A custom Launchpad mapping application

[markqvist]

Hi there everybody!
This is mainly to the Novation Launchpad users out there. Just wanted to drop by and spread the word about a project I've been working on. I've written a program called Katapult, that let's you use the Launchpad with any MIDI software, in a much more flexible way, than what you can do with Automap (pro version included). It can map totally custom multipage layouts of buttons, faders and so on to the Launchpad, and send the midi output to any midi device or software. It also supports bi-directional communication, so the software you use it with can update the controls on the Launchpad. For example, twist a knob in Traktor, and the corresponding fader on the Launchpad moves as well. Personally, I think that's a very cool feature I've put together a little demonstration video and uploaded it to Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/8737113

When I first heard about the Launchpad, I was intrigued, and figured that this would be the perfect controller for my DJ'ing setup. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed when i Learned that all of the advanced features could only be used with Ableton Live, since I use Traktor for playing. To solve my misery, I set out to write an application that would let me do all the cool stuff I wanted. Initially I was only intending this for my own personal use, but during the last two months, I've spent a lot of time and work on it, and decided to turn it into a full-featured program anyone could use and benefit from. So I've put it online in public beta now, in the hopes that I'll get a lot of feedback and ideas that'll allow me to improve it even more. There's already a lot going on, and many new features I'm currently working on. My goal is to create an awesome application, that'll make the Launchpad even cooler and more useable than it already is

For downloads and many more details, check the website at:

http://www.midikatapult.com

I regularly post updates to the forum at my site on development progress as well. If you give it a whirl, and come up with a great idea, or want to see certain features implemented, feedback is very much appreciated!

Cheers!

Mark Qvist

[Weezi]

This is really impressive, it also would work for ableton live if you were using that as your live perfomance tool?
Props man ill be checking it out shortly

[markqvist]

I never really used Live, so I'm definitely not a guru on how it works, but just tried messing around a bit with it with Katapult. It seems to be working fine. You just have to disable "Launchpad" as a control interface in the MIDI settings, otherwise Live will try to do all it's own funky stuff with the Launchpad. So i just assigned the midi ports used for Katapult as a standard MIDI input in live, and used the learn function to assign some controls. Seems to be working perfectly

[DJPhaidon]

Very awesome! Similar to farmpad for a padKontrol. Is it all text based? Happen to need more Mac testers, cause I would go buy a Launchpad if you did :-)

[markqvist]

Hey Phaidon!

Haha, awesome! Although I am pretty well set in regards to testing on Mac. But kinda depends on your set-up / intended use. If it's widely different to what I have access to, it'd still be a great help.

The layouts are text-based, if that's what you meant. At least until I do the graphical editor, but that's kinda low priority right now. Heaps of features on my checklist to implement! The app has got a graphical interface, albeit pretty simple at the moment. I can also run in "silent mode", if you don't want an onscreen representation of the layouts.

Also, I want to point out that although the program is in beta, I have found it stable enough to do actual performances. I've played several gigs with it, and it's worked flawlessly every time. Of course, I can only guarantee this for my own setup, until I get more complete feedback from the testers. I'm using Traktor Pro on a Mac, with the Launchpad, a Novation Nocturn and the NI Audio 4 audio-interface.

[frank tourette]

I will try it out, I´ve got a Launchpad and TPro and some other midi stuff, TR-1, Kontrol One, DJ2 Faderfox.Let´s see what happens at the weekend.I´m very anticipated...

[markqvist]

Cool, looking forward to hearing how it works for you. I just found out that there's a huge idiotic error in the Windows version. All the text-files (documentation, guides, layout-files and so on) are in a stupid encoding, that makes all of the linebreaks disappear when opened in Notepad. Whoops! For now, they can be opened fine in WordPad. I'm putting out an update today that fixes this, amongst other things. Also added is custom inertia/takeover on faders, 2D pads and some other goodies

[markqvist]

Oh, and of course, the pads also have custom inertia/takeover. It's very cool It's all running asynchronously, so you can for example set a number of faders to have a really slow takeover, trigger them all to go from minimum to maximum value, and watch as they all grow from min to max.

You can also, for example, set a pad to some slowish takeover, assign it to a filter in Traktor maybe, and que up a sequence by pressing some different locations on the pad quickly in succession, and the pad will move through them all in sequence, at the speed set in the takeover Really looking forward to putting this out!

[charo]

can u do a vid describing the custom faders you mention?

thanks, cool project. I sold my launchpad otherwise i would check this out.

best of luck

[markqvist]

Thanks man
Yup, I will definitely do a video of the faders/pads thing today. Right now I'm hunched over the keyboard getting the pad takeover algorithm perfect. Mindbending stuff this early in the morning Haha, no, really not that complicated, but still. As soon as that's done, I'll do a little vid showing it off