Hello Brian,
I am considdering getting 2 or 3 Launcpads in order to control my console instead of the touch screen, or rather, in addition to the touch screen.
Having been working with it for the past couple of weeks, I think the Launchpad will actually be an excellent and viable alternative to a touch-screen when full support for it is included in Hauptwerk (that will be included formally in v4.0.1).
Of course a Launchpad doesn't have the ability to show actual stop names but having the ability to use different colours and to lay the buttons out in the same format as they appear on the virtual jambs of each virtual organ almost makes up for that and very few organs have jambs with more than 8 draw-knobs in any column.
An advantage is also that you can operate multiple buttons (stops/pistons/etc.) simultaneously. It appears to be solidly-built and works well ergonomically.
E.g. you could have one Launchpad for the left stop jamb (or maybe even two if you're using extremely large sample sets), one for the right, and a third for pistons or other miscellaneous functions. Maybe even a fourth for controlling Hauptwerk's Registration control panel buttons.
Will I be able to color code the Launcpad buttons, for example, in order to group certain types of stops - e.g. yellow = strings, white = diapasons, red = reeds, etc.
Yes. The supported colours are red, green, orange and yellow. (The LEDs don't allow blue or white.)
Will it be possible to use 2 units with HW4 advanced?
Yes - it should be.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.