Press the ‘InControl’ button to enter InControl mode. InControl integrates the SL MkIII with DAWs like Pro Tools, Cubase, Reaper, Logic, Reason and Ableton Live. The chart below shows which DAW features InControl supports.
To exit InControl, you can either press any other view or press the InControl button again to take you back to the previously selected view.
|
Feature |
Pro Tools |
Cubase |
Reaper |
Logic |
Reason |
Ableton |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Channel Controls |
||||||
|
Control Volume using Faders |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Control Pans using Encoders |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Select Track |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Mute Track |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Solo Track |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Arm Track |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Transport Controls |
||||||
|
Rewind |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Fast-Forward |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Stop |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Play |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Record(arm) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Loop |
Yes |
Yes |
NA |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Track Navigation |
||||||
|
Track left / right |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Track Name |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Other |
||||||
|
Save |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
No |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Undo |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Pre-Roll |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
No |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Post-Roll |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
No |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Count-in |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
N/A |
No |
|
Control Send Groups A-E using Encoders |
Yes |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Metronome |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Clip Control |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Yes |
|
Device Control |
NA |
NA |
NA |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Smart Controls |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Yes |
N/A |
N/A |
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).
After pressing InControl, the SL MkIII 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 switches back to InControl mode.
You can change channel Volume with the eight faders toward the right side of the SL MkIII. The LED above each fader shows its value. The fader after the last DAW track fader controls the main output fader in your DAW session.
You can change a channel’s Pan position using the rotary knobs. The screens below each knob display the current Pan position.
The right soft buttons control Mute, Solo and Arm functions on individual channels. By default, you will only see the Mute and Solo buttons; use the page up button to access the Arm buttons. Depending on the DAW you are using, button LEDs may behave differently. For example, in Pro Tools the Arm button will flash when on.
Press the Options button to access the encoder assignment menu. You can set the encoders to control send levels. Use the page up/down buttons next to the screens to access send groups A through E.
The Transport buttons control the equivalent functions in each DAW. The function of each button depends on the DAW. The functionality is (from left to right) as follows: Rewind, Fast-Forward, Stop, Play, Loop on/off, Arm/Record.
The Track Left/Right buttons move the bank (eight channels) one channel to the left or right. If you have more than eight channels in your session you can hold Shift and press Track Left and Right to bank eight channels at a time.
Hold Shift to access several keyboard shortcuts on the left soft buttons. Again, the way these button LEDs function depends on the DAW.
-
Press Button 01 (furthest left) to Undo. In Pro Tools this button will flash after undoing, showing the possibility to Redo.
-
Press Button eight (far-right) to save your DAW session. In Pro Tools, for example, the Save button will begin to flash after clicking. This is Pro Tools’ way of asking for confirmation. Press the button once more to save.
You will need Reaper version 5.941 or newer to work with the SL MkIII.
To set up the SL MkIII as a HUI control surface in Reaper, navigate to ‘Options’ > ‘Preferences…’ > ‘MIDI Devices’. Set your ports as shown below, the ‘Focusrite A.E. – Novation SL MkIII – SL MkIII InControl’ port MUST NOT say ‘!! N/A...’. If this is the case, you might solve this by right-clicking the device and choosing ‘Forget device’:
Navigate to the ‘Control/OSC/web’ tab in the ‘Reaper Preferences’ window and click ‘Add’ to add a new control surface.
Now, in the ‘Control Surface Settings’ window, set the Control surface mode to HUI (partial) and set the input and output port to ‘Focusrite A.E. – Novation SL MkIII – SL MkIII InControl’ as shown below:
The screenshot below shows you how to configure Ableton Live to work with the SL MkIII on macOS and Windows.
Follow these steps to replicate the above set up:
-
Navigate to your Live Preferences by going to the ‘Live’ or ‘Options’ menu, ‘Preferences’.
-
Click the ‘Link Tempo MIDI’ tab.
-
Select ‘SL MkIII’ in the Control Surface menu.
-
Select ‘Novation SL MkIII InControl/Port 2’ in the Input and Output drop-down menu options.
-
Finally, in the ‘MIDI Ports’ section set ‘Track’, ‘Sync’ and ‘Remote’ to ‘On’ for ‘Novation SL MkIII (SL MkIII MIDI). Be sure to do this for both Input and Output options. Additionally, switch Track to ‘On’ for both ‘SL_MkIII Input’ and ‘SLMkIII Output’.
In your Ableton Live Set, you will see a ‘selection ring’ (red rectangle) in Session view. When you enable InControl, the track names in this selection ring will display on the SL MkIII’s screens. The SL MkIII can control these tracks in various ways: Pads control the track clips in the selection ring, faders control track volume, and rotary knobs alter Live device parameters, to name a few of InControl’s features.
You can navigate tracks in Live using the Track Left and Track Right buttons. Selecting a track does not arm it but does allow you to view or change its devices.
The selection ring is a visual aid, you can move beyond its scope by pressing the right/left Track buttons. The selection ring moves to include the newly selected track. The selection ring can only contain eight tracks at a time.
To move by eight tracks, hold ‘Shift’ and press the Track Left/Track Right buttons. A selected track will stay in the same relative position. For example, if you select the second track and move the selection ring eight tracks to the right, the selected track will become the second track inside the new ring position, in other words, the tenth track.
When your selected track is the last in a direction, the Track button for that direction will become dark to show you cannot go further. For example, if Live’s track number one is currently selected, the left Track button will not light green since there are no tracks to the left.
Press the Up and Down arrow buttons to move vertically in Live’s Session view. These buttons move the selection ring up or down one scene and allow you to launch, record or stop many more clips and scenes in your Live Set.
To directly select a track/s within the selection ring use the eight soft keys (beneath the screens and above the pads). This is sometimes faster than using the Track Left and Track Right buttons.
These soft keys correspond to the tracks in order (left to right). For example, if tracks 1-8 are within the selection ring, the left-most soft button selects track 1, the next from the left selects track 2, and so on.
The screen label provides an overview of which controls currently display across the screens. When a Live device changes or you bank through the parameters of a device, this label will update to show what you can currently control.
At the bottom of the notification screen is an area that gives you instant feedback on the changes you make to certain parameters. This feedback is a ‘pop-up’ notification. This only appears when you make changes and disappears again after a brief time. This notification area also shows volume changes when you move a fader.
By default, the SL MkIII’s 8×2 pads represent clips in Live’s Session view. More specifically, the pads show which clips - or empty clip slots - are within the selection ring, and which clips you can record, launch or stop.
When you arm a track, available clip slots turn pads red. Press these red pads to begin recording. Press them again to stop clip recording and start playback. A recorded clip ready to launch or play will pulse green; a recorded clip that is idle will take the colour of its track. In other words, press any coloured pad (assuming it is not bright red) to launch playback.
Press the play button (green right arrow button) to the right of a pad row to launch a scene (i.e., all clips in the same row). This play button, as well as available clips, will flash until the scene successfully launches. To stop a clip on an unarmed track, press the dim (unlit) pad above or below on the same track.
To stop a clip on an armed track, or to stop all clips, hold the Shift button. This turns the lower row of pads and the lower scene launch button red. Pressing a red pad will stop the clip on that track, and pressing the red play button will stop all playing clips (equivalent to how the ‘stop all clips’ button acts in Live).
Pressing Grid changes the pads to a ‘drum view’. The Grid button will turn green. This view is ideal for playing Ableton Live’s Drum Racks as it allows you to use pads to play drums or samples, which some producers find more ‘drummer-friendly’ than using a chromatic keyboard.
The leftmost pad on the bottom row triggers C1. The pad to its right triggers C#2, and so on until you reach the top row’s rightmost pad, which triggers D#2. To access different octaves, click the green up/down buttons left of the pad area.
With a Drum Rack on a track, pads containing audio samples will appear yellow. The last played pad will be blue. Muted pads turn orange, while pads in solo mode take on a purple colour. Finally, empty pads will be dark.
Press the Grid button again to return pads to their clip-launch capabilities.
Within InControl mode, pressing the Options button opens the Options view. Options view allows you to view and edit track parameters, displays device chains and select from the devices in the chain.
In Options view, the upper part of the screens show the device chain on the currently selected track. These devices may be Ableton instruments, audio/MIDI effects, or third-party plug-ins.
-
Click a pink pad to select the devices you wish to control. This turns the pad bright pink and selects the name of the device on the screen above.
-
Press the Options button again to return to the default InControl view (where pads control clips).
-
Now, the first eight parameters for the device you selected display on the screens and moving the rotary knobs above will adjust those parameters.
This image shows an Ableton Live device chain. We have selected the Limiter on the SL MkIII. This is confirmed by the ‘blue hand’ symbol on the Limiter (far-right), and a bright pink pad and highlighted device name on the SL MkIII’s screen.
If you want to select another device (coming from elsewhere in Options, like Pan) the first soft key under the screens called ‘DevceSlct’ will get you back to the Device Chains and Device Selection view.
The SL MkIII allows you to change device parameters beyond the first eight (most Live devices contain more than eight parameters). With a device selected, pressing the up or down arrow buttons (to the left of the screens) will switch through the available ‘banks’ of parameters. As per usual, the rotary knobs above will change these new parameters.
After pressing the Options button, select the yellow ‘Pan’ button to access the pan controls for the eight tracks within the selection ring.
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. Raise or lower the send amount with the corresponding knob (above the send you wish to edit).
The 8x2 soft buttons area (above the faders) allow you to change the state of your tracks quickly. The button labels show on the rightmost screen the current function of the soft buttons.
By default, the 8x2 soft buttons function according to bank one where the top row (the yellow buttons) mutes and unmutes tracks, and the lower row (the dark blue buttons) toggles solo on and off. When muted, the yellow soft buttons will become a dark yellow, when soloing a track, the corresponding soft button will become bright blue.
You can move to bank two by pressing the green down arrow to the right of the 8x2 soft button area. Now, the rightmost screen will show the top row of soft buttons (again in yellow) cycles through MIDI/Audio Monitoring options. By default, Ableton Live tracks are set to ‘Auto’, but pressing the top row of buttons will allow you to change monitoring to ‘Off’ or ‘In’. The bottom row (dark red) controls the ‘record arm’ option. When you set a track to ‘Monitor In’ its soft button turns ice blue, and when you record arm a track its soft button becomes bright red.
Faders control track volumes in your Ableton Live set. These eight faders correspond to the eight tracks within the selection ring.
The LEDs above the faders give visual feedback of the volume settings on the selected tracks. Since you can use the faders on multiple tracks by moving the selection ring (see Live set navigation), the actual position of the physical faders may not match the faders on-screen. The LEDs provide a solution by brightening and dimming if the volume on an Ableton Live track is higher or lower, respectively.
While in InControl, holding Shift turns the first three soft buttons above the pad area into Undo, Redo and Click controls. As expected, Undo and Redo perform those functions on your Live Set’s most recent actions. Pressing Click toggles Live’s metronome on or off.
Holding Shift will also display a Capture button if you recently played - but did not record - MIDI notes. Press this last soft button under the screens to grab the MIDI you just played and place it in a clip, even though you were not recording in the traditional sense.
To set the SL MkIII up with Logic Pro you can download the installer from our Downloads page or follow the steps below:
Once downloaded the SL MkIII will be auto-detected in Logic. If Logic does not detect your SL MkIII, please use the following steps:
To select a track, press the button under the track name. It will highlight to show you have chosen it.
To control track pans, press the Options button and choose ‘Pans’. From this view, the eight knobs will control the pans for eight tracks at a time.
To control track sends, press the Options button followed by ‘Sends’. The eight knobs will then control Bus levels in Logic. Press the up and down arrows to the left of the screens to change the selected send. You can control up to four sends with the SL.
Logic uses smart controls to choose eight parameters for the selected plug-in on a chosen track. To control these on the SL MkIII, press Options followed by ‘Smart’. In this view, the eight knobs will control the eight parameters assigned by Logic to be smart controls for the selected plug-in.
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.
After starting Reason, you can set up the SL MkIII.
Enable ‘Use with Reason’, and ‘Novation SL MkIII SL MkIII From DIN 1’ and you can control Reason with the SL MkIII. You can control all Instruments, Effects and Utilities in a Reason Rack (see picture below), as well as move between tracks.
With the SL MkIII’s InControl mode you can take advantage of the following features in Reason:
-
Track Left and Track Right buttons - Use these buttons to move between tracks in Reason’s Sequencer.
-
Rotary Knobs - These change various parameters for Instruments, Effects, Utilities and Players. Active knobs display on the screens with their parameter name and value.
-
Pads - These control parameters in Reason. When using the Kong Drum Designer Instrument, pads select Kong’s drum sounds. The drum’s main parameters appear on the screens, and the rotary knobs can adjust those parameters.
Each time you load a new Instrument (and create a new MIDI track) Reason will assign the SL MkIII to that Instrument.
To control Effects and Utilities from the SL MkIII, you need to create an audio track. Find the device in the Rack section, right-click on the device and select ‘Create Track for device name’. A new track will appear in the sequencer; select this new track using the Track buttons on the SL MkIII.
When you select an Effect or Utility, its controls appear on the SL MkIII’s screens, which you can then change with the above knobs. The drum’s main parameters appear on the screens, and the rotary knobs can adjust those parameter values.
You can use these buttons to navigate inside Reason’s devices. For example:
For Redrum, the eight soft buttons under the screens select channels 1-8; after you choose a Redrum channel, you can adjust its parameters (pitch, pan, sends etc) with the knobs above the screens.
With Mixer 14:2, the soft buttons above the SL MkIII’s faders select mixer channels, at which point you can turn knobs above the screens to adjust parameters like volume, bass, treble, and so on.
These control device parameters. When you use a fader to change a parameter value, a notification on the fifth screen (from the left) will display the parameter name and value.
For example, if you have selected the Europa Synthesizer the first fader (from the left) will raise and lower the volume of Oscillator 1. ‘Osc1 Level’ will appear on the fifth screen, along with a decibel value.
These buttons on the far-right of the SL MkIII control Reason’s transport, including Rewind, Fast Forward, Stop, Play and Record. You can also use the SL MkIII’s Loop button to turn Reason’s Sequencer Loop On/Off.
The up/down buttons left of the pads change presets when you have an Instrument, Effect, or Utility selected.
You can use the Modulation Wheel to affect various parameters of selected Reason devices. A common destination for the Mod Wheel is a synths filter frequency.