Best Ableton Controller
Which is the best controller for Ableton (or is it even necessary)?
Midi Fighter
APC 20/40
Novation Launchpad
Honestly, the Launchpads only advantage over the APC20 is that its USB powered, which I consider to be very convenient. But with the APC20, you actually get channel sliders.
Other than that, the APC20 is the best bet, unless you want the extra knobs, then use an APC40 for the premium.
Are neither the APC 20 or APC 40 usb-powered?
Nope, they are powered through an ugly ass AC adapter lol. This is because of all the LED feedback which it uses, and in my opinion, kinda sucks since you have to find a plug to accomodate this bulky ass adapter lol. Still a great unit either way.
The Launchpad is also considerably smaller, and more portable. My only gripe is that it lacks sliders, but thats a personal preference, and it also has controls for them - but in incremental changes, not smooth ones.
I use my launchpad with a korg nanokontrol, and love it. That with an oxygen 8, and 2 other midi keyboards (an 88 w/ velocity sens, and a 72 w/o) i find to be a pretty amazing set up. I’ve played piano my whole life so lots of keys are pretty essential for my style.
However, i seem to crave more knobs and sliders. I think its time for a BCR2000 & a BCF2000.
the BCR2000 is an AWESOME all around utility controller. Daft Punk uses two of them in their performances, and overall, I’ve heard great stuff about them. Not exactly pretty looking things, but they get the job done, and allow tons of controls over parameters.
I’ll just paint it hot pink or something crazy like that.
All kinds of people think my Oxy8 is some kind of toy because it’s neon blue.
I think it depends on how you want to use Ableton. If you’re using it for production, I think an APC 20 or 40 is the best way to go. If you want to use Ableton for DJ’ing (with separate EQ knobs for every separate channel for example) I would recommend an Evolution UC-33e or if you have more money to spend, a Vestax VCM-600. I own both and I’m really happy with them.
Hey what can I say, BCR all the way! BCF is cool and versatile, but the BCR simply beats it in the versatility department. Motorized faders is a cool feature with regards to automations.
Dannyboy, my partner in crime was more partial to a BCF, but in the end he settled for a BCR. (Tim Exile’s “Finger” vid also helped a lot!)
When faders and buttons are involved, look for APC20/40, UC33e+launchpad/MIDIfighter.
I still have to see/find a controller that offers as much bang for buck as the BCR does.
To put it into Tim Exile’s words:
I would go launchpad!
I was leaning towards the APC 20/40 but the fact that it is not powered by USB and it is one-dimensional (designed to be only used w/ Ableton).
Maschine seems like a nice albeit expensive choice.
Don’t do it. It CAN work as an Ableton controller, but I tried it first hand with my buddy’s Maschine, and here is what I found:
1.) No information feedback on the LCD panels which tell you which clips you’re currently looking at via the Maschine.
2.) No red rectangle which states so on the screen, unlike the APC20 and APC40, or Launchpad.
It’s hoooorrible for navigating around sets. Plain and simple you’ll get lost. The idea is very worthy, and over time might turn into something cool, but in my opinion, if you can’t coherently navigate around in Ableton, you’re already in for trouble.
Thanks for the tips. $600 is a lot to pay for a beat pad. I heard good things about the Maschine software, but learning Ableton seems way more worthwhile.
APC 20/40 it is.
The production suite and hardware quality on the Maschine is killer, I just think that it’s Ableton support is sub-par. It’s not really a big deal considering that it isn’t supposed to excel in that anyway (just more like a bonus feature), but anyone who is considering buying one based on it’s Ableton functionality will probably be disappointed.
Use an APC40 and route Maschine into Ableton.
IMHO, it depends on what you want to do with it. I think that just about everything except the uc33e and the vcm-600 are basically worthless for the way I wanted to mix with it.
If you’re using a lot of dummy clips or are okay with having controls spread out all over the place, the APC-40 is cheaper and a decent option. Though apparently it’s not bus powered, which is BS.
If you want to look into the Faderfox stuff, they’re good if you’re okay with something that small. But they also get expensive quickly. If I were going to build a faderfox-based system, I’d just get 3 LD2s and be done with it…and leave them almost mapped as default, just leaving 1 of them assigned to each “deck.”
The best thing you can do when shopping for controllers is to think about what you really want to control and how you want to control it. Then, draw our your ideal controller on paper (or photoshop or whatever) and start shopping…see what’s closest.
Hey have you checked this out?:
Sort of along the same lines, it’s basically like a copy of Sasha’s Maven mixer. I’m not sure if or when it will be released, but it’s fairly close to the VCM-600 in many respects.
I have. I don’t like the layout as well. The effects sends aren’t in line with the channels, the effects section doesn’t make much sense to me because of how I use Live (4 effect on buttons? 2 sends? WTF?), the placement of the pitch controls would make things hard to use without bumping them, gain only on the first 5 chanels, no effects sends for channel 6, mixture of rotary and linear effects sends, the “rec” button seems useless (why wouldn’t it be near the nonexistant transport controls…channel-specific recording doesn’t work that way), what does the LCD do?………
It just leads to a lot of questions. Either the people who make it use Live very differently than I do (and I’m not sure I like their layout for re-mapping to use the way I’d want to) or they haven’t actually used Live.
Yeah, they really should update it with some video demonstrations, in my opinion it looks great but like you said, alot of gaps in explanation as to its layout and engineering.
You own a VCM-600, what do you like it?, or any big gripes?. Theres one being sold locally on craigslist for $300 and was considering picking it up, my only real issue is that the launch features seem to be per row, not a grid or anything like the Launchpad or APC40. What’s your experience with it?
The VCM is amazing, and it’s a steal for $300 to the extent that I’d bet it was damaged or some kind of scam. Do local pickup only; pay with a check you can stop payment on; and get contact info in case something goes wrong.
It’s a great controller…as I’m sure you can see. It’s basically a maven with no audio, a horizontal layout, and more controls.
My gripes:
1 - I like mixing with 4 decks, not 6. And I like the channels I use to be closer to the “master” section. It also only works properly with the clip/track view buttons when it’s set up as a Control Surface (not raw midi). So, I have 2 dummy channels that don’t do anything on the left of my live set. Actually, they monitor effects levels, but that’s irrelevant.
2 - It doesn’t have any endless encoders. That’s not a huge gripe, since I wouldn’t use them for many things. I could see using them to skip through tracks to make sure what I just dragged in was the track I thought it was, but…can’t do it with the VCM. And scrubbing the track with the mouse works fine for now.
3 - Clip launching is actually fine. The “Scene” knob on the bottom right selects scenes, and the play buttons actually fire the selected scene for each track (not just firing scenes). This behavior isn’t apparent when looking at Live when it’s not in midi-map mode. There’s an extra play button near the status-display area for each track, and when mapped it launches the selected scene for that track. I have mine set so that each track’s EQ kill, Solo, and Mute buttons actually fire 5 specific scenes in that track, and I’d prefer 8 of them…but it’s fine. That’s actually the same way clip launching works on the e-noxier thing. At least…it has the correctly-labeled controls to set it up that way.
4 - I hate the way the VCM and the APC-40’s “effects control” sections work. They follow selection. As a result, mapping can get a bit funky…and you might not be controlling what you thought you were (turning down an EQ instead of an effect parameter, for example). I defeat that by locking them to a rack that doesn’t do anything and then just assigning the knobs as I see fit (they actually do 2 different mid-boosts for each of the 4 tracks I use while the knobs for channels 1 and 2 on the VCM control my effects). Making the control surface work that way makes it more versatile, but the VCM has enough controls already…it doesn’t need to work that way.
5 - The “EQ” and “Pan” knobs don’t have center detents. Because they’re midi, it makes it really hard for “0” to be straight up, as you’ll never get it quite right. As a result, my EQs are at 0 when hard right, which is a bit limiting. I’ve gotten over it. I basically only ever boost mids anyway, so I just do that somewhere else. That’s probably the least-intuitive part of how I have it set up.
6 - By default, the loop controls affect Live’s master transport. It’s easy to re-map them to do clip-specific looping, but it’s not intuitive and you have to select the clip you want to control loops for. No controller does it better without a Max4Live patch, so I don’t complain.
7 - No meters on the hardware…I’d like Digital PPMs on each channel if I were designing it from scratch, but I’m not sure if Live will actually support that. I look at the laptop enough that it’s not an issue, just not ideal. No controller has this feature to my knowledge.
8 - No button on the controller sends a momentary signal…they’re all note-on messages when they’re pressed. I don’t care, but some people might.
9 - By default, it has controls for Master Volume, Master Pan, and Return A and B Pan. These controls are USELESS and DANGEROUS. They need to be mapped either to a dummy Audio Effect Rack that doesn’t do anything or to another function. Panning is obviously useless (though someone probably uses them on the Return tracks), but the reason Live’s Master Volume control is useless is that it actually sets Live’s Output Bit Depth, the way all DAWs do…it should be set at 0dB or you’re just giving away audio quality, so having the control there is pointless for DJ applications.
10 - Because the midi implementation is so simple, some controls are weird to map if you want to–for example–limit the range of the tempo slider while keeping the fine control as-is. The way the scene knob works is actually an odd choice IMO, but it works just fine (it sends different note-on messages in each direction, which are mapped to “scene up” and “scene down.” they probably do that so they can have it click).
11 - As far as I can tell, the buttons only have one color of LED behind them, so you can’t use the 5 EQ Kill/Solo/Mute buttons per channel to launch clips (as I do) and have them give feedback of whether a clip is present, only whether it’s playing or not.
I think that’s about it. All-in-all, I’m happy with it. I don’t like pages; I don’t like shift buttons; and I love having obviously related controls grouped in a sensical way…and the VCM fits that bill better than anything else out there.
A set of 3-4 Faderfox LD2s would give similar (and in some ways, more) functionality…but I’d get lost in a sea of identical-looking push encoders. And they’d cost more unless you’re willing to deal with pages.