Session mode is designed to control Ableton Live’s Session View, seen below.
If you’ve never used Ableton Live before, we recommend visiting our Easy Start Tool (see Getting Up and Running). Here you’ll find your included Ableton Live Lite download code (if you choose to register your Launchpad Mini). There are also videos covering installing, the software’s basic features, and how to get started making music with your Launchpad Mini in Ableton Live.
Session View is a grid that consists of clips, tracks (columns) and scenes (rows). Session mode provides an 8×8 view of your clips in Session view on Launchpad Mini.
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Clips are typically loops that contain MIDI notes or audio.
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Tracks represent virtual instruments or audio tracks. MIDI clips placed on instrument tracks will play back on the instrument that is assigned to that track.
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Scenes are rows of clips. Launching a scene will launch all clips in that row. This means that you can arrange clips into horizontal groups (across tracks) to form a song structure, launching scene after scene to progress through a song.
The ▲▼◄ ► buttons let you navigate the session view. The red outline in the Session View grid shows the area currently visible on Launchpad Mini.
Note
This outline may appear in any colour - this won’t affect its function.
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Press a pad to play the corresponding clip in Ableton. The colour will match the screen and pads.
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When a pad is pressed, it will flash green, indicating that the clip is queued and will soon begin to play. When a clip is playing, the pad will pulse green.
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Only one clip may play at a time per track. Pressing an empty clip will stop the current one on that track.
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A horizontal line of clips is called a Scene. Scenes can be triggered using the (scene launch) buttons on the right-hand side of Launchpad Mini.
When a track is record-armed, empty clip slots appear in dim red. Press one of these slots to start recording to the pressed clip.
The bottom row of pads can provide track controls: Stop (stop clip from playing on a specific track), Solo (solo a specific track) or Mute (mute a specific track). These three functions are cycled between using the Stop Solo Mute button:
When the device is powered on, the bottom row will at first represent clips in the same way as the rest of the 8x8 grid. After cycling past Mute, the bottom row will return to showing clips. The Stop Solo Mute button will be lit white when in this state.
|
Press |
Colour |
Controls |
|---|---|---|
|
Default/Fourth Press |
White |
Clips |
|
First press |
Red |
Stop |
|
Second Press |
Blue |
Solo |
|
Third press |
Yellow |
Mute |
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In Stop: Brightly lit red pads on the bottom row show clips are currently playing on that track and you can stop them. Dimly lit pads show that no clip is currently playing on that track.
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In Solo: Brightly lit blue pads on the bottom row show the track is currently soloed. Dimly lit pads show the track is not soloed.
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In Mute: Brightly lit yellow pads on the bottom row show that the track is currently unmuted (audible). Dimly lit pads show the track is muted, so you can't hear it.
Keys mode allows you to play your Launchpad Mini’s grid as a chromatic keyboard. The layout presents four octaves of notes in a piano layout, with the octaves stacked vertically. The lowest pitch is at the bottom, with the highest at the top. The range of notes is C2-C6.
In Ableton Live, load an instrument (such as Simpler) into a MIDI track and you will be able to play it in Keys mode. Do this by double-clicking an instrument or preset from the browser (on the left-hand side of Ableton Live), or drag it to a chosen track. If you cannot hear anything, ensure that the track is record armed, and that monitor is set to auto.
Drum mode lets you play Ableton Live’s Drum Rack on Launchpad Mini’s grid. Each section of a drum rack consists of 16 slots, arranged into a group of 4×4 pads. There are four of these groups for a total of 64 drum rack slots.
In Ableton Live, load a drum kit into a MIDI track from the browser and you will be able to play it in Drum mode. If you cannot hear anything, ensure that the track is record armed, and monitor is set to auto.
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Monitor is set to Auto.
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Red arm button shows the track is record armed.