![]() This then assigns the eight rotaries to the primary controls on whatever Ableton or third party instruments or effect plug-ins you have assigned to each Live track. Like Drum Mode you use the Shift key (now arguably becoming the most important key on the unit) and then select it via the fourth pad. The pads light up in the colour of the drum rack track you have selected and go green when you play them, or turn red once recorded.Īnother great feature on Launckey Mini is the Device option. Holding the Shift button allows you to leave Session mode and enter Drum mode – by simultaneously pressing the third pad along from the top left – which then allows you to use the velocity-sensitive pads to play whatever kit you have loaded onto a Live track. Recording is as simple as hitting the red Record button and playing notes to record into a clip while a Capture MIDI function lets you record any recently played MIDI notes in the record-armed track into a track, even if Record wasn’t armed. Using Shift again and either the big Play button – which is also used to launch Scenes or rows of clips – or Stop/Solo/Mute button will move the 2×8 grid representing what clips Launchkey controls up or down. Hitting the Shift key will select the secondary arrow function of four buttons to the right of the main 16 pads, which let you navigate around the rest of your session. There are a variety of ways to navigate around Live using the controller. Hit the button again and the row of pads will light up blue allowing you to solo each and finally, hit it again and they will light yellow, allowing you to mute each track. Press this once and the row of eight pads lights red hit one and it will dim, indicating that the track will stop (or is stopped). There’s also a Stop/ Solo/ Mute button to toggle between those options per track. Select whatever track you want with the lower key, and hit the lit upper pad to launch a clip. Launchkey enters Session mode and displays the arrangement of clips of whatever tune loads up across its pads, and the Play button plays them. Happily, we are approaching 2020 so it is simply a matter of plugging Lunchkey Mini in, it powering by USB, loading Live up and off you go. Back in the day, I used to hate testing controllers as they would inevitably involve some kind of download or update, some wrestling with preferences and knobs producing notes and keys producing nothing. ![]() Having said that, you might not need instructions to get Launchkey up and running. ![]() You’ll have to wrestle a little with a drop down menu setup on the Novation website (just select All Downloads and you’ll get it). You don’t, however – as is usual these days, I guess – get an instruction manual. There’s little else in the box – just a USB cable – but you do get an impressive software bundle, including packs from Softube (Time and Tone), and AAS (Session Bundle) plus Spitfire’s Audio LABS, Ableton Live Lite, XLN Audio Addictive Keys and membership to Novation’s Sound Collective. It’s therefore easy to carry around and a nice little controller to partner with Laptop Livers, of which there are a great many. The rest of the unit fits in with Novation’s latest sleek aesthetic – black and cool, rather than the dark grey of the original – and the unit is light in weight but feels pretty durable. Hardware with proper keys seems to be going out of fashion so I’m glad to get something with moving parts here! The mini keyboard is just that, a little spongy but perfectly playable, especially compared to the slew of cheap plastic synths and other products that I am getting that now all seem to feature touch strips. Like the original, you get 16 multi-coloured pads, buttons (including Octave and Transport controls) and eight rotaries, but now you also get touch pitch-bend and modulations strips.
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