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Today I received a Novation Impulse 25 master keyboard. The Korg Nano Key broke and I needed something similar that is small enough to fit on my desk, yet good enough to play natural phrases (the Korg was not). Most of the time, a heavy 88 keyboard is just overkill.
The little Impulse makes a very solid impression and offers transport controls, 8 knobs, 8 touch pads and a fader. It is USB-powered, that is, no extra power supply needed.
Of course, 25 keys are useful only for simple phrases. The action works fine for me, it feels like a good synthesizer. The touch pads are velocity sensitive. It has quite a lot features, too many to mention here. Google its specs, if you are interested.
I gave up on setting up the Automap stuff that comes with the Impulse. The software pushed a firmware update to the device, which was fine. Then I went on to other things. Really, if people can deal with a setup as complex as that, Synfire should not be a problem actually.
The Impulse 25 would fit in a large backpack with a laptop. I doubt however it's lean enough to take it around everywhere. It's probably ok for an occasional workshop, though. I'm quite happy with it and wanted to let you know, just in case anyone is looking for a small keyboard for Synfire.
The transport keys motivated me to add all of Synfire's transport keys to the remote control settings (next update). Works great with the Impulse ;-)
Sa., 02.08.2014 - 01:14 Permalink
If you have never used Novation Automap ... you are in for a great surprise!
In my opinion it is the premier midi control software.
A lot of people who don't undertand it complain when they first use it as the automatic assigned parameters are not necessarily sensible or useful. This is only because the software simply shakes hands with the 'list' of parameters that the software or hardware device makes available. Every list must be in some order and manufacturers pay little attention to the order.
However, as soon as you learn to assign and setup parameters to your Novation device you will discover how brilliant the software is. Each knob, controller or slider has unique parameter sets that you can apply to any revealed parameter from the software. When you adjust to your liking simply click the 'default' setting and your adjustments will automatically load from now on. Also, is you have two or three different adjustment setups, depending what you are trying to do, each can be saved as an individual preset map for easy loading in the future.
Sa., 02.08.2014 - 11:50 Permalink
Have to agree with whats been said about automap. What isnt clear from the post, is how it affects your workflow. Which ever plugin you select at the time, the controls auto adjust to the right paramenters for that vst. So for instance you can always have filter cutoff on knob one and resonance on knob two for all your softsynths and effects that havea filter cutoff control.
What I havent looked into but would make a lot of sense is trying to get the automap controls mapped through from synfire rather than the vst/au controls. That way every sound/instrument in synfire would have the same control setup in its device definition. You could come up with a device template with say 8 mapped controls, that template could then be used with every vst/au and give control of the best 8 controls for that sound with no changes to synfire. No more mapping synfire controls through to each sound parameters in your daw. (didnt explain that well but hope its understandable after 10 reads!)
Sa., 02.08.2014 - 16:39 Permalink
Blacksun makes a great point ... you can setup a common work flow across plugins by assigning the same plugin parameter, e.g., CC74 and CC71, to the same control on the Automap hardware.
There are two Novation tutorials on Groove3.com. The one Jan mentions and also one on the Novation SL MK II controller.