Novation SL mkII with Live

[kensuguro]

I got the novation sl mkII 49 for work related tracking (just bits and pieces) and man is integration with Live the worst thing ever. Automap for instruments works well, except you can't go back to an old project and start controlling your vstis with automap.. you actually need to load an automap "copy" of your vsti for it to work. So, all your old projects won't work.

And then with Live, host control features are extremely limited.. Even with all sort of knobs and faders, you can only use the fader section, to toggle between pan, and sends, and use buttons to arm / solo / mute... The left hand section, with 16 knobs and i dunno how many buttons, are completely useless in Live. (unless you switch over to automap mode, which is used to control vsti)

So.. which sequencer is Automap made for then? There's gotta be one that's the best for it.. Anyone know? Live definitely is not.

I also found that "customizable" in my case, works against me. I don't care if I can customize 50 buttons, knobs, and faders. I WON'T. When I need to track something very quickly, I don't have the time to. So, if the initial mapping is sensible, good. If not, I'm just going to ignore it, and tweak the vsti with the mouse like usual. Essentially, all knobs, buttons, faders, gone to waste. The only scenario I can see this useful in is if you have a particular way you set up the controls for a gig, and you practice and learn the setup until it's second nature. Now that can be valuable.

But I can't switch it around every time I make a new track. It takes too much time to set up, and it's too confusing... So, all this software customized hardware controller thing is cool in concept, but in practice, it's a little strange. It's definitely very, very hard to learn where things are because you can swap them around.

[yayajohn]

have had similiar frustrations with the remote sl 61 (not mkII) very flexible but not very user friendly and I usually get distracted or bogged down with some aspect of it. Mostly picked that controller cause of the x-y ribbon but the mov't is sporatic in scope and with native synths. Haven't given up on it though, it's just a time management thing and I'll eventually get on a kick and really dig into the thing....... I hope. Not sure what they added with the mkII.

[nightscope]

The best implementation of the SL as a host control surface I've seen by far is for Reaper using the CSurf plugin for Novation Automap 3. The first page in automap is for general Reaper stuff. Any other pages are for the tracks. From the links below it looks anything other than simple. But it actually is very simple to use. Just get it set up, easy peasy, and when you load Reaper up and you hit the mixer button on the SL it will control Reaper. All of it, you name it. It is extremely comprehensive. If you open an automapped plugin then the SL will handle the plug until you hit the mixer button again.

http://www.p-c-m.org/temp/reaper_csurf_ ... manual.pdf

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=42928

ns

[valis]

Novation's launchpad combines well with the other Automap stuff when using Automap Pro (which is a free upgrade for your SL and comes with the launchpad I think?) The two together might make a far better combo than just the SL, but the APC stuff is still going to make more sense in its control structure imo.

When it comes specifically to ableton live, the APC20/40 are quite excellent; the 40 handles knob duties far better than the Novation automap stuff does as everyone in the Ableton ecosystem maps things to that setup. However Live itself is a bit of a mixed back depending on your workflow. I love it for a lot of its editing & loop manipulation tools as well as live use (where the APC also shines.) I find that using my MPD32 & APC40 is enough to do most of what I want to do 'live' in Live, and the rest I just leave on outboard synths or etc (filter sweeps I'll do manually on synth parts or etc) where I can easily grab what I want.

Applications that don't specifically map to the Automap stuff are still accessible via it's midi functionality, and that's what I actually tend to do with my Nocturn. I will sometimes even switch a knob to send pitchbend on a specific midi channel (so I can still have all 8 knobs sending pitchbend each) for higher resolution, and just keep that knob fixed for what I do. This works both in Live as well as Logic for me...

However it should be noted that Logic works pretty well with the Automap stuff now. I'm not surprised that Ableton doesn't work better with it but Cubase (or Sonar) might also have some of the similar functionality directly mapped for you.

Either way I should mention even in Logic I use my nocturn via it's midi-mapped output far more than I do in any relation to a sequencer's main functions. I realized several years back that I didn't need an automation surface for my DAW to be more productive, rather keeping things fixed to specific functions for a given softsynth or at least within a given track works best for me. So using Logic's environment and manually mapping everything here is the reason I'm still with that particular app.

[kensuguro]

I guess they made some updates for live 8.1.3 for further integration, I guess I'll give it a shot.

[valis]

8.14 has been out for a bit now too.

[kensuguro]

I gotta say, the keys on this thing is amazing. It's probably the best synth keys I've played on. 2 thumbs up for fatar!

See, since their synth keys are good, I still find it hard to agree with some people complaining about their doepfer VMK controllers.. (fatar weighted keys)