Novation’s New Launchpads add Custom MIDI Programming & More Ableton Live Control

The Launchpad line has been quite the success story over the last decade for Novation, and today they’ve announced 2 new additions/updates to the line: LaunchPad X and Launchpad Mini MK3. Aside from a thinner body and updated aesthetics, both models sport some clever upgrades – velocity and aftertouch sensitivity on the new mid-range LaunchPad X, RGB pads and extended control on the updated Mini. 

Arguably the biggest addition though, is the now factory-enabled ability to make your own custom MIDI controller layouts for dedicated control over parameters of your choosing, and have them running in a separate “tab” of the grid. That might not excite you straight away, but this is an incredibly useful feature for Ableton Live sets — particularly if you’re running hardware equipment that’ll shine with a few MIDI signals thrown at it. You can set controls to be a chromatic keyboard, change presets, control parameters of your choosing, turn fx on/off — almost anything you can think of can now have a dedicated control on a Launchpad.

Get the full rundown of new features and specs via Novation here.

Loopop’s done a fairly comprehensive overview of the new units, check it out below: