What is it?

The Novation Nocturn is a USB powered midi controller featuring 8 touch sensitive assignable knobs with led dial, a master speed dial knob, 8 assignable backlit buttons, an assignable Crossfader and 8 buttons for selecting banks, patches, settings and software controlled user interface.

What's in the box?

Opening up the reasonably sized box you'll be pleasantly surprised by a smaller than expected, well packaged Nocturn staring back at you. Included inside is a long USB cable, manual, driver and software CD's. Nothing unusual here then.

Build quality

The Nocturn is made form plastic but feels quite tough and seems like it could take a knock or two without giving in. When transporting it around for gigs and sessions my main concern was the knobs or crossfader snapping off. I've had it for about six months now and gigged with it a couple of times and it's still working fine and nothing has broken but i do worry about knobs and the crossfader snapping off in transit.

The knobs

The Nocturn has 8 assignable knobs. Each knob is touch sensitive which means if you want to select a knob to edit you just touch the top of it and the software recognises it. The knobs also have an led dial around them showing how much of the parameter is being used. The led's are accurate and bright making them very useful for live performance.

The knobs them selves are very nice to use and move smoothly and are spaced out just enough without pushing the size of the nocturn up. One cool thing I really liked is you can adjust the sensitivity of the knobs from slow, medium or fast giving you more flexibility over adjustments.

Each knob can be freely assigned to a CC# using the software and can also be quickly assigned by the learn function. The knobs can also be doubled up, I.E. control two parameters at once. Although there's only 8 knobs the page function gives you 127 banks of the Nocturn's controls. Especially giving you 1016 knobs in one patch. Wow, more about pages later.

Speed dial

Novation have come up with a new concept, the speed dial. The speed dial is a knob just like the other 8 on the Nocturn but with a twist. The speed dial will control any function or parameter your mouse is hovering over. Sounds a bit or a strange idea i know but in practice it does work quite well. Quick adjustments can be made without having to assign functions or use the learn button and loose another knob.

The speed dial sits proudly in the center of the Nocturn at the top of the unit, making it very difficult to accidentally knock it or change a setting, nice one Novation. It has a green led dial which shows how much of the parameter is being used. Unlike the other 8 knobs, the speed dial is notched with tiny click points all around it. The means each adjustment is done accurately and stops the knobs from being turned accidentally. The speed dial is a nice little feature and proves to be quite useful in some situations.

The buttons

Just like the knobs there are 8 assignable buttons. The buttons are brightly backlit and switch between a red and green depending on the setting. The buttons are made from rubber and are responsive and easy to switch on and off fast.

The buttons are placed just below the knobs and lie in a straight line. This makes for easy access to the knobs and buttons simultaneously and keeps the size of the Nocturn down.

The buttons can send on and off signals, trigger signals and switch between two positions on a knob parameter, I.E. volume or pan control. Again each button can be freely assigned to a CC# using the software and can also be quickly assigned by the learn function. The buttons can also be doubled up, I.E. control two parameters at once. Although there's only 8 buttons the page function gives you 127 banks of the Nocturn's controls. Especially giving you 1016 buttons in one patch.

Crossfader

One unique selling point of the Nocturn is the 45 mm crossfader, which is what really attracted me to it in the first place. The crossfader is assignable to any CC# and can also be used in learn mode. In use it's smooth and responsive and acts just like a crossfader on a DJ mixer would, except it's not as stiff.

One little thing that is a shame it wasn't included is the option to change the Crossfader curve. This would be great as the selected one is just your average curve found on any mixer. There's no way you could scratch with this thing, not that you'd want to anyway but alternative crossfader curves could be useful when manipulating other parameters.

Next page

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