Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Novation Circuit's COMPANION || Ableton Live MIDI Controller || Can be used with Novation Launchpad X, Launchpad Pro etc.

Companion is a MIDI control surface that acts as a companion to your other controllers. Companion works with Ableton Live without any MIDI mapping as it also has Remote Script for Live. You just need to select the Remote Script in the Preferences window of Ableton Live. For other DAWs, you can of course use it by MIDI mapping the different controls. However, in Ableton Live the Remote Script does it all by default.

General Controls of the Companion



Companion in Mode-1

The picture below shows the functions of different controls of the Companion in Mode-1.


Joystick Functions:
1. The joystick can be used as a pitch bend wheel by moving it up/down.
2. Moving the joystick left/right selects the previous/next track, respectively.
3. The joystick is also clickable. Pressing the joystick down toggles between Mode-1 and Mode-2.

Volume: This knob controls the volume of the currently selected track in Ableton Live.

Arm: This button toggles arm on/off of the currently selected track.

Undo: This button triggers the undo function in Ableton Live.

Arrangement Record: This button toggles the main record button on/off in Ableton Live. This button is quite handy while punch recording.

Play/Stop: This button toggles between play and stop. It acts like the space bar on keyboard.

Session Record: This button triggers the overdub function in session mode of Ableton Live, also known as session record. This comes in quite handy as Ableton Live doesn't have any keyboard shortcut of this function.

Companion in Mode-2

The picture below shows the functions of different controls of the Companion in Mode-2.


Joystick Functions:
Functions of the joystick remains the same in Mode-2 as it was in Mode-1.

Modulation: This knob now controls the modulation of the currently playing note.

Launch Clip: This button launches the currently selected clip in session mode.

Solo: This button toggles solo on/off of the currently selected track.

Previous Scene: This button selects the previous scene in session mode of Ableton Live.

Mute: This button toggles mute on/off of the currently selected track.

Next Scene: This button selects to the next scene in session mode of Ableton Live.

Watch it in action on YouTube!



3 comments:

Chris W said...

Will you release the script or circuit diagram?

Chaitanya said...

Came here for the Python script. Is it available anywhere?

Namasudra said...

Trying to come up with a good looking cabinet. I have also added some new features on the script and it will be available with the unit.