Mapping Novation Launch-ControlXL

[aklisiewicz]

Any recommendations for scripts or tools to map Lanuch-ControlXL ?
I tried the scripts from ISOTONIC STUDIO (with Live9). I worked somewhat OK, but then I upgraded to Live10 and it did not work anymore. I just purchased an upgrade of this same script but it is not working at all. That have added some installation program and some new methods of configuring it, whe user has no control of where the stuff gets installed or how and I ended up with nothing working. Asked Isotonic for help but all I got was a bunch of questions which (when answered did not help in any way). They claimed nobody has problems but me, so I just ended up in a dead end with this. No more Isotonic Studio LaunchControlXL.

Now I'm looking for some alternative, either to purchase PRESONUS interface or getting Novation to work the way I want. My Main concern is to program the knobs into one instrument at the time so when I switch among tracks I can have my knobs change their assignments.
I have found a way to do this but it is to slow and time consuming (which is Saving the preset). Novation seem to be very limited in the software and I am surprised they still did not develop better software (despite they promised to do this when I purchased the device 2 years ago).

I also used in the past a product for M4L called ULTIMAP which was excellent but for some reason the developer dropped it and there are some bugs which have not been fixed. This was however one of the best M4L plugins I have ever seen. I wish this tool is back for sale...

I am not very anxious to spend $1k on a Presonus because I care mostly for the knobs to control-automate the sound, but if there is no other choice I would do that. I was also considering Behringer but this device with knobs is sooo obsolete,...

If you guys have ideas and concepts, please share so we can figure this out.

[jestermgee]

No more Isotonic Studio (no so much because of the product not working, but because support sucks).

Seems no matter which company you deal with, support with every company "sux". If only there was something common between all these encounter

[yur2die4]

It sounds like you’re trying to do a lot at once, or have great expectations, when there is actually a lot of work involved. So much work that you are perhaps not willing to do that work because the payoff might not actually be as great as how you imagine.

You do not need to be always able to control any and every parameter of every device just because it’s theoretically possible. It’s not worth the effort really. And even if you got to that point, it’d be very difficult to remember what does what on your controller.

It’d be a good idea to write down a super basic formula. And accept that some functions might be easier to control either with a mouse or just mapped ‘in the moment’ rather than buried in a myriad of complex controls.

Make some basic decisions. Decide on a few favorite plugins/devices. Decide how much control you Really need at any given moment... if any at all. And maybe only control what you need to control in the moments you need to, simply by mapping them real quick in that set.

The Launch Control XL does have a lot of encoders and faders. And buttons. But it’s hardly a device that gives a lot of feedback. You don’t see the details of what you’re controlling. And on that particular device, you never will. So you need to keep it kind of simple. Don’t let the technical thrills stop you from being musically expressive and creative.

[aklisiewicz]

thanks for replying. Yes - for the most part I agree with you, and I do not think I overcomplicating this. I created some settings for 2-3 commonly used plugins. I mapped them and save them. I have similar setup for knobs for all 3 plugins, so I can use the same template on XL. The problem arise when I need to recall the setup in Live. I can for example keep the same template and switch among plugin1, 2 and 3 but then I would like to have those same encoders assigned to different parameters.
I do not need 128 of them so no need to use banks. 24 parameters for me is sufficient and most likely I will use only up to 16. So it is not an issue with using to many knobs but rather how to make them automatically assigned when I switch the track.

Another annoying drawback of XL is that I never know which track is selected. The is especially painful when I scroll Left/Right through the tracks. There is a tiny message shown at the bottom of the screen which on my monitor is unreadable (unless I put my face really, really close). ( I use 4K monitors).
In Live9 and XL script from Isotonic I have had this nice red frame moving through the grid showing selected tracks. I asked Novation to implement this by default, and they promised to do so, but obviously after 2 yrs they did not.

The need for the encoders is base often on a type of music one creates. If somebody deals with the orchestral type of sound, most of the time will almost not need them in contrary to one who works with ambient or electronic sounds.

I was quite happy with M4L ULTIMAP plugins until M$L released newer version and this plugin stopped working as expected throwing lots of errors. I contacted the developer, but they seem to abandoned Ultimap (that's a pity). I could do all the things I mentioned plus many more with this brilliant tool. If somebody uses Live 9 it will still work and I strongly recommend.

https://malcevic.wixsite.com/tekknology ... ap-modular
Perhaps somebody could take over this plugin and improve it. I paid for it , but I noticed right now it is FREE !


I'm not very familiar with controllers, encoders etc, so perhaps there is something I'm missing and the whole thing might be easier than I think. Perhaps I overcomplicated because I have not much experience with controllers,..

I was just looking today at this ClyphX M4L plugin and it looks interesting. I wonder if anybody used it to have implemented features I just mentioned ?

[Greenapples2019]

ClyphX Pro is great and opens up a world of possibilities with the LCXL. I have one User mode on mine set up so that the knob rows 2 and 3 control the first two macros on whichever track is selected, and then use one of the track buttons to switch to where row 3 controls the macro on the Master channel, irrespective of which track is selected.

ClyphX Pro also makes it easy to change the User modes, control the lights etc., and a whole lot more.

[S4racen]

No more Isotonic Studio (no so much because of the product not working, but because support sucks).

Seems no matter which company you deal with, support with every company "sux". If only there was something common between all these encounter

Well, when we support we ask questions of the end user to establish what they have done, this helps us understand if any steps have been skipped. We provided this particular gentleman support during the weekend when most companies would've simply ignored the request.

When it became obvious that there was no seemingly way that this interaction was satisfactory we refunded the purchase.

Cheers
D

[Mark Williams]

Yeah the OP is hard work indeed, I dont even bother replying or helping him anymore either here or in NI forums.

[jestermgee]

Well, when we support we ask questions of the end user to establish what they have done, this helps us understand if any steps have been skipped. We provided this particular gentleman support during the weekend when most companies would've simply ignored the request.

When it became obvious that there was no seemingly way that this interaction was satisfactory we refunded the purchase.

Cheers
D

I know you have dealt with the OP a number of times over the years, like most of us, and not just here, but same attitude on every forum and I would also assume, with every support person. Then after the following I bet he wonders why no one is interested to help...

For context for new users googling the issue is not with the Isotonic products at all, it is more than likely user error as it has been for 15 years and to say the tone reflects a broken record is an understatement. This is a lesson on how to NOT go about getting help and pushing for change...

I use Live for about 2 years. At the begining Ableton customer support was excelent, but after 2 years I would say it sucks!

I have very bad experience with the support team. It takes usually about a week for someone to respond and quite often there is no response at all.
I would say - THIS SUCKS !!!

Live licensing policy really sucks! I wonder if other people have the same problem, because what I have experienced is the most stupid thing one could do to this software.

I can say Ableton customer support SUCKS! Perhaps other people have more luck, but I am ready to ask Ableton for a refund, because believe - for around $1000 I paid for the product I'm entitled to fair support without being stuck for number of days with no help.

I was working on this project yesterday and today when I want to open it it crashes Live. On top of that to hit up a frustration it takes about 5 minutes to completely release Live from my RAM, so I can restart it again. This is a real pain on the but!

Wanted to post LOG file, but this forum doesn't allow me to do this because there is a message limit (which sucks!), so I will post it in reply.....

I do not understand why Ableton uses such crappy fonts. Please od not advise me to change screen resolution or change Windows settings. It messes up the entire system and then my other fonts are to big. I need particulary change fonts only in LIVE
I just made an upgrade from Live7 TO 9.6 and I'm very disapointed.

I just want to publicly share my opinion about ABLETON activation policy which the most anoying I have evr seen, and I really want it to change. Recantly I had to remove a suer from my Windows/XP (due to the problems with running some software under particular account). I'm still the only one person to use this computer.
After recreating my Windows account all of the sudden I've lost my license and activation data. It is a weekend now and I new to use the software. Obviously I cannot because this stupid program refuses to run asking me for activation.
The way it works is a nonsense and I really hate it.

I send my email to whatever address is presented on your website. Never ever heard about any "crashers email". And YES ABLETON SUPORT SUCKS! Why? Because every time I write a public message one of the tech.reps says "...Yes we would like to help you resolve the issue", then later everything goes back to wehre it was.

ALL NE LIVE POTANTIAL CUSTOMERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS SITUATION AND ABLETON CUSTOMER CARE IS REALLY BAD THEESE DAYS.

ABLETON - I'm asking you guys WTF is wrong with you ? Why customer pays you $1000+ and has to go through such a horror. I asked you to give me my a refund and get money back and you refused. I asked you for a better product and support - you giving me garbage!

The bottom line for potential users is - THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU BUY BECAUSE WHAT ABLETON IS TODAY IS DEFINITELY NOT WHAT IST WAS 5-6 YEARS AGO. This is a very sad story.

Let me put it straight. I use number of other forums and many of them are based on phpBB (like this one). None of the admins has problem with IMAGES, AUDIO fiels or PDF files posted directly into the forum.
IT IS LAZINESS OF THIS FORUM ADMIN not to allow those simple features. That fact that I need some web hosting just to post links to my images here simply tells my that Ableton Forum Admin is really not up to the task of being administrator. No matter how well you protect it there is always risk of security but people who know what they doing know how to protect their system in case of hacking or failure.

I WANT THOSE FEATURES IMPLEMENTED or I WANT VOTE FOR A NEW FORUM ADMIN - period!

Just to let others know - NI support is just terrible and the way the software is designed is very very poor.

Upgraded to Live9 six months ago. Still cannot us this software as expected. Mouse issues have been reported many many times. No resolution so far. ABLETON - for me at this stage your product simply SUSKS!

I posted numerous messages on the forum and to the support about this issue. LIVE9 on 4k monitors simply SUCKS!
What pisses me off is fact that after 6 months (since I reported this) they did nothing! For the most part I'm not able to see (because those fckn fonts are so small), and even if I use ZOOM feature then my mouse is not working on sliders, knobs and rezizing the view. I don't know WHF is going on with this company but I'm completely frustrated. Although the plugins do not resize I have no problem using mouse on plugins (just in Live9).
We simply really need to scream at loud so they do something about it. This product should have warning when sold: "LIVE 9 IS NOT DESIGNED TO WORK ON 4K MONITORS"
If I would see it I would not pay for an upgrade. Just wasted my money for this crap!

I just purchased OMINISPHERE 2 and I cannot install it. the installer crashes the moment I click the last button (Install). I hope I get some support from the company but it's weekend and I hoped to play with the instruent for 2 days. Instead I'm stuck and I really hate the fact that many companies do not offer help on weekends. This is also true for Ableton.

purchased Omni2 and not to happy. Customer Support sucks. There is about 20-30% of patches where one is just copy of another one with minimal changes (what a shame). Mapping problems and many of the patches seem to sound great simply because extra reverb added. I just build super powerful PC and some patches (multis) cannot be even used along with other Ableton tracks because CPU just chockes on it.
I'm mostly interested in ambient sounds, pads, effects etc so it really does not fit me. Yes sound design features and importing samples sounds great but it takes humongous amount of time and many people would rather find patches that are close to their needs instead of spending countless hours to design the sound they need. Also have some issues with mouse wheel not working at times, assigning patches to projects, using tags.
My main complain though is the fact which I just discovered after 2 weeks that they had put so many almost identical patches. If you go to PADS-STRINGS you will find at least 50+ patches which sound almost identical. What a crap!

When Live crashes quite often the EXE file remains in memory (windows-10/64). With Live 7 it was usually about 2 min to get the EXE rmoved from RAM. Now with Live 9 it takes about 5 min (which my super fast PC). In some cases I cannot even shut it down completely and need to reboot. This really sucks

Sometimes I post something about a problem and a bit later fix the issue. This is so obvious to be able to delete it. Why you blocking so many features. I use tons of other forums and comparing to others this one (technically) simply SUCKS! because of the insane admin limitations. PERIOD

your responsed are nonsense.
I'm not going to send you message every time I need to remove something...
You want to keep crap - that's you problem not mine...
Every year you people at Ableton become more and more ignorant

LIVE licensing sucks! PERIOD.
I have many other programs installed on this same PC and have no problem using them for any user account, so YOU NEED TO CHANGE THIS POLICY BECAUSE I PAID FOR LICENSE PER COMPUTER NOT A USER !

3. I do not need IT person to hire because I'm IT myself but this was an expression how complicated you made everything for your users. Live files as well as plugins are scattered everywhere and that makes working with adjustments and add-ons super inconvenient.

4. When I access different WINDOWS accounts there is no even LIVE icon. Lib paths are lost, settings are lost,...it all sucks.
I do not know WTF is going on with Ableton but definitely something is wrong with you and your software. It becomes worse every year,... and month....

5. The problem with stuck notes persist and nothing has been fixed. I tried different interface configuations (also those suggested by Ableton) and it did not help. Despite people were asking and asking and asking to get more slots for devices in settings you did not implement it in Live10. I need more slots in MIDI settings! What am I supposed to do ? swap cables ? >:-(

6. I sent requests to reset activation counter and you ignore it. IT TAKES SOMETIMES THREE TIMES (three messages) for you to finally do it.
If you call it "customer support" ? I JUST SAY POOR JOKE! YOUR SUPPORT SUCKS!

7. You website is horrible, one of the worst I could find on-line. Requesting help brings me to the Login screen (even if I'm already logged in).

Yous website is mess, poor design and looks like from DOS era (1970's). I WANT TO BE ABLE TO RESET MY COUNTER ON THE STE (especially during the weekends).

8. I have stuck notes issue (for example) in OMNISPHERE. I called them and spend lots of time with their support on the phone. They said there is no problem with the Omnisphere.........

I have problem placing MP3 file into the timeline. No issues with WAV. I went throguh Ableton messages on the site and did couple things (i.w. installing Quick Time, CODEC etc) but no success.
Aleton support sucks. I have sent messages and after a week no response

You - ADMIN seem to be completely out of this world! I report a problem to the company, I report the problem on the forum. Initially nice and polite (this was few years ago) and the problem is ignorred. Then I ask for help on the forum and nobody seems to have the solution. I ask Ableton again and again and again and finally I get pissed off !

so what you expect me to do ? sing a song how happy I am with ABLETON support - which ignores the problem ?

I SIMPLY CANNOT DO ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE BECAUSE OF THE PROBLEM AND YOU JUST SAY SHUT UP ?
Yessss, I'm pissed of, but not on the forum, or you but the company who does not care ! I am your customer since Live-5
Do you really, really want me to go and purchase another DAW and rant Ableton for the rest of my life ? Is that what you want ?

Everybody has a limits of patience. Yes I post about the same problem because I need help and I need to fix it, so what is unusuall with that ?

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ? WHAT ???
If you would want to help you would go and talk to Ableton support and ask them do do something. Instead you just showing your ignorance, and threatening me How many unhappy customers you created this way ? Do you think your post helps in any way ? NO

I used EW Composer Cloud for some time. Their Customer Support is the worst on the planet and basically they did not even respond to my tickets. PLAY VST has some problems and after few months they were not even able to help me. Finally I cancelled the service. The whole idea is a joke, simply because they cannot handle the customer load.

I 've seen videos advising to install VOICE MASTER program which supposed to split that audio coming out of DAW, so it goes to the local speaker (or headphones) and simultaneously is toured to OBS. I can't however get this to work and see no other method because Windows audio routing suck!

WHAT KIND OF GARBAGE IS THIS ??????????????
THSI SUPPOSED TO BE A TRICK AND TIPS SECTION not a Q&A !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE PROBLEM:
I place Kontatk on Track1
I place External Instr. on Track2
When I want to route Kontakt through it the slot 1 is unavailable.(this is in the Audio From field). So the slots start from St.2, St3,....

However, on my other tracks created previously in the same set I do not have this problem. I do not know what affects this behavior but it really, really sucks ! I have not used KONTAKT routing for some time because of this problem as it takes so much time to deal when something goes wrong. Reported this to Ableton, but so far no fix.

I don't think even a Hoover can suck as much as apparently everyone on the planet.

[[erm]]

Hey all, if you don't want to help someone with their question that's fine, but we don't need to escalate things either please. The OP was warned about their ranting already and has been following the rules here since then, let's not make it worse again.

Thanks.

[S4racen]

Hey all, if you don't want to help someone with their question that's fine, but we don't need to escalate things either please. The OP was warned about their ranting already and has been following the rules here since then, let's not make it worse again.

Thanks.

Sorry, I was simply trying to address the balance on what is an obvious slur on my business, it would appear that thats ok to do in a public forum without any grounds so I'm thankful for the balance shown in the comments following.

Cheers
D

[sigabort]

genius. made my day.

[yur2die4]

There are generally three types of control mapping. Which makes it kind of confusing, especially when some are more beneficial in certain situations than others.

Standard mapping is when you turn on the midi map button, select a control on screen, and assign it directly to a control you have. This is good for quick situations where you need control of a few things without trying to wrap your head around other concepts. It’s also easy to map things from all over a set to a single controller. Probably the last thing you’re looking for but to be comprehensive, it’s mentioned. Also, if a controller in preferences is set for Remote, this will always override any other functions a controller has.

Next is ‘control surface’ control. Which is highly sought after for its convenience and allows you to control anything as long as you’ve selected it. Often there are factors that communicate directly with the program so your controller and Live both make sense with what they do when you use your controller via this method. It’s complex in that it can require a lot of deep programming and usually you’re kinda stuck with whatever is out there for better or worse.

Still, given many of the functions of Live itself, a lot of this stuff is made easier to control. Whether it be macros, or pulling parameters from plugins and sorting them. And Live 11 supporting a greater number of macros will be great.

It’s the method used for controller support, but also offers a number of methods for customization. Though, it gets extra messy if you try to use multiple control surface methods on the same controller, Or when you try to use the control surface method simultaneously with other midi control methods.

There is a third method that is actually quite nice, but it is more from the developers of the plugins rather than from Live itself. Within many (not necessarily all) plugins is a midi learn function. Plugins can only respond to this when a midi input is directly routed to that plugin (for instruments this is as easy as arming the channel. For fx plugins, this requires routing a new midi channel explicitly to that plugin and arming it).

This last method is actually really nice in some cases. The midi learn can be saved with the plugin itself instead of using Live for it. And it only listens when the channel is actually armed. Still, the only way to use this method is if the control is completely free, as in, not already committed to being used for control surface functionality, Or midi mapped.

At the end of it all, one must decide how much control of their devices they actually Need and Why they need that control. Something as simple as mixing can be really convenient. As you get deeper into things, it becomes a situation where you’re trying to adjust things that you would generally only be adjusting in a scenario that isn’t time-dependent. For live performance even, if something is over-complicated it can overwhelm the performer. For production, sometimes it’s easier just to use midi controllers on a case by case scenario rather than trying to force yourself to control things remotely...

... yeah, the idea of controlling things remotely makes our imaginations run wild. And yeah, that idea does sell a lot of gear and software haha. But if it’s getting too frustrating, perhaps take a step back and find solutions within your limitations.