Novation’s Automap is coming to the iPhone – meaning a handheld device can provide interactive visual and textual feedback about what you’re manipulating in, say, an Ableton Live set.

Our friends at Hispasonic (Spanish-language) bring us the news. (Thanks, Xavier!) Photo credit: the new blog SaM’s burrow:

Novation Automap for iPhone in beta stage (first screen captures)

That gives you a closer look. I’m not even going to try to wonder what happened to Novation’s NDA. (We seem to be getting mostly “D.”) But, Novation, if you’re out there, trust me – buzz already suggests this is a good leak for you.

On the Ableton forums, some naysayers wonder why you’d want to run a Live set from an iPhone. The answer is, naturally, you wouldn’t – I think they’re missing the point. There are two larger issues here. One is, having a handheld device means there’s just another intelligent way to control your music set. It might be something you prop atop your keyboard or drum pad controller as a small dashboard, or that you carry with you so you can hear the sound in a venue during sound check. The other message is, interactive control with actual labels on parameters is the future for a lot of devices, not just the iPhone. That’s in stark contrast to the primitive way in which MIDI refers to everything in terms of (typically) meaningless numbers.

In fact, there are some promising other attempts to more easily see and manipulate clips away from your laptop screen, on devices like the Lemur. Thanks to the Live API (on which Max for Live’s control of Live is also based), it’s possible to finally get a full, controllable view of your clips. My only criticism would be that we still lack a single, open standard for this stuff. If Ableton Live supported OpenSoundControl (OSC) natively, it’d open all sorts of applications – without the hacking currently required. But that’s a topic for another day, and not just directed at Ableton.

Here’s the full text of this announcement from the Ableton forums. Stay tuned; hopefully we’ll hear official news soon.

Boys and girls alike can feel free to crush musically on Au Revoir Simone. In a gloomy world of sound-alike synthpop, the Brooklyn trio has forged their own, unique sound, a peerless breed of sensitive synthy goodness. The songs are relentlessly intimate and honest, genuine rock writing instead of overburdened pastiche. I think a lot of us growing up wanted to be able to sound like this, when we picked up that first electronic keyboard.

And yes, for keyboard lovers, there’s something really special about seeing three keyboards, with no guitars, no drums, and no boys in sight. Love the Beatles as I do, there was apparently some point in the 60s in which everyone decided we’d be stuck with one instrumentation and any females present would be vocalists only, but Au Revoir Simone is a sign of hope.

On my first listen, the new album “Still Night, Still Light” has more and more clearly polished ideas than any of their outings so far. I have to spend some more time with it, but I find it’s impossible not to just feel good listening to their work, and that’s a nice thing for music to do.

On to how you can grab the album: physical CD pre-orders and vinyl are available from the band’s website, but Amie Street has an absurdly good deals on the music, available right now:

Au Revoir Simone: Still Night, Still Light [Amie Street]

(and yes, apologies for those outside the US – if you spot deals in your neighborhood, let us know)

Update: Note that all four albums, including the new one, are also on emusic. (Thanks, zenzen in comments!) Emusic albums may not be available everywhere, but that could help you out in at least some parts of the world.

Amie Street uses flexible pricing based on popularity. When I picked up the album, it was at US$5.90, but that price will creep upwards as more people grab it. Here’s why it’s cheap, though: for 24 hours, you can subtract 25% off the price, and for some unspecified period of time, when you buy this album, you get the first three albums from the band free. In other words, you’re talking around six bucks for all four albums, as 320 kbps MP3s. I have no affiliate relationship with Amie Street and there’s no one from ARS’ PR and publicity calling me to bug me to say this. I just expect you’ll get a couple of bucks in value from each album. If you’re not sure, Amie Street has full streams of each album.

Now, keyboard spotting anyone? The Nord Electro 2 is always front and center, there’s a Novation BassStation, I think, the KORG microKORG, lots of drum machines… carry on.

The ReMOTE SL Mk II series is on its way, an improved version of a controller keyboard of which we’ve been big fans at CDM. In an ideal world, there would be a truly standardized specification for control of music production software – and I still dream of mainstream OpenSoundControl support as a way to start to develop such control. But in the meantime, Novation has done a pretty intelligent job of mapping lots of functions in popular software so that they can feel fairly transparent to control.

The whole “automatic mapping” area is getting juicier, too, with new entries like the Akai APC40 for Ableton Live, and a set of keyboards from Avid/M-Audio focused on smart tangible mappings for software (including, naturally, Avid’s Pro Tools). As it happens, M-Audio just started shipping its own Axiom Pro this week. I want to give the Axiom ample coverage, so look for that starting next week – the short version is, the two keyboards take a different approach to layout and integration, and as a result there are some good arguments for each.

The SL does have a very nice keybed from Fatar, though, and a layout to which a lot of us are accustomed. So I talked to Novation about what was new in the Mk II that wasn’t already in the new Automap Pro 3 software. The software is already available for existing SL owners. But what’s new to the hardware?

Simon Halstead from Novation has a thoughtful set of answers for CDM. Have a look, and judge for yourself how this stacks up against the previous SL – I’m curious to hear from current and prospective owners what you think.

Novation has unveiled their revised SL line of controllers, dubbed the SL Mk II. The changes are subtle, but significant.

Looks awesome:

• Fatar semi-weight “fast touch” keyboard action
• Touch-sensitive controls for immediate feedback on the LED screen
• Buttons are now backlit
• Encoders are ringed with red LEDs
• Dedicated buttons for enabling Automap and switching modes (effects, mixing, etc.)
• Speed Dial!
• Bundled with Automap 3 PRO software, which now features keystroke assignment and a heads-up display (and PRO is free with a new keyboard, as expected, though there’s still an upgrade fee if you’re a current owner)
• The ZeRO now has a crossfader
• Lovely new silver-colored knob and fader caps – and a prettier-looking design, in general
• The pads may be flatter on top (the old model has odd, stiff raised pads – I’m hoping that’s improved here)
• It’s the tried-and-trusted SL – with all the software support that entails

Looks less awesome:

• The pads are still tiny
• The X/Y joystick for pitch/mod can be an acquired taste
• Novation has dropped the second LED screen strip above the faders, leaving only the one above the encoders. (not a deal killer, probably, because you can look at the physical position of the faders)
• No crossfader on the keyboard models (Edirol is the one keyboard maker I know of who have done this)
• The transport controls have been relocated to the buttons under the faders, which looks like they’ll be a little tougher to access
• Apparently in the interest of cost savings, the SL mk II will still have the same controller layout on the bigger keyboards – meaning if you have a 49-key or 61-key model, there’s a big blank space instead of more room for controllers (just as on the original SL). Put your iPod touch / iPhone there for extra controls, perhaps. This time, it’s centered, instead of all at one end.

RCUS notes there’s a beta page for the Automap 3 beta for Mac and Windows:

Focusrite – Novation Beta

There’s a registration form for beta testers so you can stay up to date, but you can grab the download immediately. Sounds great to me, as more (quality) feedback can mean fewer bugs!

And what about the HUI support in Automap (which apparently includes the free Automap 3 Standard)? HUI, or Human User Interface, is the older version of Mackie’s control scheme, implemented over MIDI for more extensive control over DAWs’ editing features. HUI support (added first in the 2.0 ReMOTE SL operating system) gives you control compatibility with the wonderful, affordable Reaper DAW, plus Logic, Final Cut Pro (yes, the video app), Nuendo, Cubase, Ableton Live, and others. Some of those are supported separately by Automap, but others – like Final Cut, for instance – could be fun to try out.