Novation LaunchControl XL - Bitwig Script

About this repository

Here is a Bitwig controller script for the Novation LaunchControl XL.

It contains 8 User modes thanks to which you can map any parameter in Bitwig and 4 factory modes that will suit to your different use cases and workflows: there's a macro mode on which you can use the knobs to control 3 macros on each device, a mode to control pan and fx sends and a live mode where knobs can be assigned to anything in Bitwig (there's two boards using this mode since I thought it was cool to have one for drums and another one for filters and effects.

The buttons and faders control the track volumes and mute/solo/arm toggles, as well as track selection.

In each of these 3 factory modes, you can switch to device mode and get the focus on the primary device of the selected track. Scrolling along the device chain is possible as well (nested scrolling will come soon).

In device mode, the faders control the envelope parameters, the top row of knobs controls the common parameters of the device, the bottom one controls the macros and the middle one is a scrollable (using the up/down buttons) view over the device's pages of parameters. You can use the fifth column of buttons to enable/ disable the device and the arm status of the current track. The last three columns are mapped to preset scrolling features (author, category and the preset itself) so that you can quickly try different presets in a given category. Finally the first four columns help you select one of the device's macro as a modulation source. When one is selected, you can tweak any knob to set the modulation amount the control he's mapped to will get.

Oh and yeah, since switching between different modes is one of the key features of this mapping, all the controls have a soft-takeover functionality enabled: it means that if, at some point, a fader or knob is not at the same position on the board and in Bitwig, you'll have to reach the position it has in the software to actually take control. You can see which knobs are taking control because their leds will have a lower brightness. In case the control you're moving is taking over, the nav leds will indicate in which direction it has to be moved to take control back.

You can find more documentation about the features offered by this mapping here.

The code is easily extensible so feel free to fork this repository, create new boards extending SoftTakeoverBoard and to make PRs against this repository once you're done :).

How do I install the mapping ?

Bitwig actually provides instructions to install controller scripts here : https://www.bitwig.com/en/community/control_scripts/installation_guide . You can download an archive containing the scripts to copy on top of this page.

Alternatively, if you're too lazy to follow a link or if you want a funky tour of all the possible installation methods and then pickup your favorite one, you can read below.

For Linux users

• If you have git installed just run git clone https://github.com/elafarge/novation-launchcontrol-xl-bitwig.git under ~/Bitwig Studio/Controller Scripts. Run git push when you you to update the mapping to the latest version.
• we have a one-line install/update script (you'll need to have curl installed):

sh -c "$(curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elafarge/novation-launchcontrol-xl-bitwig/master/install.sh)"

• or else, you can just download the archive here and extract it under ~/Bitwig Studio/Controller Scripts

For OSX Users

• If you have git installed just run git clone https://github.com/elafarge/novation-launchcontrol-xl-bitwig.git under ~/Documents/Bitwig Studio/Controller Scripts in your Terminal. Run git push when you you to update the mapping to the latest version.
• we also have a one-line install/update script for you here, just open a Terminal and paste the below line in it:

sh -c "$(curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elafarge/novation-launchcontrol-xl-bitwig/master/install.sh)"

• or else, you can just download the archive here and extract it under ~/Bitwig Studio/Controller Scripts

For Windows users

• Just follow the instructions on Bitwig's website please.

Once done, you should be able to

• use the Detect Available Controllers feature in Bitwig
• configure your LaunchControl manually.

Troubleshooting

If the installation script fails, please be aware that depending on

• your platform
• your amount of luck
• the version of Bitwig you are using you might have to restart
• Bitwig
• your computer

If it still doesn't work

• check that the launchpad is ACTUALLY connected to your computer... Yeah, yeah I know 0_o
• check your midi configuration

Feel free to report bugs and any other type of issue you may encounter on Github :)

Authors

• Etienne LAFARGE <etienne.lafarge_at_gmail.com>