Novation-launchcontrol-xl-bitwig

A controller script to get the Novation LaunchControl XL to integrate smoothly with Bitwig Studio.

View project on GitHub

Welcome. This page describes how you can get your Novation LaunchControl XL device working with Bitwig Studio.

Overview

The novation launchpad is an awesome Midi controller. It has a plenty of good quality knobs and faders, decent capabilities in terms of led feedback and 16 mappable Midi channel... enough for a lot of different layouts and an almost-hands-off-the-keyboard-and-mouse Bitwig experience. Until then, it was just missing a good, exhaustive mapping for Bitwig Studio. Here's one. It has been designed to work better with the Novation Launchpad (in other words, it doesn't implement features to Launch clips, play notes and sequence drums. I assumed you had another device for that :) ) but please, feel free to use any controller combination you like the most.

In short, this mapping will provide you with 8 User boards on which you'll be able to assign any control in Bitwig (buttons included) as you like (it is, of course, possible to have the 8 user boards mapped to different sets of controls) and 4 factory boards (at least one more is coming from me, feel free to extend my script and add new boards with new features), suited to different use-cases (composing, jamming, playing live...). All of the factory boards can be put into "device mode", which will provide you total control over any selected device. It's a great mode to shape your sound or assign macros to every instrument so that you can later tweak them using the Macro board.

The mappings behind all of these board is detailed below, as well as instructions on how to install this controller script. Have fun !

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.

User modes

TODO

Factory Modes

TODO

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 and Contributors