SL MkIII features

The SL MkIII 49- and 61-note versions have the same front panel controls and rear panel connections.

The SL MkIII is based around the idea of Parts, Templates, and Sessions.

A Template contains a set of settings customised for a particular device, hardware or software, you can store 64 templates on your SL MkIII.

A ‘Session’ on SL MkIII contains eight Parts on the SL MkIII with each made up of eight patterns (containing 16-steps). A Session also contains the Scales, Arp settings, and Zones.

Each Part in a session has a Template loaded to it. There are eight Parts per session, so eight controllable devices.

You can use the Sessions button to open a session that contains a set interchangeable Templates that make up the eight Parts of that session. The eight parts are in turn select by the eight part buttons beneatch the first four screens.

The SL MkIII has a 16-step sequencer per Part. The 16 ‘Steps’ of a Part have their own ‘view’ with settings that affect just steps, and the 16-step sequence is referred to as a ‘Pattern’, again with its own ‘view‘ where you can adjust settings relating to each 16-step pattern.

Press and hold the Shift button followed by the Sequencer button to turn On, or Off, the Sequencer. The Sequencer button will turn white when activated, and orange when disabled. After switching on the Sequencer, the Transport buttons (far-right of the controller) light up, showing they can control the Sequencer.

Press the Sequencer button to enter Sequencer view, which consists of two subviews: Steps view and Patterns view (see following sections), accessed via the Steps and Patterns buttons, respectively. While in another view (Zones view, for instance) pressing the Sequencer button will take you back to the last selected Sequencer subview. The Grid button toggles the function of the 8×2 pads between the last Sequencer subview and Template (see SL MkIII Templates).

Steps view allows you to view and edit ‘Steps’ of a Pattern. The 16 (8×2) square pads beneath the screens represent the 16 available Pattern Steps.

With the Sequencer enabled, pressing play on the Transport will show the play head ‘stepping’ through the pads, turning each pad (aka Step) white along the way. Steps with MIDI notes assigned will light brightly. As the play head reaches one of these bright Steps, it will play any notes assigned to them.

To assign a note/s to a Step, select the Track using the buttons directly below the screens. Press and hold a pad, then press the key/s you want that step to trigger. You can also do the reverse: first press and hold the key/s and then press any pads you wish to populate with notes or sounds. Finally, you can record notes, and automation data, ‘live’ by pressing the Record button on the Transport (see Live record).

To remove a note/s from a Step press and hold a pad. LEDs of corresponding keys will light up in red. If the Transport is stopped, notes will play out to the corresponding Part (See Part settings), and with the velocities assigned to them. Remove the note/s by pressing the key/s.

With the Transport either running or stopped, hold the Clear button and press a Step (briefly turning it red) to remove all note and automation data from that Step. To copy a Step, hold the Duplicate button and press a pad, briefly turning it green. While continuing to hold Duplicate, press the pad/s where you wish to paste. Duplicating one pad to another will erase whatever existed on the latter - not add to it.

You can also copy Steps between Tracks. Again, hold the Duplicate button and press a pad to copy a Step. With the Duplicate button still held, change Tracks, then press pads to paste to them. However, the automation data will not copy with these Steps.

While in Steps view, press the Options button (right of the pads) to see the options for the current Pattern. Use the soft buttons below ‘Velocity’, ‘Gate’, ‘Chance’ and ‘Pattern’ to call up these settings. Press the Options button again to return to Steps view.

You can also adjust Velocity, Gate, or Chance for all steps– While in the Velocity, Gate or Chance menu, hold Shift to set the value for all steps in the current pattern with the first encoder (This will not affect steps without notes assigned).

Sequencer step velocity

In the Options menu, press the soft button below Velocity to edit each Step in the current Pattern. By default, you will see Steps one to eight on the screens (2 per screen). Use the up/down arrow buttons to the left of the screens to access steps nine to 16 (the bottom row of pads).

To adjust MIDI note velocity, rotate the knob above the Step you want to adjust. You can set a Step’s velocity anywhere between one and 127. This allows you to dial desired MIDI velocities with a fine level of precision.

The screens show a single velocity for any Step of a Pattern containing one or more notes. This value is the highest velocity of all the notes assigned to that Step, although multiple velocities might be present for that Step.

When dealing with multiple notes assigned to a Step, the SL MkIII will raise or lower the Step’s velocity to a new, uniform value. When doing so, the SL MkIII favours higher values and snaps closest to them. To illustrate this process, imagine a Step contains the velocity values 25 and 89: turning this Step’s knob to the right will snap those velocity values to 90 or above (i.e., both 25 and 89 became 90 or above). Alternatively, if you had turned the knob to the left those same velocities would have snapped to 88 or lower.

Note

After all the notes on a Step snap to the same velocity (as described above), all new notes on that Step will adopt the ‘group’ velocity.

Sequencer step gate

Select Gate to edit the length of MIDI notes assigned to each Step in the current pattern. Use the up/down arrow buttons to the left of the screens to access steps nine to 16. The screens show a single Gate value for each pattern step containing notes. The value shown is the highest Gate of the notes assigned to that Step.

Gate can have a maximum length of 32 steps, to allow steps to be longer than a duration of a pattern.

The SL MkIII measures the Gate value in two parts: steps and fractions of a step. Each step is broken into six fractions. Therefore, Gate value shows as a step number, followed by a fraction count (five white boxes below). The default value for notes is ‘1 step’; use the knob above each step to lengthen or shorten the Gate for every assigned note.

Since the SL MkIII operates under the rules of MIDI, how the Gate parameter influences your resulting sound depends on the sound being triggered, as well as the MIDI instrument holding that sound. For example, a Gate of 16 steps will not ‘stretch’ a short hi-hat sample. However, its MIDI note will become 16 steps long, regardless of the audible result.

Pattern

The next item in the Options menu is ‘Pattern’, which itself contains four sub-options: ‘Start Position’, ‘End Position’, ‘Direction’ and ‘Sync Rate’. Editing these settings alters the playback of Patterns in interesting ways (we recommend playing around here to achieve ‘happy accidents’). Pattern changes will take effect when playback reaches the end of the Pattern. The adjustable settings are as follows:

• Start Position - The rotary knob above ‘Start Position’ moves the start Step of the Pattern, changing Pattern length. The pad for this Step will be lit yellow, to allow you to see where the start position is moving. If the Start Position changes so Steps containing notes are no longer heard, these pads will light red.

• End Position - The knob above moves the end step of Pattern playback, changing the Pattern length. End Position can come before the start position. If End Position changes so that Steps containing notes are no longer heard, these pads will light red.

• Direction - This changes the course of Pattern playback. The following directions are available:

  • Forward - As the default, ‘Forward’ shows a typical playback Pattern, which begins at the start Step (start position) and moves to the end Step.

  • Backwards - ‘Backwards’ means playback begins at the end position and step progresses to the start Step. You could think of this as ‘reverse’.

  • Ping-Pong - During the first phase, playback begins at the start position and progresses to the end position. During the second phase, playback starts at the end Step and proceeds back to the start position. End Steps are repeated.

  • Random - The most experimental Direction option, this playback option continually selects Steps between the start and end position in a random order, resulting in repeated notes and general chaos.

• Sync Rate - This changes the rate at which steps occur relative to the BPM (either internal or external) Choose among the following musical time values:1/32 Triplet, 1/32, 1/16. Triplet, 1/16 (default), 1/8 Triplet, 1/8, 1/4 Triplet, 1/4 note values.

• Pattern Shift - This simultaneously nudges the start and end points of your pattern. A value between 0 and 15 shows how many steps you have shifted the pattern since it was first created.

Press the ‘Patterns’ button to open Patterns view. Here, you can select MIDI patterns within the current Session. The eight Patterns for each track are laid out horizontally in rows across the 8×2 pad area. The pads represent each Pattern, and each row takes the colour of its Part. Use the up and down buttons (left of the 8×2 pad area) to scroll through the patterns for each of the eight parts. The bottom of the fifth screen shows the Parts each row of pads applies to.

Press a pad to select a new pattern. If the Transport is stopped, your newly selected Pattern will begin when the Transport starts. When you select a new Pattern with the Transport running, the new Pattern will start when the current pattern ends. To instantly switch to a new pattern, press and hold shift and select a new pattern (This is also a way of audibly ‘combining’ Patterns in interesting ways).

In Patterns view, press the Options button to enter Automation view. In this view, each control type, as well as the name of any controls with automation for the selected Track, are displayed on the screens as ‘lanes’. Use the soft buttons below the screens to select a different Track to see its automation.

To remove automation for a control, hold the Clear button and turn the rotary control above the lane you want to clear. For example, ‘Transpose’, or ‘Ve Attack’. After clearing a lane, you can then use it for another control.

With the SL MkIII’s Sequencer recording, you can automate the movement of the following Template controls:

Once a control moves, its corresponding LED or screen lights red, and the control will begin overwriting any of its existing automation data as the Transport advances. Movements are recorded and played back at a resolution of 24 PPQN regardless of the current pattern sync rate (equivalent to six data points for each Step at the default 1/16 sync rate). Automation will record or overwrite until recording or playback stops; we recommend you disable record as soon as possible to ensure you do not overwrite automation when the Sequencer loops back around.

You can automate up to eight controls for each Track in a Session. The 5th screen will let you know when you have used another automation lane, or it will display, ‘Automation lanes full for part’ when there are no more available lanes for the selected track.

You cannot record automation for rotaries and controls assigned to song position. Also, pads and buttons that output note messages record into the note sequence rather than as automation.

Hold the Clear button to highlight all the controls with automation data in the current Pattern and hide those that do not. For example, if you automate the Pitch Wheel, its LED illuminates as you hold Clear. While still holding Clear, move a control to clear its automation in the current pattern.

You can also manually assign values to a Step, which is useful when more accuracy is needed. With the sequencer stopped, press the Transport’s Record button (Transport). Select a Step (by pressing a pad) to enter Step Edit mode. This action will audition the Step. Move a control to the desired value to assign this value to the Step and deactivate record. In the case of the Pitch Wheel, move it to the desired position, then disable record before letting go of the wheel.

Only the most recent control value is assigned to a Step. This means while in Step Edit mode, pressing and releasing a button or pad with a momentary function will only record the release message. To record the press message of a button or pad, turn off record or select a new Step to record the release before releasing the pad.

In Sequencer view, click the soft arrow on the far-right of the controller (left of where it says 49SL MkIII or 61SL MkIII) to access Mute/Solo view. ‘Mute’ and ‘Solo’ will appear on the far-right screen.

Mute a Part by pressing a Mute button (top row of yellow soft buttons) corresponding to that Part. When muted the Sequencer will not output MIDI for that Part, but you can still play keys or audition pads for that Part.

To Solo a Part, press the Solo button (bottom row of blue soft buttons) corresponding to that Part. When you Solo a Part, any other Part that is not also soloed will be silent (if it was not already muted). The Mute button for a silenced Part/s will pulse yellow to show it is silent.