I have owned this controller for nearly 2 years now and absolutely love its very well thought-out integration with Ableton live.
The RGB lighting is a pleasure to look at, the pads respond very well for velocity-sensitive finger drumming and the keys, even though semi-weighted, feel very natural to play. I never realized how much time I spent away from the guitar/keys and messing with the computer clicking things and breaking my musical concentration. This thing _really_ makes a difference with its Ableton integration for being able to stay the heck away from the keyboard and mouse.
The reason that I am writing this review, however, isn't to praise the controller - it has enough of that already. The reason I am writing this review is to commend the absolutely AWESOME customer service at Novation. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances I have had a few of these in my hands now and only one of them was due to an actual malfunction. When one of the sliders wouldn't hold a zero (after about a year's use) midi value at the very bottom of its travel, Novation set up a remote meeting with a tech where he installed a midi monitoring application and worked with me remotely to confirm the hardware fault. The unit was replaced with a refurb in great condition.
About a year later the unit I had sustained some physical damage and I reached out to seek repairs. After a conversation with customer service - and I need to add here that they were very responsive, no more than a day turn between correspondence - they once again advised me of the options and I chose to go the refurb way. When the 2nd refurb arrived, it was in significantly poorer condition than my first one. I reached out to Novation again, this time not expecting much, since I needed a replacement through no fault of theirs and thought it would be completely fair to tell me to just deal with a well-loved unit. After sending some pictures and video detailing my concerns with the condition, the customer service representative worked with me to get a brand new unit (for a price obviously, but the refurb price). I have been, throughout, very impressed with Novation's customer support - responsive, knowledgeable and actual real people you can talk to about your gear. They really stand behind their product. That's something I really respect and is sadly not as frequent these days as one might wish.
If you are looking for a feature-rich, affordable (as far as music gear can be) and enjoyable MIDI controller (with very intuitive Ableton integration) this should already be on your radar. If you expect or at least hope for great customer service, where a real and competent human being is on the other end of the communication - Novation is a great choice.
| 商品モデル番号 | NOVSL49MK3 |
|---|---|
| メーカーにより製造中止になりました | いいえ |
| インターフェース | USB |
| 対応ソフトウェア | Ableton Live |
| 鍵盤数 | 49 |
