Novation Launch Control XL is a compact control surface with 8 faders, 24 encoders, and various keys like track selection, muting, soloing, and arming a track for recording.
Plug the USB cable from the Launch Control XL into a USB2 or USB3 port on your computer. The device will be automatically recognized by your operating system and will appear in any of the lists of possible MIDI ports in Ardour.
To connect the Launch Control XL to Ardour, open the Preferences dialog, and then click Control Surfaces. Tick the Enable checkbox opposite to "Novation Launch Control XL" to activate Ardour's Launch Control XL support.
Once the device is activated, click Show Protocol Settings and in the newly opened window select the device in the drop-down lists for incoming and outgoing MIDI events.
Once you select the input and output port, the Launch Control XL will be ready to use. You only need do this once: once these ports are connected and your session has been saved, the connections will be made automatically in this and other future sessions.
The Launch Control XL was designed for use with Ableton Live, so it has a Mix mode for controlling the mixer and a Device mode for controlling various devices. Therefore, For Ardour, only a subset of features is available out of the box. The vast majority of supported features are not configurable, the user interface exposes only one setting: making the 8th fader control the master bus.
Features supported out of the box are:
| Faders | Control faders of 8 tracks at the same time |
|---|---|
| Track selection | In the Mix mode, these buttons shifts the track focus by one track allowing to control e.g. track 2..9 or 3..10 rather than the default 1..8. |
| Mute button | Switches the Track Control row of buttons to toggle the mute status of tracks |
| Solo button | Switches the Track Control row of buttons to toggle the solo status of tracks |
| Arm button | Switches the Track Control row of buttons to toggle the record-arm status of tracks |