Link: Livid – Price $699/£621
Introduction
I’ve reviewed a few Livid things in the past, and always been somewhat taken with them. There’s generally been just that nagging feeling that their pretty design lagged behind the functionality of competition from the ‘establishment’, though, both in terms of ergonomics and feedback. Now Livid have drunk the RGB cool aid and gotten into bed with Richie Hawtin both of those issues have at least the potential to race ahead of the rest of the market – at speed. Do they? How awesome is CNTRL:R?
Construction
The construction of the CNTRL:R is very professionally done, a milled metal case that looks and feels extremely durable. Despite being fairly compact for the amount of controls it has, it seems to feel pretty spacious, which indicates good ergonomic design. I’m not thrilled by the design of the pads, because – like so many other boutique style controllers – they have a large amount of travel from resting to activated and because of this there’s a large amount of ‘shake’ in them. They’re actually pretty responsive and I could drill out fast presses fine, but they just don’t quite feel right. It seems that the use case that CNTRL:R is designed for isn’t lightning fast triggering, though, so despite the fact I’d like to see Livid come out with a new, faster actioned pad/button design it’s not the end of the world.
RGB backlighting is available on every button, and the encoders have colour and brightness feedback too – a very nice touch. The rotary pots are illuminated with a constant backlight, but the faders are left in the dark. This isn’t a big problem on most controllers, but the fact that the rest of CNTRL:R is so well lit actually makes you a little night blind to the fader sections when you’re using the unit in the dark, and it can be difficult to make out where the dial is set to on the knobs with the backlight so bright – thankfully the brightness of these backlights is adjustable. I know that glow in the dark is a bit 90s, but if illuminating the faders isn’t possible then perhaps some kind of glow coming from the caps to make their position immediately clear would be a handy feature…
As I say whenever I review just about anything with faders, I prefer pinch style caps to the studio mixer finger slide ones. I’d also like to see a crossfader, but considering that CNTRL:R is designed in conjunction with one of the biggest names in electronic music DJing it’s probably safe to say that the use case in mind when designing it was fairly well defined. Let’s take a look at exactly what it entails – both in software and hardware.
Ableton Live Integration
CNTRL:R was designed with Richie Hawtin as the lead consultant, so if you and Mr Hawtin share an idea of what makes live performance special it’s very likely that you’ll fall in love with its workflow.
Ableton Live is the obvious choice for CNTRL:R, as it provides the most options for using the CNTRL:R’s layout as it was envisioned. If you’ve got Max for Live you’re in even better standing, because Livid have developed a few special M4L instruments that will turn your device into a step sequencer, sampler, and stem remixer; Livid are working on making these devices work as standard VST/AU plugins, but at the time of review they weren’t available. Fortunately I do have Max for Live, so I tested them out…
Firstly it should be said that even sans Max for Live CNTRL:R works as a control surface for Live and is very logically set up for immediate use. It’s optimised for a four track setup, which makes sense, and the 32 buttons along the bottom of the controller are separated into rows of four and given sensible controls – arm, solo, transport, clip display move, etc. Launching is done with the 4×4 grid, and the RGB lighting clearly displays what’s empty, full, playing, about to play… it all works very well.
Start using M4L and you can take things to the next level, though, inserting specially designed machines – at the moment there’s a drum machine and a step sequencer – with total control from CNTRL:R. Pressing the top-level push encoders switches modes between controlling the Live environment and the M4L instrument, and whilst it can be a little bit of a struggle to really get your head around the logic of all this once you do it becomes second nature.
The drum machine is instantly useable, with drums available for selection by the central button grid and their sequence programmable via the long line below. This is where the 16×2 grid of buttons starts to really shine, and programming drums in this way is really fun. The melodic sequencer is a little more complicated, but that’s largely down to it being a little difficult to make sense of melody when all you have to rely on is whether a button is lit or now. Extra controls like scaling, note repeat, reverse and so on are built into the instrument, so you can play with your predefined sequences – both sequencers can store multiple patterns – both to manipulate on the fly and to completely change up.
The demo that demonstrates some of the real power of this Live + M4L setup actually relies on the Sampler plugin for Live too, which brings us to a pretty jaw dropping grand total for the software purchasing requirements to get ‘true’ functionality out of CNTRL:R. Whilst it’s not required to get use out of the unit or the M4L plugins, having M4L really improves the controller’s potential.
Other Software
If you’re attracted to CNTRL:R simply because the way it’s laid out caught your eye, you will of course be able to hook it up to play with any MIDI capable software. In Traktor (or other software that sends MIDI out signals) all seven LED colours can easily be assigned, and there are some real opportunities for amazing mappings with the encoders, the large 4×4 buttons, and what can be thought of as four banks of 4×2 buttons along the bottom. Unfortunately CNTRL:R had to be out of the door before I could clear away a couple of evenings to really sit down and go nuts in the Traktor controller editor, but I’m convinced that it could become something pretty awesome with the right mapping.
Livid’s own editor allows you to change the note/CC values of the controls, as well as set up lighting and change the backlight brightness.
Space and Connectivity
Portability is advertised as a leading feature for CNTRL:R, but it’s not something I hold in that high regard. Whilst things are – as I’ve said before – well laid out over the controller, if it were a little bigger I feel like it would make certain things a little easier, with knobs able to be further apart and the central pad grid either able to be larger or have more pads in it (although, 4×4 is a pretty well defined standard after all).
There are plenty of connections round the back of CNTRL:R – MIDI I/O, USB, 1/4” jacks for expression pedal input, and Livid’s own I/O ports for their Expansion Modules. A small grievance though – nothing’s labelled, which makes things a bit awkward to plug in if you get your left and right mixed up as much as I do (hey, it’s hard sometimes!).
Final Thoughts
I like CNTRL:R a lot. It’s not perfect, but it’s actually got balls; it shows that you don’t have to create a copycat ‘me too’ controller in order to inspire users, sometimes it’s best to just go your own path. Livid really came of age with the introduction of RGB LEDs to their controllers, and this new case design goes a step further (although part of me does wish for wood end panels just a little bit).
Ratings
Build: It’s a lovely design, and it feels very sturdy. I’d have liked slightly more ‘professional’ feeling buttons, but they’re not bad, they’re just not perfect.
Features and Implementation: There’s the hardware side and the software side of CNTRL:R. Both have been well developed,; the combination of faders, pots, encoders, and different button sections mean there’s plenty of capability in the tangible arena, the M4L plugins mean that if you’ve got it, even more fun can be had. I’m waiting on the VST/AU implementation, though…
Value for Money: If you want to use the CNTRL:R with Live and you already own M4L, it almost looks like a drum machine purchase instead of a MIDI controller. Almost. Either way, and even if you don’t want to use CNTRL:R with Live, it’s a pretty enticing price considering the full RGB implementation and wealth of encoders.
