Novation launchkey mini mk3

The Lounge Other Gear
#44

From the manual:

Tempo – This knob speeds up or slows down your arpeggio relative to the Arp Rate. When Launchkey Mini is used as a standalone controller, this knob ranges from 40 BPM to 240 BPM. However, when synced with Ableton Live, this knob will have no effect.

I was able to control arp tempo by changing Reason’s BPM (with clock send enabled) while the tempo knob itself had no effect whatsoever. So that part worked as described. Unfortunately the timing itself was horrendous.

Coupla things could’ve been happening here. It might be that there’s something different going on with ableton’s clock output compared to reason’s; but I since I don’t use ableton that’s not much use to me. Or it could have been a faulty unit, or overall crappy USB midi.

#45

My bad. I only ever use the LKmini in standalone, I wasn’t allowing for different behaviour in DAW mode.

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#46

All good. The arp was actually quite a lot of fun - more interesting than the basic one on the BS2 (unless that AFX update bought something new to the table). Just a shame I couldn’t get it to sync properly.

Might’ve even been some other setting that I missed but my search for answers didn’t come up with anything beyond basic tutorials on how to enable ableton clock output.

#47

Personally I love my Launchkey Mini Mk3! I usually don’t bother with cheaper midi controllers or “mini gear”, but this one is nice for travel and works really well with Bitwig and Studio One.

#48

Me too. The tiny size and half-decent keys make it a little gem for controlling my A4 and Digitakt and TR8S etc

#49

Somehow i found more information on this page https://manuals.plus/novation/launchkey-mini-mk3-manual#settings than on the official manual.

For instance i learnt what are some functions of the settings when you power the device with SHIFT held on.
The orange lit pad sets a constant velocity for the pad when it is off.
The pink pad allows to turn off the clock (it used to send it constantly - wtf).
The blue and the yellow pads are still mystery to this day…

The Launchkey Mini MK3 seems like an abandon-hardware from Novation: no new templates in Components, opaque functions and buttons and especially bad communication regarding the possibilities it offers. Strange even for a cheap product.

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#50

That’s the addendum that was published with the 1.1 firmware update. All of that is now in the current version of the manual. I agree that it isn’t getting much attention from its creators.

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#51

Blue determines whether it goes into ‘Vegas mode’ after a period of inactivity.
Yellow determines (I think) whether the usb port acts as a thumb drive. AFAICR it has links to setup pages, possibly a manual, things of that sort.

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#52

Strange as i got the manual version from the official website…

Thanks for the precisions :wink:

#53

I like it! It’s cheap, tiny enough to chuck in bag, and is just the ticket for controling a few instruments. Your tips re powerup with SHIFT held v useful thanks.

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#54

Some strange limitaions or UI choices though.

For instance why one has to hold ARP while turning knobs? Why not just turning the knobs instead?

#55

If you’re not holding down arp, those knobs are sending CCs, CCs that you can configure.

#56

Ahhhh ok, thanks!

#57

You can double tap the Arp button to make the pads and knobs stay locked on the Arp controls.
Tap once again to take it back to the standard control modes

This is the same for the Fixed Chord button double tap and it flashes to let you program up the fixed chord. Tap again and the Fixed Chord button goes solid white to say its on.
You can then toggle it on and off normally or double tap again to load up another chord.

These features came in on the Launchkey Mini MK3 Firmware update less than 12 months ago.

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#58

Thanks, i watched that video yesterday and discovered these upgrades.

#59

I’ve been using this as my main Live controller and these upgrades were huge. So nice to be able to lock the Arp page.

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#60

That’s the main issue i have with MIDI controllers: you can find 10x the same information on how it is integrated with Ableton but next to no information about controlling hardware. Even some buttons are deactivated when not using it with a DAW.

#61

If you’ve not seen already this might be useful, if only to skip through.
It’s a livestream covering the Launchkey 1.1 Firmware in a bit more depth back when it was released.

The first 25 minutes or so go through the Launchkey Mini Mk3 and there’s some external hardware control in the mix.

Hope it helps

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#62

Damned i have to admit his fringe is stressing me to the point it is hard to focus :sweat_smile:
Some really interesting features i totally ignored though. Not sure they all apply to the Mini version.
These menus are quite hard to figure out what they correspond to.

#63

Haha I thought that about my fringe when watching it back too… Sorry about that diversion!
We had been stuck in lockdown for ages and I couldn’t get a haircut.

Managing a livestream and a product demo in realtime is hard enough without a wayward portion of fringe getting in the way!

Pleased that it helped a little though… thats always the plan for the Livestreams we do.

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