The older devices — Launchpad S, Launchpad Mini — only support bi-color while the newer devices — Launchpad MK2, Launchpad Pro — support RGB colors and not bi-color. Here I outline the differences and explain what that means for interacting with your device. Examples for using these colors can be found in Interaction.
The Launchpads that don't support RGB colors — Launchpad Mini, Launchpad S — support the changing of brightness for two LEDs — red and green — per button. The range of each brightness value is 0 - 3 (inclusive). Combining these brightnesses you can create colors of the hues of amber and yellow. All possible colors are named for ease of use.
The Launchpads that support RGB colors — Launchpad MK2, Launchpad Pro — support the changing of brightness for three LEDs — red, green, and blue — per button. The RGB color support is divided between "standard" colors and "full" RGB colors. I make this distinction because full RGB colors can't be used in many places that expect a standard color as a limitation of the available MIDI commands. These colors have default names and can be named by the user.
The 128 standard colors are a single digit can be used anywhere that requires a color. Using these over a full RGB color is typically faster because some methods use a single MIDI command with a static value instead of possibly more expensive operations.
Here are the colors 0 - 63 then 64 - 127 (inclusive). This image should match the terrible graphic from Novation's programmer's reference but the actual colors corrected from a RAW image and not their murky and exaggerated ones.
If you need more options and using a method that supports full RGB, you have full control over the separate red, green, and blue channels. Sadly the range of each brightness value is 0 - 63 (inclusive). You can't use RGB for most methods and you're only guaranteed support with lighting and using them may be slightly slower than using a standard color.
Using those images, counting, using a table, and doing mental math is pretty tedious; so I added some default names that you can use in place of standard, RGB, or bi-color values. You should notice that black is actually off and there are a few other aliases.
| Name (string) | Value (number, RGB, alias) |
|---|---|
| dark red | 7 |
| red | 5 |
| pink | 95 |
| fuchsia | 58 |
| purple | 55 |
| dark purple | 81 |
| indigo | 50 |
| blue | 45 |
| light blue | 41 |
| cyan | 37 |
| teal | 65 |
| green | 23 |
| light green | 21 |
| lime | 17 |
| yellow | 62 |
| amber | 61 |
| orange | 9 |
| dark orange | 11 |
| brown | 83 |
| sepia | 105 |
| gray | 71 |
| grey | gray |
| blue gray | 103 |
| blue grey | blue gray |
| white | 3 |
| black | 0 |
| off | black |
| Name (string) | Value ([red, green], alias) |
|---|---|
| red | bright red |
| dark red | [1, 0] |
| medium red | [2, 0] |
| bright red | [3, 0] |
| amber | bright amber |
| dark amber | [1, 1] |
| medium amber | [2, 2] |
| bright amber | [3, 3] |
| yellow | bright yellow |
| medium yellow | [1, 2] |
| bright yellow | [2, 3] |
| green | bright green |
| dark green | [0, 1] |
| medium green | [0, 2] |
| bright green | [0, 3] |
| black | off |
| off | [0, 0] |
You can add or replace the color names for a specific device class by modifying launchpad.constructor.color.names, an object with names and values as key-value pairs.
// Replace the default color names with yours for all devices of the same class
launchpad.constructor.color.names = {
"fabulous": 57,
"alias": "fabulous",
"a cool rgb color": {
"red": 10,
"green": 20,
"blue": 30
}
};
// Add color "flashy"
launchpad.constructor.color.names.flashy = 1;
// Use them as you'd use a default color name
launchpad.light("fabulous");
button.flash("flashy");