Ableton Push Controller

Looks cool for getting ideas down quickly. I'm still debating if thats worth the price tag.

It's worth the price tag for me. From what it looks like, they've done a fantastic job in really letting you access most of the features you'd want to, very quickly and intuitively. Personally, I like not interfacing with a computer screen while writing music, as much as possible. It's unavoidable, but things like this that can minimize my screen time a far more important to me than fancy new synths.

 

 

[youtubehd]YRB1Sh9zEnw[/youtubehd]

  On 10/26/2012 at 9:50 AM, The Bro said:

 

http://www.synthtopi...e-9/#more-43695

that picture's a 3D render, right? it looks so lush

I've found out that as a result of my sound card having live lite 8 that I can get the full 8 suite (and a free upgrade to 9) for just over 300 squid. Do I, eek its a lot of money. Someone persuade me (or dissuade me)

Yes.

It's a compelling argument !

Well I bought it (Ableton that is, not the push controller) - it installed well .... and that's all I can say about it so far (I had to go to bed)

Its just been announced it'll have a March 5th release date.

Aye saw that yesterday when I picked up a copy of the suite.

Dunno if I'm gonna bother, £100 seems a bit steep for curvey automation and automation in clips. Will probably hold off for a bit, let someone else deal with the bugs.

Kind of get annoyed with Live, I really like it as a scratchpad but I just can't bring myself to use it as my main sequencer, perhaps its because the MIDI timing's always sucked on my gear yet the same hardware works fine with Sonar.

 

It's all just a bit meh. Man I'm so grumpy today.

Out today !

 

(though the website is currently down for maintenance - presumably to add the new content)

 

Excited about trying a brand spanking way of making music - it's kind of overwhelming moving from something I've been so comfortable with over the last decade but I'm thinking a change in environment might help me out of my recent (well year long) dry spell. (erm, I ain't got Push just Ableton 9 - not that rich)

If I get a better paid job I'll get it otherwise I'm all spent out for the mo. I've hardly accumulated anything moneywise in the past 4 months!!

really digging this!

 

looking forward to push within the month!

this would likely be a good investment. the sequencing capabilities are very interesting but it could be some kind of jip. i don't understand it.

  On 12/19/2012 at 2:46 PM, mcbpete said:

I never thought the day would come when I'd seriously consider migrating from Buzz - that Push demo video has definitely made me re-evaluate things (and my bank balance)

What do you think of Renoise? I've been using it for a year now and I can't go back to Buzz.

 

As for Ableton, this looks great and all, but like I've said before, a DAW without a tracker style pattern editor is dead to me. My laptop probably isn't good enough to do ReWire stuff or whatever so that's out of the question.

I've never liked working with trackers. What is the appeal for you? How do you use it?

The precision is what appeals to me. Being able to have absolute numerical control over every single parameter for automation purposes. For example, my lead sounds use a lot of vibrato and pitch bends and I haven't seen any other software that does portamento in the same way as a tracker, ie. target note, individual portamento speed for each instance. Same with vibrato; with a tracker it's easy to automate the depth and speed of vibrato because you just set it as a command in the pattern. I'm not a big fan of recording knob movements or drawing automation curves because they're just too inaccurate most of the time.

who gives a shit. you cant play the guitar.

zomg

  On 3/8/2013 at 4:49 AM, sonny said:

who gives a shit. you cant play the guitar.

funny man la la clap clap

  On 3/8/2013 at 2:44 AM, modey said:

 

 

  On 12/19/2012 at 2:46 PM, mcbpete said:

I never thought the day would come when I'd seriously consider migrating from Buzz - that Push demo video has definitely made me re-evaluate things (and my bank balance)

What do you think of Renoise? I've been using it for a year now and I can't go back to Buzz.

 

As for Ableton, this looks great and all, but like I've said before, a DAW without a tracker style pattern editor is dead to me. My laptop probably isn't good enough to do ReWire stuff or whatever so that's out of the question.

 

 

I've never actually tried Renoise, I mean don't get me wrong I love Buzz - and now that it's constantly updated and allows quite a lot of gui manipulation with the XAML code base I've basically tailored it to exactly my workflow. However I've now bit the bullet and bought Ableton - not because I found Buzz restrictive, but I'd become a little cabin-feverish with working with the same thing for over a decade and felt a change of scenery might help creativity.

  On 3/8/2013 at 4:49 AM, sonny said:

who gives a shit. you cant play the guitar.

I was playing with a Push last week. If I'm being honest I have been very skeptical about this thing, the pitched note scale mode thing seemed to be it's only saving grace and as a classically trained pianist was not really all that appealing to me. The rest didn't really seem all that competitive with my APC40 really.

 

That all changed after getting my hands on one.

 

First and foremost, the thing is sexy as fuck. There is not a single photo or video online that I have come across that truly represents how vibrant this thing is, the body is sleek, the pads are just so colorful and vivid, even the orange LED display strip at the top has awesome contrast, the whole thing is just beautiful. Seeing a clip launcher in full color (based on your clips' colors in your session) is dope, and the way things are color coded throughout the sequencing and note modes is extremely intuitive and really adds a lot to the instrument.

 

The pads feel great, you really get a wide range of expression out of them. The knobs are typical Akai build quality: best there is. I thought I'd miss my APC40's dedicated track faders, and I probably will, but the compromise is not as bad as you'd think. The touch strip is really cool, has your expected pitch bend functionality but what I really like is how you can use it to scroll your 16 drum pads through every single pad in a drum rack (it even has LED's that indicate where in your drum rack you have samples/instruments on pads). This immediately puts this ahead of all the competition when considering more primitive functions like banks of pads on similar drum pad controllers.

 

The most revolutionary feature is definitely Note Mode. The way you can adjust scales assigned to the pads is brilliant. It not only is a cheap and easy way to become an instrument virtuoso by taking away "the wrong notes", but it really does lend itself nicely to new fingering patterns impossible on a traditional keyboard, and as a trained keyboard player I'm seeing tons of potential for this. It just opens up new ideas and gets you out of that stale "bag of tricks" that you sort of fall into naturally on any instrument. I like that the chromatic mode (with the unlit pads as the black notes) still retains the scales functionality, so the pads are not locked into one universal chromatic mode, but rather adjust to whatever tonic note you choose. This means even in chromatic mode you can memorize certain fingerings and they will apply to whatever key you are playing in, similar to playing a guitar. I will definitely be getting a lot of use out of this. Ergonomics is a big deal for me in my studio, and I look forward to having the freedom to move my 88-key keyboard controller off to the side to make room for some of my more "electronic musician" toys while still retaining the full range of playability I get from my keyboard, on my Push.

 

Sequencing was kind of meh for me until I realized how deep into it you can go. Sequencing different notes in a drum rack is as easy as pressing that pad and then entering your sequence above it. Basic x0x style 16 step sequencing is extremely boring to me personally, but being able to press a note in your sequence and fine tune things like nudging a note off-grid, changing velocity, pitch, note length etc. is awesome. Changing the loop position and length is interesting using the other set of 16 pads, and I think this opens up a new form of improvisation we haven't really seen before (performing jumps from one part of a midi clip to another). One major gripe with sequencing on the Push is that it only works with Drum Racks. You can't natively sequence any other instrument (i.e. a bass line), but only record your playing. You can put any instrument device/plugin into a drum rack and set the pad's I/O to receive "All notes". This way you can use the entire range of the Drum Rack's pads to play that single device, and therefore can sequence any instrument from the Push. This works fine but is a bit of a sloppy oversight on Ableton's part if you ask me.

 

Clip launching and the mixer controls are as you would expect, nothing really new here other than the colorful pads which I mentioned earlier. One thing I'm not so fond of is that they opted out of dedicated Track Clip Stop buttons or a Stop All Clips button. They are relying on you to use any empty clip slots on a track to stop your clips, which means you'll have to compensate for this in your set by creating gaps in your scenes or whatever. Not a huge deal but something to consider.

 

All in all, I love the concept they went for with this thing. My music is often very detail oriented, and while I definitely have fun jamming with them I've never really been totally interested in these "lets get you away from staring at the screen" solutions (Maschine, the new MPC's, etc.). I like clicking away with the mouse for hours as that's really the only way to get all your super interesting micro edits and tweaks that we all love. Ableton isn't trying to take the focus away from that sort of studio work here, but instead have offered up an instrument that genuinely feels like an instrument, rather than just a midi controller, and one that has deep enough of a functionality that you really can sit and work with it exclusively for sketching out the early stages of a track before moving over to the screen to polish. The way they've implemented that transition is the thing that will make the Push a successful bit of kit.

Edited March 18, 2013 by ryanmcallister

You've gotten me even more excited for this now, as I respect to your opinion, and you just said a bunch of things that I wanted to hear.

 

I'm super excited for note mode. I got impatient and made a sloppy hack on my launch pad just to get used to the patterns and chord shapes, and I was immediately impressed with the simple brilliance of only having to learn a small number of shapes. Its not very musical with the launchpads lack of velocity and aftertouch so I'm really excited for those extra levels of expression.

 

Psyched to really have something that integrates with live.

 

How are the pads for drumming? Can you compare their responsiveness to anything else?

Honestly I only had my hands on it for a brief period and got so caught up in everything other than simply playing drums on the pads so I didn't really do a ton of testing with their musical response for drums. All I can say is that they seemed very responsive to velocity initially, whether that was a Korg PadKontrol level of responsiveness or more of a stock MPD26/32 pad responsiveness requiring a little more pressure will be something I could better answer after taking one home and playing it long enough to feel fatigued, ya know?