Berlin, Germany (MuseWire) – Ableton is very happy to announce Launchpad, a new dedicated controller for Ableton Live, co-developed by Novation and Ableton. Launchpad features a multicolor, 64-button grid for launching clips, as well as dedicated scene-launch buttons. Despite the big grid, Launchpad is compact and portable: it’ll fit in your bag for gigs and won’t hog your desk space in the studio.

Launchpad doesn’t just launch clips. In mixer mode the button grid offers a unique way to control Ableton Live’s mixer. Two fully customizable user modes transform the grid into a drum pad controller, a DJ effect controller or anything else you can think of. These user modes make Launchpad the ideal hardware counterpart for Max for Live (coming soon).

Launchpad is Automap-enabled, and if 64 buttons aren’t enough, you can link up to six Launchpads together.

Launchpad comes with a special Live 8 Launchpad Edition and 1GB of sound content.

Launchpad will be on sale worldwide starting on November 1, 2009. Pricing is expected to be around USD 199 (MAP)/149 EUR (VAT not included).

For movies, tech specs and more information, visit: http://www.ableton.com/nl398-launchpad .

Be the first! Get your itchy fingers on Launchpad before it’s released to the public: visit Novation’s stand at BPM (Birmigham, England) and AES (New York, USA).