Launchpad95 : Improved Novation Launchpad remote scripts
with Step Sequencer and Device Controller
These scripts are modified version of Ableton Live 9.1 scripts for Novation Launchpad and provide the same functionality but add support for editing the midi clips using a step sequencer , an Instrument Controller and Device Controller and an improved Instrument Mode. It does not require any external tool like Max for Live (M4L) in order to work. This script is just a plain Live Control Surface Python Script.
Comment, feedback and updates : please check this thread on Ableton forum
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=168495
It uses the Ableton live python api and is partly based on Hanz Petrov's step sequencer for AKAI APC40 http://remotescripts.blogspot.com/p/apc-64-40.html which i hacked a little and merged into launchpad scripts. Thanks to Matkainc and Chymera for their help and ideas.
Sunny from controllerism.com made a great walkthrough of Launchpad95 covering the main functions :
Installation
First, download the installation archive from
- live 9.1 (live 9.0.x is not supported anymore due to changes in the API) :
Launchpad95.zip
- live 8.4 : Documentation for Launchpad85 is there
Unzip the zip file and copy the folder Launchpad95 into the Ableton Live's "MIDI Remote Scripts" folder.
If you don't know where to copy the file check this page out. As a bonus this page also explains how to sync two computers (mac or pc) using a network connection ! After the folder has been copied, plug-in your Launchpad in the computer and start Ableton Live. Open up the preferences panel and go to "MIDI Sync" panel. Select Launchpad95 as your control surface and select the launchpad Midi Port midi ports like so :
For those adept of Launchpad Color I adapted this script to be compatible with Launchpad95. You can grab Launchpad95Colour here!
Mode of Operation
Three modes are added on top of the existing modes. These are
r
e
n
c
S
q
u
e
e
p
e
S
t
mode to edit midi clips, and
r
e
l
l
o
r
C
t
n
o
e
c
D
i
v
e
mode to edit any parameter of any instrument, effect or device on any track of your arrangement, and finally anI
n
s
t
r
u
m
n
t
e
M
o
d
e
providing a tighter integration with Live.Instrument Controller Mode
Instrument Mode replaces classic User Mode 1. To activate Instrument Controller Mode, press User Mode 1 button (mode button remains amber). Press User Mode 1 button once again, button turns green, activating the Device Controller. Once more the button will turn red, activating the old User Mode 1 in case you need it.
will turn red, activating the old User Mode 1 in case you need it.
The top up/down navigation buttons allow to navigate scenes, while the left/right button allow to navigate tracks. The scene buttons allow you to control the currently selected track and clip, arm, solo, record, play, stop etc (see below).
The matrix of buttons act as a midi keyboard proposing a drum rack layout, and a melodic mode. Melodic mode enable you to select root note, type of mode (major, minor etc), and the octave you play in.
Most of the scene buttons have alternate functions when you hold them long (0.5 sec) : - undo : a long press will perform a redo !
- stop : a long press will DELETE currently selected clip. No worries this is undoable ! - solo : a long press on solo will enable/disable the selected track.
- arm : holding arm for more than 0.5 seconds will toggle live's metronome. a very long press (2 sec) will alternate between auto arm of track and manual track arming. colour of the button will reflect the selected mode. this is really useful if you have more than one controller/person interacting with Live.
prev scene next scene prev track next track Session mode user 1 Inst. user 2 step mixer mode scale undo octave up octave down stop start solo overdub
scale edition mode
To enter scale edition mode press the 1st scene button from Instrument mode. Top red buttons provide mode selection (drumrack, chromatic, diatonic). 2nd and 3rd amber rows provide root note selection. 4th red row allows you to select the octave. Bottom green rows allow to select the mode.
Steve Y. made a very nice quick reference sheet for the scale selection available here.
prev scene
next scene
prev
track next track
Session mode user 1 Inst. user 2 step mixer mode chromatic guitar diatonic
ns diatonic chromatic drumrack scale
C# D# F# G# A# undo
C D E F G A B octave
up
-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 octave
down
Major Minor Dorian Mixolydian Lydian Phrygian Locrian Diminished stop
enter scale edition mode
undo. long press to redo
stop selected clip
start selected clip
solo current track
session record
enter scale edition mode
undo. long press to redo
Whole-half Whole Tone Minor Blues Minor Pentatonic Major Pentatonic Harmonic Minor Melodic Minor Super Locrian start BhairavHungarian Minor Minor
Gypsy Hirojoshi In-Sen Iwato Kumoi Pelog solo
Spanish overdub
Step Sequencer Mode
To activate the Step Sequencer, select a midi clip in the clip view. Then press User Mode 2 button once. Normal User Mode 2 is activated (mode button remains amber). Press User Mode 2 button again, it turns green, activating the step sequencer (in normal mode).
A playback/metronome indicator is scrolling thru the grid in amber to indicate the playing position of the clip as the clip is playing. This is just an overlay, first rows are still available for clip editing.
Here are the colour codes used :
- Normal notes are shown in Green, intensity depending on their velocity. - Muted notes are displayed in red.
- Notes being currently played are flashing in red.
- Notes being played and being outside of the currently displaying midi clip block will also flash in red.
Some other information is displayed, using orange colour :
- Note markers help to better visualise what row correspond to which note: - root note of the selected are marked with three orange left buttons lit up.
- other notes of the scale are marked with one orange button lit on the left-most row. - while scrolling left and right along the clip, a vertical bar will display you where you are in the clip
A summary of functions assigned to the buttons is shown in the table below. hover your mouse above a button to get detailed descriptions.
StepSeq by default works in combined mode. pressing the scene 2 button toggles between combined mode and multi note mode. Multinote mode works in similarly to the the previous step in launchpad85, while combined mode offers mode close to the way Push StepSeq behaves.
Combined Mode
The bottom left area let you select the note currently being edited on the top note editor. The bottom right area allows you the select the currently clip part currently being displayed (single button press) and edited (double press or one button after the other). Some buttons have combined function :
Lock (5th scene button):
press long to switch between clip lock and play clip on locked track mode yellow : track lock mode. step sequencer is locked to current track and will follow playing clip on this track
red : step sequencer is locked to current clip. Mute (last scene button):
hold mute button and click on a note to mute it
hold mute button and press on a note in the bottom left quadrant to mute it hold mute button and select a loop range in the loop selector to delete it velocity (7th scene button):
hold velocity button and click on a note to change its velocity
hold velocity button and select a loop range in the loop selector to extend the original clip content to the newly selected length
velocity (7th scene button) and mute
hold velocity AND button and click on a note to change its velocity hold velocity button and mute button at the same time and select a loop range in the loop selector in order to mute this time selection
prev next prev next Session user 1 user 2 mixer
start selected clip
solo current track
session record select prev scene select next scene select prev track select next track
cycle thru UserMode2 / StepSequencerNormalMode
scene scene track track mode device step mode scale modes up down lock quant. velocity mute Multinote Mode
This mode uses the grid as a 8*8 matrix. one midi note per row. it follows the scale mode selected. Note that the left and right arrows are used to navigate left and right in the clip. prev scene next scene prev page next page Session mode user 1 device user 2 step mixer mode scale modes up down lock quant. velocity mute
Device Controller Mode
Device Controller mode is a sub mode of User Mode 1. To activate Device Controller Mode, press User Mode 1 button once, the normal User Mode 1 is activated (mode button remains amber). Press User Mode 1 button once again, button turns green, activating the Device Controller.
Display Scale Selection Overlay switches between combined and multinote modes scroll up (notes)
scroll down (notes)
lock step seq to current clip (very useful !). long press to lock on current track only cycle thru available quantisations
cycle thru velocities and velocity shift notes
hold and press a note in the matrix to (un)mute it. hold and press a note in the note selector to mute a lane hold+nav keys to scroll up/down one octave select prev scene select next scene prev clip page select clip page
cycle thru UserMode2 / StepSequencerNormalMode Display Scale Selection Overlay switches between combined and multinote modes scroll up (notes)
scroll down (notes)
lock step seq to current clip (very useful !)
cycle thru available quantisations
cycle thru velocities and velocity shift notes
hold and press a note in the matrix to (un)mute it. hold and press a note in the note selector to mute a lane hold+nav keys to scroll up/down one octave
You can edit eight parameters of the selected device on the selected track at once. One parameter per column.
Navigation among tracks and devices is done using the top left navigation buttons. Right side buttons control on/off, device locking, parameter banks navigation and precision mode.
A summary of functions assigned to the buttons is shown in the table below. hover your mouse above a button to get detailed description.
prev device next device prev track next track Session mode user 1 device user 2 step mixer mode on/off lock bnk dwn bnk up precision
Source
https://github.com/hdavid/Launchpad95/F.A.Q.
1. Which Launchpad flavours are supported
Launchpad 95 works with Launchpad Launchpad S, Launchpad Mini
2. Which Ableton live versions are supported
Launchpad 95 works with Live 9.1+, 32 bit or 64 bit, Mac or Windows, suite or intro or standard. basically with every combination you may think of as long at it is live 9.1 or greater.
3. Where should i put the script ?
On pc/windows 7 : inside
"C:\ProgramData\Ableton\Live 9 Suite\Resources\MIDI Remote Scripts" On a mac right-click the Live application you use (there might more than one installed!) and select "view package content", then browse to
"App-Resources/MIDI Remote Scripts".
Inside this "MIDI Remote Scripts" folder, you should have a folder called "Launchpad95". inside this folder you should have a bunch of .py files, and a for each of them a .pyc file. (.pyc files are compiled version of the .py that live compiles as you start it.)
As sometimes Sometimes a picture is worth 1000 words ! take a look at these screenshots.
- On a mac it look like this. - on a pc like that
4. It does not work, i installed everything, but the launchpad does not light up when i
turns selected device on/off
locks the control surface to device
select previous bank of 8 parameters
select next bank of 8 parameters
enable precision mode of sliders
select Launchpad95 in the dropdown in the preferences. what is wrong ?
It is hard to guess what you did wrong. You must have installed not the right way somehow. try to install it from scratch again, download from this site, extract install, restart live. among the list of things you can try to do :
- check the you installed at the right place. (check question #3 !)
- Pay attention to the folder name AND its full path. (again see screenshots in above in question #3)
- how many versions of live do you have installed ?
- are you running live 9.1 or greater ? for live 8 please use launchpad85. For live 9.0, upgrade to live 9.1.
5. It does not work, i installed everything, but Launchpad95 does not appears the dropdown in the preferences. what is wrong ?
see question 4.
6. Note Feedback is not working in Instrument Controller
make sure you activated the launchapd midi in/out as "track" in Live midi preferences.
Known Issues
in live 9, moving notes in clip editor while stepseq is open duplicates notes. Launchpad85 for live 8 is now longer maintained/improved.
History
2013-12-16 - fix: led feedback in instrument mode !
2013-12-11 - add: improve integration with launchpad95Colour. 2013-12-07 - change: change scale colour. minor bugfix. 2013-11-18 - fix: improve stepseq lock to a track mode.
2013-11-18 - add: long press on the stepseq lock button to lock to a track. 2013-11-11 - add: combos to mute, delete and extend clip content in step sequencer
2013-10-28 - fix: small bug fixes
2013-10-23 - add: add option to compress channels used by launchpad95 to free up channels for other devices
2013-10-18 - fix: show device panel while activating device controller. fix led blinking when entering stepseq. properly turn off scene buttons in user modes. add: use clip color palette to blink white clips
2013-10-09 - fix: Fix Clip linking in StepSeq. small fixes.
2013-09-27 - fix: matrix not fully updated while entering multinote stepseq. 2013-09-22 - fix: compatibility with live 9.1 beta. Fix Clip linking in StepSeq. 2013-09-02 - fix: fix a few bugs in metronome and clip callback in stepseq 2013-08-13 - add: complete rework of the stepseq
2013-05-28 - fix note highlighting in StepSeq in hires. various minor fixes in stepseq. Fix UserMode2 (was sending midi notes)
2013-05-25 - fix paging StepSeq, add support for selected DrumPad at the highest resolution. fix note feedback when entering instrument mode. add: very long press Arm in instrument mode to toggle implicit track arm
2013-05-09 - fix for live 9.0.4: replace overdub by session_record in TrackController. overdub in Python API started to behave strange from 9.0.4. 2013-05-04 - add: long press on solo to mute/unmute track in instrument mode. fix: disable implicit arm while leaving instrument mode.
2013-04-13 - change : changed some buttons in instrument mode. support for implicit arm.
2013-04-13 - add : support for Instrument mode 2013-03-13 - fix : fix loop length dec button 2013-03-05 - add : Launchpad95 to support Live 9
2012-10-21 - change : while extending midi clip, clone existing notes in the newly created portion
2012-02-02 - change : fixed midi channels for step sequencer and device controller to avoid conflicts
2012-01-22 - add: up/down per octave paging in step sequencer (press and hold mute and press navigation keys) fix:scrolling boundaries
2012-01-21 - add: Scale mode. fix: better scrolling in fold and scale mode. change: merged mute shift and mute. changed: merge velocity and velocity shift. 2012-01-03 - add: easier to configure metronome and note markers in step sequencer. add: adapted LaunchpadColour (Launchpad85Colour) to this script, for color blind people
2012-01-02 - bug fix: improve button response time in step sequencer (was causing problem while pressing multiple buttons at once)
2011-12-31 - bug fix: loops longer than 8 blocks were not supported. add : scale marked in step sequencer marking C (3 amber blocks) and A (one amber block) 2011-12-29 - bug fix: some buttons not responding correctly in user mode 1 2011-12-26 - Improved live integration (shows Device chain/clip editor). fixed crash while loading Live Set
2011-12-23 - support for MaxForLive. addition of lock mode in step sequencer. bug fixes. renamed from Launchpad75 to Launchpad85.
2011-10-05 - addition mute lane in step sequencer 2011-10-01 - addition of device controller
2011-08-20 - bug fixes
2011-07-22 - first public version 2011-05 - working on an initial version
Contact
feel free to contact me for any suggestions and bug reports.