Bitwig Korg nanoPAD2 Script How-to

08 Nov 2015

I've been working on a Bitwig controller script for the nanoPAD2 and wrote about it in a previous post here.  This post is a more detailed look at how the script works with Bitwig and the nanoPAD2.

The script source code is at GitHub at https://github.com/benschmaus/nanopad2-bitwig.

And the latest release can be found at https://github.com/benschmaus/nanopad2-bitwig/releases.

See a video demo of the script in action here.

To install simply unzip the nanopad2-bitwig-1.0.0.zip file to Bitwig's controller scripts directory.

Then in Bitwig, go to the controllers tab of the preferences menu and click "Add controller manually".

You should see a menu item labeled "Factotumo" and under it choose "nanoPAD2 Clip Launcher".

By default the nanoPAD2 is in clip mode.  In this mode the pads on the nanoPAD2 start and stop clips in Bitwig Studio.  In scene 1 on the nanoPAD2 (yes, the term scene is a bit overloaded here) rows 1 and 2 control tracks 1 and 2 in Bitwig.  Using the scene button on the nanoPAD2 you can control tracks 1-8 in Bitwig.

Tapping in the lower left or right corners of the x/y pad will also enable clip mode.

And here's the view in Bitwig of how the nanoPAD2 maps to the clip launcher grid.

Tapping in the upper right or left of the x/y pad enables scene mode in which the top row of scene 1 will trigger scenes (clips across all tracks) in Bitwig.

When you move between scene and clip mode by tapping in the corners of the x/y pad Bitwig will show you a notification letting you know what mode you're in.

Here's how the nanoPAD2 maps to the clip launcher view in scene mode.