- The LV-3 is the latest example of Faderfox's third generation of micromodul MIDI controllers. It continues the German company's "smallest possible footprint" design ethic but adds a few new features—the most significant of these being that Faderfox have finally implemented USB, so you no longer have to carry batteries (and a clunky USB-MIDI adaptor) to successfully integrate a micromodul into your computer setup. The LV-3 is aimed directly at controlling Ableton Live's Session View, for performance use, but it'll also work with other MIDI-friendly DAWs.
How "micro" is it? The LV-3 measures a mere 180 x 105 x 70 mm, so it's a little thing, but a busy one, with 5 knobs, 2 joysticks, 8 faders and 29 buttons. It's even more statistically impressive when you realise that most of these controls have two functions, based on use of the Shift button. Hook one of these suckers up to a little netbook computer (or a MacBook if you've got more of a budget), add a compact soundcard like Native Instruments' Audio 2, and you've got just about the smallest possible computer DJ setup (that's worth having).
The downside with this mobility, though, is that there's always a trade-off, sometimes in build quality, sometimes in cost and sometimes in functionality. The LV-3's plastic case, angled in the familiar Faderfox style, is solid enough, and looks like it'll take a reasonable level of abuse. Carry it around for a while, though, and you see that the shape works against the intended portability because it takes up more bag space than a more traditional flat mixer shape. It's also relatively expensive, particularly compared to competing offerings from Korg (Nano series) and Akai (LPD and LPK), which are so cheap they're almost disposable.
The LV-3 functions as a class-compliant USB MIDI device, so no drivers are required—you can connect it to a computer, open your favourite DAW and start jamming straight away. Live users, though, can take advantage of Instant Mapping by dragging the LV3 folder from the supplied disc into Live's MIDI Remote Scripts folder. After that, the LV-3 shows up in the Live/Preferences/MIDI Sync/Control Surface list, and you get instant control over many parameters, including tempo, global quantization, volume, macros, track selection, mixer levels, scene launching and more.
The Shift button piles on the options, adding another layer of functionality; for example, the Tempo knob, in normal use, controls macro 1 in the active track, and if you push it down, switches macro 5 on and off. With the Shift button depressed, the same knob fine-tunes tempo control, and, if pushed down, enters tap tempo. If you apply these same layers across the surface of the LV-3, it gets pretty hard to remember what goes where and which does what, and of course, the LV-3 is too small to label the controls with masking tape, my usual controller amnesia get-out.
There's also a System mode, entered by holding down the FX and Master buttons, which allows you to reconfigure specific controls, so for example, the green buttons can be used to solo tracks instead of launching clips, their default behaviour.
Like many experienced Live users, I have hundreds of scenes in my main live performance set (scenes are what enables us to launch several loops or one-shots at the same time, for the non-Live users out there), and I ran into a little bump with the LV-3's Scene select knob, because the LCD display associated with it only goes up to 99. The scenes in the Live set do continue to scroll beyond that, but the LCD sticks at 99. When you scroll backwards, it displays 99 until you pass back through that to 98, then it picks up and starts moving again.
Looking beyond Ableton-world, the LV-3 works with any MIDI application; I got it talking to Logic, Reason, Traktor and even Arkaos VJ. I have to say, though, it honestly doesn't lend itself to any of those, apart from Traktor perhaps. This unit was designed to fit with Live, and it'll stand or fall by that.
The Faderfox LV-3 is well-built, and (kind of) well thought-out. Any controller that supports Live's time-saving Instant Mapping is welcome, and Faderfox have their own take on it, which is a good thing. However, I couldn't get over the fact that the LV-3 felt crowded, and the shift and system modes lost me completely. We're living in a world where hardware controllers have to be better than ever, to compete with the inevitable iPad apps, like TouchAble, Griid and TouchOSC. This is just my preference, though—I know there are people reading this who will love the LV-3 precisely because it packs so much in a small space. If you absolutely must have the biggest number of controls in the smallest possible space, this should be right up your alley.
Ratings
Cost: 3/5
Build: 4.5/5
Versatility: 4/5
Ease of use: 3/5