In recent years most new Novation MIDI controllers have been small and square. The Launch and Circuit series are brilliantly innovative; by comparison the company’s more traditional keyboard ranges, Impulse and SL, have begun to look dated. Now Novation have taken the features and workflows they’ve developed for Circuit and Launch, and reimagined what a control keyboard could be. The result is a unique blend of MIDI master keyboard, DAW controller, and stand‑alone sequencer. Inside Pro Tools, please go to Setup > peripherals > Select HUI, and set the send and receive options to Novation SL Mk III InControl, then select OK. Next, we'll enable the control of instruments so you can play them with the SL MkIII's keyboard. To do this,select Options > External Devices > Add> New Keyboard and select Novation SLMKIII SLMKIII MIDI in the Receive From and Send To drop-down menus. Please see the image below for reference: Automap was/is Novation’s plug‑in control system that took a slightly different approach. Instead of running everything inside a special host, Automap was a relatively discreet service on your computer that communicated with special ‘wrapped’ versions of your plug‑ins. You could create your own maps and use them directly with your plug‑ins in any DAW. Many DAWs have a ‘smart’ controller scheme that MIDI devices can hook into to achieve dynamic control assignments, without resorting to manual fixed mapping. These generally only extend to the built‑in devices and instruments found in your DAW. For control of third‑party VST/AU/AAX plug‑ins some brands have opted to develop their own plug‑in hosts. This gives them direct integration with their hardware, customisable mapping, patch browsing, multi‑plug‑in patches, etc. And of course they can build in their own sound content store... NI’s Komplete Kontrol and Akai/M‑Audio/Alesis’ VIP are the main examples, but Nektar have also just announced a host.

Then go to the Preferences (Options > Preferences on Windows, Ableton Live > Preferences on macOS) and go to the Link/Tempo/MIDI tab and match the settings below: I’m going to walk you through how to set up your SL MkIII with Pro Tools. Please ensure that your SL MkIII is connected to your computer and powered on. The SL MkIII’s pads can now be used to make sequencer transposition a powerful performance tool. Pattern octave transposeOn this screen, you can edit the messages sent out by the Sustain, Footswitch, and Expression Pedals on your device: You can also set the MIDI channel for each rotary control. The 'Default Channel' is the channel that the template is set up on, you can as well set the parameter change on a separate midi channel.: The keyboard feels very nice and all other hardware too except for the sliders, they feel a bit cheap. Highly customisable mappings for hardware and software easily control everything. Or create your own templates in the software editor, and save them to the keyboard.

Pro Tools control worked with next‑to‑no setup. I got transport, basic mixer navigation and control, and a handful of core commands like Save and Undo, but no plug‑in control. Logic Pro had the added bonus of Smart Control mapping, allowing Logic to do much of the heavy lifting while the SL kept its encoders in the right place at the right time. In Context On this screen, you can edit the messages sent out by the 16 pads on your SL MkIII. This includes Pad hit and pressure assignments:Beyond the sequencer, the SL MkIII also features an Arpeggiator, with adjustable rate, gate length and direction. With the Arpeggiator mode active, the arp pattern can be adjusted by using the 16-pad grid to add or remove steps. The arp can only be used on one Part at a time, but it is possible to change which part the arp is assigned to on the fly, using one of the central rotaries. The keyboard itself offers some handy features too. Includes power adapter (12V DC), USB cable, Ableton Live Lite, 4 GB Loopmasters Sounds, XLN Audio Addictive Keys Allows patterns to be transposed across the octave range, to find the perfect pitch and experiment with ideas. Toggle swing per-part The Template Editor is broken into 7 sections for the following features on the device: Rotary Controls, Faders, Buttons, Pads, Wheels, Pedals, and Keys. Along the top row of the editor, you can save to Template Pool, store to PC and Store to SL MK3: