LAUNCHPAD mapping 4 decks 4 traktor (w/ leds)

[fa5ky]

the sliding is possible but only in certain applications(ableton, monome apps). I havent seen it implemented in a traktor setup but anythings possible nowadays.

regarding the LP's pads. They are a bit clicky/mushy for me. If you've ever used mpc pads, there is a slight "click" there but the pads are nice and stiff. The LPs pad are waaaaaaay mushier to me. When u hit a pad you'll feel it sink down and then click, it doesnt affect drumming/cueing though. Other then that the LP is top notch, you should really get to a store and try it out in person.

[lsmith]

check out midikatapult.com if you are wondering about some advanced use for the LP

[ejac]

@faeruithir

I saw this video by djtechtools before buying one, he talks about the buttonquality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSNnCz8zfow

When I got mine I was actually pleasantly surprised by the feel, because I was expecting worse: the video wasn't totally convincing to me and it is so cheap. My first surprise was that they felt a little rubbery, I expected hard plastic. They do have that double click feel that the guy in the video talks about, but they are very usable for rapid button action. Probably not as good as those arcadebuttons on the midifighter, or the drumpads of an akai sampler or m-audio trigger finger. You can tap them lightly on the corners, if you like a light feel and that works very well (I tend to use them like that for rapid action). Or just use enough force in the middle, then you will barely feel the double action.

I would say, if you mainly want to use it to do controllerism bashing, then the others might be more suitable, but the launchpad can for sure be used like that, the buttons work well and predictable, but feel a little less precise (mushy idd describes the feeling well).

I like that they always fire a midi message. For example with the Xone 1D and the behringer bcf2000 (my friends got these) I sometimes experience a dropout, by which I mean that I for sure push a button, but noting happens. With my novation remote zero sl mk1 when using the drumpads on low sensitivity settings I sometimes get a double hit, meaning 2 messages get sent in stead of one (which is not a problem if the setting is a little higher than minimum). With the launchpad I haven't had any experiences like that.

The main advantage is of course the very programmable leds. They give you much feedback, and keep your eyes of the screen.

Sliding the buttons to imitate a fader does not feel easy/good to me, I tend not to use it like that, but it is doable for sure (and you can program it like that with traktor if you were wondering).

With the midikatapult software though, you can push for example the upper button of a programmed slider and that slider will slowly (you can program how much time it takes) be increased to that point.

But I really like a real slider for this, with buttons the resolution is pretty big, and for most cases not enough for me.

[lsmith]

yeah together with katapult faders can really be quite powerful. there is also a todo item to use the multi coloring to make the gradual fader automation visually more granular. plus another todo item to make it possible to dynamically adjust the speed of automated faders.

[BornSlippy]

hey guys

first of all i want to say i googled alot and this thread is absolute gold!! thanks so much for all the posts.


using all the advice i have made a tsi suitable for me i have just traktor and launchpad no mixer(considering and x1 looks great!)

however i am experiencing a major issue i really need some help with please!

so i have my volumes for deck a and b (just a beginner not using four decks yet) and the 4 eq controls mapped out vertically on the launchpad. Also a beat phase for deck a and b so i can see which is playing, and ive found its great cos if they are flashing slightly off it means my beatmatching is slightly off.

I then spent hours doing the outs for different colour leds so i know which deck is which and what volume they are at without looking at computer screen.

the problem is, since i put the outs for the leds in whenever i press a button on launchpad, its creates a terrible sound like a glitch or lag sound in the track!!

im worried its due to my Laptop being abit slow maybe?

i have an acer aspire 5315 its intel celeron 2GHZ with 1GB DDR2 Ram.


so for now ive taken off the leds, just relying on traktor screen to see whats going on, but i loved the lights its such a shhame!!

any advice or help pls guys?

Hey guys,

I've been thinking about getting a launchpad.
For you guys that own one, you know the demo video where the guy slides his finger across the launchpad effortlessly and uses the buttons like faders?

I just wanted to know if this was actually possible, or just something they kinda faked.

I've heard complaints that launchpad buttons were too clicky for this...whats the feel of the buttons?

yes its very possible mate works great when u get used to it... almost abit better than a knob/fader in a way cos u can snap directly to a certain point when u needs to!! only downside is that cos its generally going to be in increments of 8 (for example ive split my EQS from 0-500 into four increments), it does lack abit of that random human touch if u know what i mean.

[ejac]

@BornSlippy

yes, I experienced the same thing, and talked about it in this post

I'll repeat it here and add some new insights I gained since then:

seems there is some issue when you update more than 1 LED, it takes some time for traktor to send out those midi messages to the launchpad. This results in audiostutters at low latencies when updating a few leds. This (updating a lot of stuff that takes a little time) is probably something the developers of traktor didn't foresee, but it should be fixable afaik.

As I read in the programmer's reference, and what I think is causing this:

Launchpad uses a low-speed version of USB. A limitation of this is that it accepts a maximum of 400 messages per second. Because there are 80 LED addresses (one for each bi-color LED), it will take 200 milliseconds to update a Launchpad completely.

So my guess is that the function that sends midi data to the launchpad has to wait for the message to arrive before it can send another, and when there is no dedicated thread to handle this, it causes the calling code (what i guess is the audio rendering loop) to block until it finishes, thus introducing hiccups.

I've experienced this behavior on 3 separate machines, with different windows versions. I am amazed that not more ppl are complaining about it, because it drove me crazy.

One real solution, as I have experienced, is to route all midi through another program that will accept the midi messages from traktor without delay, and uses its own queuing system to output the translated (or same) midi messages to launchpad. I have done some experiments with bome's midi translator and max/msp, they both solve the problem. (maybe there are free programs that can do just that, atm i havent researched that)

Another solution is to not update more than 1 led at a time, but that limits the possibilities enormously. For example: changing deck focus will output all hotcue states, loop states, the sync state, ... So any combination of those will result in a hiccup when deck focus changes, or a new track is loaded.

Another is to increase the latency of your audio driver, but of course there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to do that. But if it really matters you can eliminate the hiccups like that.

[La_Tristesse]

Is there anyway to keep the led's on after pressing the according hotcue button. I cant believe that this is so difficult. Head over at midikatapult for more details (tsi + mapping jpeg).

EDIT:
I've also tried the tsi from this thread but no one gives me a constant lightning if a hotcue is stored. I must make some basic things wrong.

[ejac]

There where some issues with the hotcue implementation of the original .tsi from misterMigz, I posted a fixed version with explanation here

Hotcue states are output when a hotcue is mapped, deleted, when a track is loaded, and when deck focus changes (maybe some others that I dont know about). Normally the hotcue stat is not sent when triggering it (after all the hotcue state doesn't change), and it should not behave the way you describe.

A minimal test (not using midikatapult) that should work:

1. disable all .tsi outputs, so there is no accidental message sent (select none as output for each midi page in the controller manager)
2. make a new general midipage with output launchpad
3. Add out -> Cues/loops -> hotcue1 state; with following parameters
   
   • Device Mapping: select a midi note from channel 1 (dont have my launchpad atm, so dont know a specific one)
   • Mapping Details: select Deck A to make it easy
   • LED options: controller range: 0 - 5; midi range: 12 - 15; blend off; invert off

This should cause the specified led to light bright red when a hotcue is mapped to mapping 1 of deck A and turn off again when that mapping is deleted. (for an explanation on how it works, see the link in the first sentence of this post)

btw: make sure automap is not running

[La_Tristesse]

A minimal test (not using midikatapult) that should work:

1. disable all .tsi outputs, so there is no accidental message sent (select none as output for each midi page in the controller manager)
2. make a new general midipage with output launchpad
3. Add out -> Cues/loops -> hotcue1 state; with following parameters
   
   • Device Mapping: select a midi note from channel 1 (dont have my launchpad atm, so dont know a specific one)
   • Mapping Details: select Deck A to make it easy
   • LED options: controller range: 0 - 5; midi range: 12 - 15; blend off; invert off

This should cause the specified led to light bright red when a hotcue is mapped to mapping 1 of deck A and turn off again when that mapping is deleted. (for an explanation on how it works, see the link in the first sentence of this post)

btw: make sure automap is not running

Thank you for the response ejac. I did everything you said and the minimal test failed. I mapped "Hotcue1 State" to "Ch01.Note.C-1" (which is the button in the upper left) and stored a houtcue to that slote than delete it and also load the song in the deck again as well as restarting traktor and disconnect/connect the launchpad - nothing worked so far. Automap isn't running and katapult too.
It's is somewhat strange that the mapping with katapult works except the hotcue states.
I really don't know the reason for that behaviour. Maybe my Lauchpad is broken ...

Regards Tristan

[ejac]

What do you mean with failed?

Does it act weird only with hotcues? If yes, then the launchpad is probably fine.

If experienced odd behavior too, because playing with max/msp I sent some messages to the launchpad that set it in a different state, maybe that happened too (though if that happened probably nothing would work). There is a way to reset and test the launchpad (got that from the developers reference on the novation website):
reset: send a cc message on channel 1, number 0, velocity/value 0
test: send a cc message on channel 1, number 0, velocity/value 127 (this will set all leds to full lighting, meaning they will light up amber (= green full & red full).

To debug I sometimes use bome's midi translater with a virtual midi cable to inspect which messages are sent exactly. Bome's is not free, but i found a handy free program: midi sniffer.
So to debug get the free programs:
http://www.maplemidi.com/Maple_driver.html
http://www.rtcs.co.za/downloads.htm

then let traktor output to a virtual cable, use the same cable as input for the midi sniffer and find out which messages get sent exactly. And see if it is what you expect it to be.

Bome can send any midi message to any midi device, which is also handy to test stuff.