It communicates to Ableton Live via a USB connection to the host computer, and talks a special language with Ableton, in which standard MIDI messages are encapsulated. It doesn’t have any in-built sounds or the ability to internally store user information. You can think of Launchpad a bit like a video game controller - it needs to be connected to a computer running software to be used to its full potential. Launchpad emerged out of simple necessity. Although you could use pads on a MIDI controller, such as a Remote Zero SL, to control Session mode, and even point it towards a grid of clips in Ableton, there was no way to know what status your pad was in without close scrutiny of the screen. The main thing that made existing controllers uninspiring was the lack of LED feedback. We had a collaborative bond, and we started to design a hardware partner to Live that would compliment the various ways it worked.Įven in 2009, the controller landscape was dominated by ‘dumb’ MIDI controllers (including, admittedly, some of ours). Staff members from each company had studied and progressed through the industry together. But the two companies were closer than that: we were friends. So any companion tool to Ableton had to adhere to several conventions, but be totally flexible at the same time.Īt the time, Novation was the UK distributor for Ableton, so we had tight inter-company ties. The challenge was that Ableton was so functionally diverse that there was (and still is) no singular workflow. But there were others who just wanted to ‘play’ Ableton. Members of the controllerist communities were quite happy to do this, as they revelled in the almost infinite options on the table with the various tools available. Ableton Live had broken the mould by allowing musicians to think differently using technology, but users still wanted to express themselves in a tactile way.Įxisting options for control all involved an annoyingly deep amount of manual parameter assignments and hardware-to-software pairing. As the ‘Ableton way’ grew more popular, so did the desire for different and more useful hardware to take full control of it, which didn’t require a deep knowledge of coding to implement. MIDI clips could hold everything from note and automation information to program change messages, to keep a studio full of external hardware in step. This paradigm was manifested in its most simple form in Ableton Live’s Session view, where a grid of clips could hold different samples, loops or even entire tracks, each with a unique launch behaviour and envelope characteristic. Musical elements were now available as modular elements, granulating musical ideas into infinite combinations of creative expression. Gone were the days of working in a linear left-to-right timeline. Simultaneously, Ableton Live - on version 8 at the time - was changing the way that musicians create and compose music using a computer. Digital one-woman-band Victoria Hesketh (aka Little Boots) wrote ‘Stuck On Repeat’ using a Yamaha Tenori-On. Music producers - whether in the bedroom or in front of an SSL - were turning to touchable hands-on instruments to create music, but the main workhorse was the computer, coupled with a DAW. Swedish House Mafia, Deadmau5 and David Guetta dominated the charts, and Justice introduced their stadium rock aesthetic into the electronic dance music world, signalling the beginnings of what would become known as EDM. A pop-dance crossover was in full effect. Radios across the UK blasted Skream’s remix of ‘In for the Kill’ by La Roux. Dubstep was transitioning from the underground and beginning to influence the commercial mainstream. To tell this story, we need to go back to 2009: the year the first Launchpad was released. As Sound On Sound Magazine stated in their 2009 review, it’s the “pleasingly idiosyncratic way to get hands‑on with Live”. But for those hip to the clip-launching paradigm, Launchpad’s flexibility, adaptable nature and ease of use made it the synonymous Ableton Live controller. For non-musical types, it was perhaps the first mainstream ‘flashing LED grid’ that they came across. Its immersion into the music scene has made it part of popular culture. Maybe at live events, nestled in a studio control room, or in one of the countless lightshow performance videos on YouTube.
But of all the gear we’ve made, it’s the one thing that seemingly everyone’s seen on their musical travels. That’s a bold claim, we know, and we tend not to get too braggy. There’s one Novation product that we can say with confidence has become a total staple in the music making community: Launchpad.
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