Recording - February 2016 - 55

grid into a playable keyboard; Device
Mode allows for control of up to eight
parameters within the selected Live Device
(more on that below); and User Mode is a
"blank slate" for creating your own mappings.
Below the Shift, Click, and Undo buttons, four buttons are dedicated to common functions in Session View. You just
hold down the appropriate button and
touch the Clip you want to work with. The
functions include Delete, Quantise (and
why not? British company, British
spelling), Duplicate the selected Clip into
the slot below it (overwriting anything
that's already there), or Double the length
of a MIDI Clip. I found it extraordinary
how these four simple buttons sped up my
composition! Finally, a red Record button
is handy for starting recording, playback,
and punching in/out for MIDI overdubs.
Note Mode
In Note Mode, the grid becomes a
chromatic keyboard with each row a
perfect fourth above the one below it
(think of the strings on a bass). Unlit keys
are "black", pale blue keys are "white",
pink represents C, and notes light up
green when played. The navigation
arrows shift the keyboard range up and
down by octaves or left and right by
semitones-the new root note is displayed in purple, offset from C, which

remains pink. The navigation buttons
change color and intensity as you
change transpositions, and a simultaneous press resets them.
It's worth noting that the Scene Launch
buttons become available as assignable
MIDI commands when in this mode; you
can program them to work as sustain or
expression controls, modulation switches, etc. It's not quite the same as having
a pitch bender or mod wheel, but it's
better than nothing.
If you open a Drum Rack in Live, the
grid becomes a set of four subgrids, 4 x 4
pads each, allowing you to play up to 64
pads at once. Recording and overdubbing
works the same way as in any other
Mode, making it a breeze to build rhythm
tracks in a hurry.
Mixer controls and Device Mode
The eight buttons along the bottom of
the Launchpad Pro all work roughly the
same way. You can hold down the button, make a quick selection, and release
it to get back to where you were (for
example, jumping out of Note Mode just
long enough to reset a volume or pan

position), or tap and release the button
to jump into that mixer section's display.
In five of the eight pages-Record
Arm, Track Select, Mute, Solo, and Clip
Stop-you're left with seven rows of
Clips still visible and usable, but the bottom row of the grid becomes a row of
selector buttons for the displayed Tracks.
Working with these functions is a
breeze, and visual feedback is instant
thanks to the color-coded function buttons. Clip Stop is located at the far right
as a mnemonic: the lowest Scene Launch
button in this mode stops all clips.
The other three pages-Volume, Pan,
and Sends-show bar graphs of current
settings for each parameter on the relevant Tracks. You can select from up to
eight Sends using the Scene buttons on
the Sends page, and as on other
Launchpads, Pan is represented as a horizontal double line for center panning,
down for left and up for right. These displays' parameter values are very coarse,
obviously, but the Launchpad Pro has
added a very cool function that makes
them eminently usable.
Because the grid pads are velocitysensitive, you can do smooth fades with
them! Let's say a track is at full volume
and you want to turn it all the way
down. On a standard Launchpad, pressing the bottom button of that column will
instantly mute the track, and you can get

By the way, said Setup Page is accessed
via a tiny recessed button. It lets you select
from between five Layouts: the first automatically sets up the unit to work within
Live, and the others-Note, Drum, Fader,
and Programmer-mimic the functions I've
described above when using the
Launchpad Pro as a generic MIDI controller. You can set its MIDI Channel,
whether its pad lights respond to external
MIDI input, and whether or not the physical MIDI Out is activated.
I had a great time with the Launchpad
Pro. Every function worked as advertised
with little or no fuss, and the pads were
comfortable and responsive to play. I found
using it a very immediate and intuitive
experience that meshed well with how I use
Live; it was neither better nor worse than
using the Push, but was simply different.
Do I have any complaints? A few, all
of which can hopefully be addressed in
future software/firmware upgrades or
addressed with third-party software addons (yes, that's a thing now-that's what
the Programmer Layout is for!).
In Note Mode, the Launchpad Pro only
offers a chromatic keyboard. While fingerings are isomorphic (they stay the same in
all keys), you can still hit bum notes. Practice
makes perfect, but I'd love for the
Launchpad Pro to offer the option of simplified scale-based keyboards. Novation's new
Circuit (reviewed December 2015) can

the same effect on the Launchpad Pro by
whacking the bottom button hard. But if
you lightly tap the bottom button, the volume level will slowly move down to
silence... the lighter the tap, the slower
the fade. This goes a long way toward
making the built-in mixer controls a
usable substitute for a dedicated control
surface, and it doesn't take long for you
to get used to how these fades work.
This same bar-graph parameter display,
with velocity-controlled fades, is also used
in Device Mode, where eight parameters
of a selected effect or virtual instrument
are made available for instant adjustment.
These are automatically mapped and generally use the Macro knobs for any given
Instrument Rack or Drum Rack, and with
clever assignment of Macros, you can use
Device Mode to do almost anything.

already do this, with one octave per row
with the root note at either end. Add a simple way to choose a scale type (perhaps on
the Setup page) and we'd be golden!
I was hoping to be able to start a velocitycontrolled fade and jump back to Note
Mode while it ran, but no such luck... the
fade stops abruptly the moment you switch
Modes. So much for slowly turning down
instruments as you play outros, or setting
Device parameters to gradually change during solos. Drat.
Like the other Launchpads, the Pro can't
control Return or Master Tracks. Not many
folks will use it without also having a fader
box like Novation's Launch Control XL
nearby, but I'd still like a way to control my
master level without leaving the grid.
Those are all small and hopefully
addressable nitpicks, though. The
Launchpad Pro is a great box that offers a
powerful, flexible, and very affordable
way to interact with Live and unlock your
creativity. Check it out!

Final thoughts
I was up and flying with the Launchpad
Pro in a matter of hours, and playing it
on stage within days. I took a few minutes on the Setup Page to set up the unit's
velocity and aftertouch sensitivity, and I
was ready to go.

Price: $299.99
More from: Novation,
www.novationmusic.com
RECORDING February 2016

http://www.novationmusic.com

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