PROS
Touch-sensitive controls. First-rate keyboard
feel. Almost bottomless programmability.
With most plug-ins and DAWs,
Automap 3 takes almost all the work
out of assigning physical controls to
software. USB-powered.
CONS
How well Automap works depends on
how thoroughly a given plug-in implements
host-based automation. AC
adaptor (for use without computer)
not included.
INFO
25 keys: $599.99 list/approx. $400
street;
49 keys: $749.99 list/approx.
$500 street;
61 keys: $899.99 list/
approx. $600 street;
Zero: $599.99
list/approx. $400 street,
novationmusic.com
NEED TO KNOW
What is it? A full-featured MIDI controller
available in 25, 49, or 61 keys,
or as the Zero, a control surface with
no keyboard.
What does it have that the ReMote
SL doesn’t? Skin-sensitive knobs and
faders, dedicated buttons for Automap
functions, and better drum pads.
Does the Zero have anything the
other models don’t? A DJ-style
crossfader, and longer, 60mm vertical
faders.
What is Automap? Novation’s way of
using host automation to map plug-ins
to physical controls without the user
having to assign anything manually.
Will it control my recording software’s
mixer and transport as well
as my plug-ins? Yes. It talks to some
DAWs directly through Automap, but
uses the well-known Mackie HUI protocol
for others.
So, can it talk Automap to my soft
synths and HUI to my DAW at the
same time? Totally. You use the Inst.
and Mixer buttons to switch seamlessly
between these modes.
Are there any plug-ins Automap
just won’t talk to? Anything outside
of AU, VST, RTAS, and TDM — such as
the dedicated plug-is that come with
Apple Logic.
Novation’s ReMote SL line (reviewed
Feb. ’07) set a new bar for MIDI controllers
designed for use with software. It offered
deep control-by-control programming, a
superior semi-weighted synth action with
aftertouch, and it functioned as a USB
MIDI interface so you could integrate a
beloved hardware synth or two with your
computer rig. Most importantly, its
Automap feature promised to take the
drudgery out of making a big bunch of
physical controls command an equally big
bunch of stuff in our soft synths and DAWs.
The long-awaited follow-up has finally
hit, and the first thing you might notice is
that the name “ReMote” is gone. Novation
originally meant for that name to convey
that the SLs were optimized for Propellerhead
Reason. Between the SL Mk. II’s
upgraded hardware and just how far
Automap has come since it started life as a
set of custom templates for such programs
as Reason and Ableton Live, Novation now
wants to convey that the Mk. II is optimized
for . . . well, just about anything. Does using
the Mk. II convey this? Let’s find out.
NEW HARDWARE FEATURES
Compared to the original ReMote SL, the first
big things you notice are the touch-sensitive
controls and a Sunset Strip-worthy
complement of red LEDs. We’re talking
the high-end control surface kind of touchsensitive
here: Knobs and faders react to
skin contact, showing their current assignment
and value in the display, without you
having to actually wiggle the control and
possibly change something you don’t want
to. The controls are close together enough
that it’s easy to brush one with your finger
as you adjust another, but the SL Mk. II
almost seems to know the difference
between you touching a second control
intentionally (say, if you’re moving two pan
knobs at once) and accidentally.
Between the LED collars around the
endless knobs and the fact that all those
rubbery buttons are now backlit (buttons
light up evenly when pushed, looking very
Star Trek), it’s much easier to assess the
status of the unit with a quick glance. On
the original SL, you’d have had to press a
row-select button down the left or right
edge of the panel to bring up the status of
a given row of knobs, buttons, or faders in
one of the displays. Now, you practically
breathe on something, and it announces its
name, rank, and serial number.
Speaking of displays, I do think that
eliminating one of the original SL’s twin
LCD strips is the only weird design choice
on the SL Mk. II, which has a display on the
left side only. Novation says that between
the Automap heads-up display (HUD) window
and the touch-sensitive controls and
backlit buttons, the right-hand strip is now
redundant. I can see what they mean —
touch any control and the single strip now
switches to showing the correct row of
functions, the corresponding row-select
button lights up, and the HUD window follows
along. This is all pretty confusionproof,
but still, it’d be nice to have that
second strip for when you’re engrossed in
a jam and not looking at your computer at
all. Or, they could have used the nowvacant
real estate on the right to put in
longer faders, which is just what they did
on the keyless Zero model — it has 60mm
faders that feel much better for mixing. Still,
the little 35mm faders on the keyboard
models are silky and surprisingly able to
resolve gentle nudges into changing a
parameter’s value by just one or two steps.
The keyboard action feels pretty much
the same as on the ReMote SL, which is
to say it’s one of the fastest, quietest,
and most fluid synth actions out there.
This is one of those happy cases where
“semi-weighted” isn’t a euphemism for
“not very weighted at all,” as you can feel
the beefy weights underneath the keys.
They provide an ideal balance of long
throw, satisfying heft, and quick key
return, and between this and the nine
velocity curves, the SL Mk. II is great for
everything but the most serious piano
playing calling for a fully-weighted 88.
It could be that I’ve just beat on my old
ReMote SL too much, but the aftertouch on
the Mk. II also seems slightly improved,
progressing more gradually from nothing to
full-on in response to increasing finger
pressure. I’d say the SL Mk. II has my second
favorite synth action ever. My first was
also made by Fatar and used in a Novation
product: the keyboard version of the
Supernova II synth.
AUTOMAP 3
Automap is Novation’s method for connecting
the onscreen controls of virtual instrument
and effects plug-ins to physical
controls on Novation hardware. The first
thing that happens after installation is that
it scans all your plug-in folders for VST, AU,
RTAS, and TDM instruments and effects,
then displays a Plug-In Manager asking
which ones you want to enable. This creates “wrapped” versions
of all the plug-ins you chose, which
will show up in your hosts’ plug-in lists as
duplicates that have “Automap” after their
usual names. Insert one of these, and it
comes into existence with all of its settings
pre-mapped to controls on the SL Mk. II. To
alter the mappings, you either click the
“crosshairs” icon at the bottom of the plugin
window, or simply press the Learn button
on the SL Mk. II. Wiggle thing onscreen.
Touch thing on SL. Done.
There are two places where you can
see what’s assigned to what: in the SL
Mk. II’s LCD itself, and in an onscreen
window Novation calls the Automap HUD —
heads-up display — which is a graphical
duplicate of the SL Mk. II’s hardware control
layout. What
happens in the HUD instantly happens on
the hardware, and vice-versa. You also get
three settings to vary the HUD’s seethrough
factor: opaque, semi-transparent,
and very transparent.
Automap talks to plug-ins via host
automation, not MIDI continuous controllers,
essentially making wrapped plug-ins think
that when you grab a control on the Mk. II,
they’re getting marching orders straight
from the DAW in which they’re inserted.
The advantages of this are immediacy and
completeness: Insert a plug-in, Automap
instantly knows what settings it makes
available to the host for automation, and
every single one shows its face in the HUD
and the Mk. II’s LCD. In other words, the
automation-based approach is what makes
the whole experience so slick.
The caveat is that while most plug-ins
make this easy by exposing every parameter
for automation, some aren’t set up this
way by default. Spectrasonics Omnisphere
and Native Instruments Kontakt Player, for
example, have so many parameters that
you need to enable most of them for
automation manually, one at a time, which
is a necessary step if you want them to
show up on the SL Mk. II and the HUD.
Also, some plug-ins just use names like
“Param. 001,” “Param. 002,” etc. for
automation purposes, as opposed to the
meaningful names that are in their user
interfaces. This is especially true of plug-ins
such as Kontakt Player, because they have
to play host to third-party libraries, and can’t
know ahead of time what a developer might
decide to call this or that knob. This is all
fine if you’re just recording automation
onscreen — you mouse the filter cutoff or
whatever, and the host knows its “boring
name” and takes it from there. Trouble is,
it’s the boring names that Automap will
grab, so there’ll be some work typing more
descriptive names into the HUD. The good
news is that you’ll only have to do this once,
since you can save the Automap template
you’ve created, as a part of your DAW project
and/or on its own. I recommend doing
both so you can recall the template for use
with the same plug-in in future projects.
At worst, certain software instruments
don’t support host automation at all, or
might do so in one format (e.g. VST) but
still be working on it in another (e.g. RTAS
or AU). Even though Automap-wrapped
versions of these miscreants show up in
your plug-in menu, loading one won’t populate
the HUD with controls. Instead, you’ll
get a window that’s blank except for the
message “There are no control maps
assigned to this group.”
Fortunately, Automap and the SL Mk. II
are smart enough to walk and chew gum at
the same time, meaning they’ll talk automation
to some plug-ins and good ol’ MIDI
CC messages to others — that’s what the
“User” layer of Automap is for! Hit the User
button on the SL Mk. II, then in the HUD,
click on the square that corresponds to the
MIDI channel of the plug-in you want to
control, and use the Learn function just as
you would in normal Automap mode. Once
again, save your template, and the only
extra step is that you’ll have to hit the User
button after switching to your non-conforming
plug-in, and the Instrument (Inst.) button
when going back to a normally-Automapped
one. No big whoop — the switch is instant
and glitch-free.
PRO PERKS
Automap 3 Pro is included with any member
of the SL Mk. II line, but a $29.95
upgrade for all previous Novation products,
though registered owners can upgrade to
the base version of Automap 3 for free. Know what?
Get Pro. One of the coolest things it adds
is support for multiple Novation devices. In
Logic 8 and Pro Tools HD 8 on a Mac,
Cubase AI4 on a Windows Vista PC, and
Reaper on Mac and PC, I got my 25-key SL
Mk. II review unit plus two Nocturns working,
dedicating the SL to the hosts’ mixers,
one Nocturn to plug-ins that worked well
with Automap, and the other Nocturn to
plugs that were happier receiving MIDI
CCs from User mode as described above.
Another big Automap Pro feature is
drag-and-drop rearranging of control
assignments in the HUD window. Though
Automap lays out controls logically and
predictably for each plug-in, you will want
to customize your maps: “Those organ
drawbars need faders, not knobs” or
“Come to think of it, I wish my filter resonance
were two knobs to the right.” In Pro,
you don’t have to re-Learn any controls to
fulfill such wants — just drag the already-assigned
knob to the new location and
everything updates. Honestly, if you want to
completely rework an Automapped layout,
having Pro is the difference between half
an hour and five minutes.
CONCLUSIONS
Novation has taken a controller that was
already tops for feel and flexibility and
made it even better. Owing to the inherent
variables in how different plug-in makers
handle automation and MIDI, there’s no
way Automap could be perfect, and to be
fair, some new controllers (that we have yet to
review) promise even tighter integration with
specific software. That said, the SL Mk. II
with Automap 3 Pro comes a lot closer
than anything I’ve tried to a “universal solvent”
that actually makes me look forward
to setting up controls as much as I do to
playing. If the original ReMote SL was a
gold standard for computer-based musicians,
that standard just went platinum —
and into Key Buy territory.