SL MkIII Firmware Update 1.2

The latest firmware for the SL MkIII rewards users’ patience (thank you for bearing with us) with the addition of your most asked-for new features and workflow enhancements, making our flagship controller keyboard for Ableton Live (and other DAWs) more powerful and versatile than ever. SL MkIII 1.2 also, of course, squashes a few bugs and improves general stability.

We’re already accepting feature requests on the next update, too, so if you have an idea for a useful SL MkIII function, let us know via our Synth Owners group on Facebook.

Microstep editing

The Sequencer resolution has been increased to incorporate 6 microsteps per step, enabling notes to be positioned off the grid for the programming of subtle timing variations, fast triplet runs, glitchy repeats and more.

Step View pattern scrolling

The Up and Down buttons can now be used to scroll through all your loaded sequencer patterns for viewing and editing, without deselecting the pattern currently playing. This is of particular benefit to live performers, who can make changes to upcoming patterns on the fly – whether they’re in a chain or running individually – before they’re actually played.

Assignable Aftertouch

Giving your SL MkIII performances an expressive boost, Aftertouch has been made assignable to any MIDI CC you like within Components. Now you can use key pressure to control anything in your DAW or synth capable of receiving MIDI, from opening a filter or modulating oscillator pulse width, to increasing the depth of a distortion effect or detuning a unison stack.

More responsive knobs

We’ve increased the responsiveness of the SL MkIII’s rotary encoders for deeper, smoother adjustment of parameters over a shorter rotational distance, with no audible stepping.

Increased Gate length

With the maximum step length doubled to 32, you can record and sequence longer MIDI notes within patterns, for more complex and expressive tracks.

Enhanced NRPN Control

As well as outputting the full range of MIDI CCs, The SL MkIII 1.2 now also communicates with all NRPN-enabled devices. Not only does this greatly expand its hardware control remit, it also lets you manipulate viable parameters at higher resolution than standard MIDI allows.

And that’s not all, of course! SL MkIII 1.2 introduces plenty more workflow fixes and improvements – fire up Components to see the full list of additions and changes, and download the update.