The project discuss the process of creating the Launchpad which require a great knowledge in Ardiuno and MIDI; a protocol that allows electronic musical instruments and computers to send instructions to each other. It sounds simple, but MIDI provides some profound creative opportunities.
Launchpad comprises 16 buttons. These divide into four sections: a four square grid of four buttons, and four potentiometers on the top each button or potentiometer can be mapped to anything the user want by the DWA (digital audio workstation) software.
It has many features but the main one is creating rich musical textures by layering sounds from multiple MIDI devices, or assigns different sounds to play in different pitch ranges. All communication with Launchpad is conducted using MIDI note-on, note-off, and controller change messages.
The project would have many other features, such as:
- Start and stop loops, arms tracks and control volumes.
- Launch multiple clips at once.
- Edit MIDI instrument sounds on your computer
- operate an audio recorder from a MIDI beat box
- Fully USB bus powered.
The main goal is to provide a really powerful and most importantly a complete product that can allow musicians to create their own music in an easy and flexible way.