards the PadKontrol and have an opportunity to get one cheap. My one concern is that the pads are crappy and cheap and no good in the long run. My Nanopad suffered from this. Often the pads stuck. Is the PadKontrol any better?

Hidden Driveways wrote:Boo! I love real faders. Motorized FTW!

Yes, but is it realistic? It would double the price, easily.

ze2be wrote:Bold statement, but: The designers doesn't seem to have payed much attention to Lives GUI.
Whats wrong with just mirroring the Live Session GUI into hardware, and keeping the size ratio of all the elements, and their placements? Clips are not squeres, they are rectangles! Scroll bars could be thin sensor strips on the sides and bottom. Knobs could be where the Live GUI sends are. With a shift function, they could double as device controls. Volume fade's could also be sensor strips with led feedback, like Stanton System 3. What you see is what you get! The fades would always mirror the GUI. On the APC you never know where they are at, unless you look at the screen.
http://www.enterthesystem.com/system3/

sounds like the way live and the lemur integrate soon.

PLacidBasilisk wrote: My one concern is that the pads are crappy and cheap and no good in the long run. My Nanopad suffered from this. Often the pads stuck. Is the PadKontrol any better?

i believe the nanopad is lower quality. Reading about the controller suggested the pk had the best pads for its pricepoint. In any case i have used one for around two years as my primary live performance control. Nothing has failed and the velocity sensitivity is unchanged. It's also really easy to edit the midi configuration. If ableton hadn't decided to protect the session 'red box' with akai and novation dongles i would not have bought a launchpad

Wow quite alot bad feedback towards this,

I was considering getting one.

I'd be mainly using it for DJing do you think its worth the cash, I mean the layout of it isnt tradional like rottery faders above the line faders I'd need at least a 3 EQ (hi, mid, low) set up for 4 channels.

Waste of cash for me or worth consdering?

cheers

JB

i have a launchpad. i don't use it really ever. doesn't fit my workflow at all.

I will try to answer most questions (only my point of view) :

Pad kontrol got the best VELOCITY sensitive pads, they got multiple sensors on each pad...and very good quality, not the nano crap

This is for drums, not the APC40 or launchpad

If you want a cheap good pad, try the LPD 8 from akai : a tank...

If you are in the session view clip triggering, launchpad is the best price/features ratio

You can add the two controllers below for more control :

if you want a cheap DJ like controller , get the Novation Nocturn (not keyboard) and use the free Guille's script on this forum
You will get automap, crossfader, clip launching with visual feedback...and more

Without crossfader, you can use a nanokontrol with free Myralfur's script, and you get clip launching without visual feedback, but you get more buttons and pots than Nocturn

You can even get the two

I'm more in "get multiple controlers" than a big one

Jonny B wrote:Wow quite alot bad feedback towards this,

I was considering getting one.

I'd be mainly using it for DJing do you think its worth the cash, I mean the layout of it isnt tradional like rottery faders above the line faders I'd need at least a 3 EQ (hi, mid, low) set up for 4 channels.

Waste of cash for me or worth consdering?

cheers

JB

in all honesty, for traditional style DJing it could be a little awkward compare to some much cheaper options given the layout. To my mind it's much better suited for playing live. Sounds like you need more knobs that are hard wired to parameters. Once you start hard wiring the APC40 knobs it gets to the point where you're not really getting what you payed for imho.

Mirroring some responses here....

I reckon if you're not using session view the APC40 might be a little awkward perhaps? I don't really use arrange view a great deal, tbh.

I have both apc and padkontrol, both great controllers but not really all that comparable in what they are designed to do.

Given you don't want to play live, I'd probably suggest getting a combo like padkontrol for all your launching and rhythmic stuff, and novation nocturn for parameter control.

You can get a degree of control surface action out of both of them with a little ground work. APC might give you all that out of the box, but it will never be particularly useful for drumming since it's not velocity sensitive. I love the feel of the padkontrol pads btw.

Other thing to consider with the padkontrol is that a lot of its appeal (for me anyway) is in its programming capabilities. This is fantastic for live use. I think studio use tends to be a bit more ad-hoc though, and you tend to assign things here and there as you need them - so maybe a cheaper drumpad controller without as much programing capability might be better value for you? Like those little akai units? I believe the build quality is a few steps above that of the nano series.