Contents Introduction................................................................4 7. Keyboard Setting................................................18 Hardware Overview..................................................4 Firmware Features....................................................5 A. Octave.............................................................18 B. Transpose........................................................18 1. Sequencer View...................................................
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Introduction Welcome to the SL MkIII User Guide. This guide aims to give you the knowledge needed to get the most out of the SL MkIII. Information throughout this guide applies to both the 49- and 61-key versions of the SL MkIII. This information includes detailed explanations of the hardware, the device’s various ‘Views’ and menus, and how to use the unit with external hardware and/or software.
Firmware Features 1. Sequencer View At the heart of the SL MkIII is its Sequencer, which lets you arrange MIDI patterns in fun and creative ways. Press the Shift button followed by the Sequencer button (left side of the controller) to enable/disable the Sequencer. The Sequencer button will turn white when activated, and orange when disabled. After switching on the Sequencer you will notice the Transport buttons (far right of the controller) light up, indicating that they can control the Sequencer.
B. Options While in Steps View, press the Options button (to the right of the pads) to see the options for the current Pattern. Use the soft buttons below ‘Velocity’, ‘Gate’ and ‘Pattern’ to call up these settings. Press Options again to return to Steps View. i. Velocity Once in the Options menu, press the soft button below Velocity to edit the velocities of each Step in the current Pattern. By default, you will see Steps 1 to 8 on the screens (2 per screen).
iii. Pattern The last item in the Options menu is ‘Pattern’, which itself contains four suboptions: ‘Start Position’, ‘End Position’, ‘Direction’ and ‘Sync Rate’. Editing these settings alters playback of Patterns in interesting ways (we recommend playing around here to achieve ‘happy accidents’). Keep in mind that Pattern changes will take effect when playback reaches the end of the Pattern.
Just press a pad to select a new pattern. If the Transport is stopped, your newly-selected Pattern will begin when the Transports starts. When you select a new Pattern with the Transport running, the Pattern will change when the current one ends. Otherwise, hold Shift and select a new Pattern to instantly switch to that Pattern as if it had been playing alongside. (This means you do not have to wait until the end of the current Pattern to hear your new one.
F. Automation With the SL MkIII’s Sequencer recording, you can automate the movement of the following Template controls: • • • • • • Rotary Knobs Faders Soft Buttons Pads (press/release & pressure) Pitch & Modulation Wheels Pedals Once a control moves the corresponding LED or screen will light red, and the control will begin overwriting any of its existing control data as the Transport advances.
• • • • • • 16 Rotary Knobs (across two pages) 16 Pads (both hit and pressure) 8 Faders 16 Buttons The Modulation Wheel Footswitch, Expression and Sustain Pedals Templates can be designed and managed with Components, a stand-alone application available here: components.novationmusic.com. With Components, you can configure each control to send one of many different MIDI messages with different ranges, value and behaviours.
• USB: Off/On • DIN: Off, 1 or 2 or Both • CV/Gate: Off, 1, 2, or Both Your destination preference are stored in the Session, so changing Sessions will change these Destinations. C. Channel The MIDI channel for a Part is set using the Channel control. You can choose from channel 1 through 16. Note: Channel 16 is used as a global channel for certain messages such as program change and song select.
Side note: Latch will work whether Arp is on or off – essentially, Latch triggers a continuous MIDI note, regardless of Arp’s on/off state. Latch is thus useful, for example, if sending MIDI to an external arpeggiator, or an external synth patch with lots of sustain. Latch will apply to the selected Arp destination Part only. C. Arp Settings Pressing the Arp button (while not holding Shift) reveals the following settings on the screens.
• • • • • • • • • • • 1 1/2 1/2 Triplet 1/4 1/4 Triplet 1/8 1/8 Triplet 1/16 (Default) 1/16 Triplet 1/32 1/32 Triplet H. Arp Octaves This setting increases the output range of the Arp by octaves. For example, if you set Octaves to 2 the sequence is played and then immediately repeated one octave higher. Three (3) means the Sequence will be repeated one octave higher, and then an octave higher still. By default, Octaves is set to 1 but can go as far as 6.
L. Additional Arp Notes While using Up/Down 1 with octave range greater than 1, if moving in the down direction, reducing the octave range to 1 will cause the Arp to continue falling through all the octaves until 1 is reached, at which point it will stay within the 1-octave range. (Those familiar with Novation’s Mininova will recognise this behaviour).
2. The menu item labelled ‘MIDI Clock Rx’ shows either ‘On’ or ‘Off”, indicating whether the device can respond to an external MIDI clock. 3. Turn the rotary knob above to the right to enable reception of MIDI clock, or to the left to disable response of MIDI clock. When set to ‘On’, if the SL MkIII detects MIDI clock at either of the MIDI inputs (USB or DIN) it will sync to the external clock. Be sure to send MIDI to USB or DIN, and not both, as this might cause a loss of synchronisation or erratic tempo.
When pickup is on for faders/Mod Wheel, values will not be sent from that control until the physical position of the control matches (or passes) the previous value. This behaviour prevents sudden jumps in the value after switching between Parts, for example. The default value for these controls will be at the lowest position (i.e. fader all the way down). Please note that the SL MkIII’s fader pickup behaviour does not apply when using InControl.
I. Key LEDs When ‘Keys LEDs’ is set to ‘On’, the key LEDs (directly above each key) will light up white as you play notes on the keyboard. J. Arp LEDs When ‘Arp LEDs’ is on, the key LEDs will light up white according to which notes the arpeggiator triggers. Arp LEDs help you confirm what notes your arpeggiator is playing. K. Sequencer LEDs When ‘Sequencer LEDs’ is on, keyboard LEDs will light up white with notes (chords, melodies, etc.) that are playing from either the Sequencer or external MIDI. L.
7. Keyboard Settings A. Octave The octave up and down buttons (+ and - buttons) change the octave offset of the keyboard. Press both together to reset the keyboard octave to its default. Keyboard zones can have additional or independent octave applied. See the documentation on ‘Zones’ for details. B. Transpose Pressing Shift and the Octave Up or Octave Down buttons transpose the keyboard MIDI notes in semitones. Press Shift and Octave Up and Octave Down buttons to reset the transpose.
D. Swing Sync Rate Changing the Swing Sync Rate adjusts the length of the swing period. The setting defines the tempo interval by which the Swing parameter will shift alternate notes. The default is set to 1/16, meaning that the Sequencer and Arp will swing in pairs of 1/16ths. Triplet sync rates are denoted with a “T” after the sync rate. E. Tap Tempo You can define a tempo by pressing the Tap button at the intended tempo. You must press the Tap button at least three times before a tempo is calculated.
10. Zones Zones are a powerful feature that divides the keyboard into areas, aka ‘Zones’. These Zones can be one note or the entirety of the keyboard. Zones are highly customizable: you could, for example, set your drum sounds to play in one octave, bass in another, synth sounds in yet another etc. This flexibility makes this feature ideal for live performance or a personalised production setup. Tempo Grid A.
E. Set Keyboard Range for a Zone On the 49-key version of the SL MkIII, each Zone’s default range is C1 to C5 (all 49 notes), while on the 61-note version of the device the default range is C1 to C6 (all 61 notes). i. From a Menu In Zones View the third and fourth knobs set the range of the Zone from lowest to highest key. This range is inclusive of the low key and high key. Zones Mode supports overlapping zones.
11. Session Management Enter the Sessions View by simply pressing the ‘Sessions’ button. In Sessions View, the square 8x2 pads become locations for saving and loading your Sessions. The arrows to the left of the 8x2 pad area are used to change pages of Sessions View. There are four available pages, each containing 16 Sessions laid sequentially across the 16 pads. These four pages give you a total of 64 Sessions.
F. Loading a Session Using Program Change It is possible to load a Session by sending a ‘program change’ message to the device on channel 16. By default, the indicated Session will load instantly. If 64 is added to the program ID the session load will be cued (during playback, see Cued Session Switch). G. Loading a Session Using Song Select It is possible to load a Session by sending a ‘song select’ message to the SL MkIII while the Sequencer is stopped. The session to load is indicated by the song id.
ii. Scale Type Once you have decided on a root note, you will next need to select a scale type. Turn the rotary knob above ‘Type’ to choose one of the following scales: Natural Minor, Major, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Melodic Minor, Harmonic Minor, Bebop Dorian, Blues, Minor Pentatonic, Hungarian Minor, Ukrainian Minor, Marva, Todi, Whole Tone and Chromatic. iii. Sequence Transpose Turning the knob above ‘Sequence Transpose’ applies a transpose value to the played notes coming from the Sequencer.
14. Components A. Template Editor Templates can be edited using Components, allowing you customize the messages sent and behaviour of rotary knobs, faders, buttons, pads wheels and pedals. Please see 2. Templates for a link to Components. B. Librarian With the SL MkIII’s Librarian functionality you can send and receive Sessions and Templates over SysEx. This sending and receiving are primarily done using Components (please see 2. Templates for Components’ web address).
15. InControl Press the ‘InControl’ button to enter InControl mode. The aim of InControl is the seamless integration of the SL MkIII with popular DAWs like Pro Tools, Cubase, Reaper, Logic, Reason and Live. The chart below illustrates which DAW features InControl supports. A.
B. HUI The HUI protocol allows the SL MkIII to act like a Mackie HUI device and interact with DAWs that provide HUI support (for example, Steinberg, Cubase and Pro Tools). i. HUI Heartbeat After hitting InControl, the SL MkIII automatically switches to HUI View as soon as it detects a Heartbeat message (sent by a DAW). If the SL MkIII does not receive a heartbeat message for over three seconds, it automatically switches back to InControl mode. ii.
Click the small ‘+’ icon in the Cubase ‘Studio Setup’ window and select ‘Mackie HUI’. Now, in the ‘Mackie HUI’ tab, set the input and output port to ‘Novation SL MkIII SL MkIII InControl’ as shown below: Note: The ‘Novation SL MkIII SL MkIII’ port may show as ‘MIDIIN(put)’/’MIDIOUT2’ or something similar on Windows. • Reaper Please note that Reaper version 5.941 or newer is required to work with the SL MkIII. To set up the SL MkIII as a HUI control surface in Reaper, navigate to ‘Options’ > ‘Preferences.
C. Ableton Live i. Set Up 1. Navigate to your Live Preferences by going to the ‘Live’ menu, and choose ‘Preferences…’, or use the keyboard shortcuts CMD + Comma (CTRL + Comma on Windows). 2. Click the ‘Link/MIDI’ tab. 3. In the ‘Control Surface’ drop-down menu select ‘SL MkIII’. 4. Next, select the ‘Novation SL MkIII (SL MkIII InControl)’ port (‘Novation SL MkIII (Port 2)’ on Windows) in the drop-down menus of both the Input and Output options. 5.
• Up and Down Buttons Press the Up and Down arrow buttons (left of the pads) to move vertically in Ableton Live’s Session View. These buttons move the selection ring up or down by one scene at a time and allow you to launch, record or stop many more clips and scenes in your Live Set. • Soft Keys Another way to directly select a track/s within the selection ring is to use the eight soft keys (beneath the screens and above the pads).
iv. 8x2 Soft Buttons The 8x2 soft buttons area (above the faders) allow you to change the state of your tracks quickly. The button labels on the far right screen display the current function of the soft buttons. • Mute and Solo By default the 8x2 soft buttons function according to bank 1 where the top row (the yellow buttons) mutes and unmutes tracks, and the lower row (the dark blue buttons) toggles solo on and off.
• Displaying and Editing Pan Controls After pressing the Options button, select the yellow ‘Pan’ button to access the pan controls for the eight tracks within the selection ring. • Displaying and Editing Send Controls After pressing the Options button, the green soft key selects the Sends View. The screens will display a single send control for each track shown on the screens. To bank through the available sends, click the up and down arrows to the left of the screen.
vii. Shortcuts Press the Options button followed by ‘Shortcut’ to access shortcuts. These include: • • • • • • Undo Redo Count In Toggle Logic’s count in on/off Metronome Toggle Logic’s metronome on/off viii. Mute/Solo The soft buttons above the faders control mute and solo for eight tracks. When you solo a track, the muted tracks will flash on and off. ix.
v. Effects and Utilities To control Effects and Utilities from the SL MkIII, you need to create an audio track for it. To do so, find the Effect or Utility in the Rack section, right + click (PC) or Ctrl + click (Mac) on the device (e.g. Warm Echo) and select ‘Create Track for device name’. At this point a new track will appear in Reason’s Se-quencer; you can now select this new track using the Track buttons on the SL MkIII.
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