Some Push questions

[zerocrossing]

How are the touch sensitive pads? are they as good as other drum machine type controllers?

Can you do Microtones with the pitch strip thing?

They're user adjustable from super sensitive, to not very sensitive at all. I find them to be very good in terms of feel.

One major issue is the way they implemented aftertouch. Stupidly. It's unusable as shipped. Each pad starts outputting aftertouch as soon as any contact is made. There's no "after" about it. However, if you have Max 4 Live, there's a work-a-round that's good.

The pitch shift strip isn't that great IMO. That's a bit of a bummer. You probably could do microtonal changes with it though.

Also, no mod wheel. Odd oversight. However, you can program the knobs to control most anything, and that's good.

The way you can sequence with it is very nice.

Oh, and the start up color sequence is very slick.

[rod_zero]

One major issue is the way they implemented aftertouch. Stupidly. It's unusable as shipped. Each pad starts outputting aftertouch as soon as any contact is made. There's no "after" about it. However, if you have Max 4 Live, there's a work-a-round that's good.

Also, no mod wheel. Odd oversight. However, you can program the knobs to control most anything, and that's good.

Both shortcomings are adressed on the latest beta, now it's possible to adjust Aftertouch threshold and you can shift between ptich bend and modwheel.

[tedlogan]

Yes, the aftertouch was almost unusable before the new update. It has been improved vastly. I feel I'm now in full control of it, night and day difference. It does not start right away when touching the pads, and you can also adjust its threshold. The new official modwheel has been implemented elegantly as well, with very quick switching between that and pitchbending.

Push's playability is now on a whole new level for me. Very happy with it.

I find the pitchwheel functionality to be just fine. It can do microtones/very fine changes in pitch.

[thecontrolcentre]

I've had Push for 4 weeks now, and am starting to feel comfortable with it. The pads have a nice feel and I find them very playable. My only disappointment so far is not being able to load third party plugins from Push's menu. I still have much to learn.

I like the sound of the new updates, especially aftertouch control, altho' in order to use it I'm gonna have to update my OS. Still on XP (yes, I know).

[tedlogan]

Push is my first controller with aftertouch. Obviously my first impressions of the useability of AT were not good, until now with the update. I did have to adjust a few synth patches after initially being confused why some sounded so dull suddenly.

I will not use a synth without it (good aftertouch functionality) anymore - the expressiveness that proper controllable AT adds is hugely satisfying, much more so than a modwheel or pitchbender.

I highly recommend updating your OS (if that's holding back AT) if you desire more expressive playing.

About 3rd party plugins - that unfortunately still requires some setup to load from Push. I do not use presets, so luckily I only have to rack up my own patches. Simply rack up an instance of your VST, load the first patch, and save the rack. Load thenext patch, save, and so on. I do a few of these every now and then.

Extremely tedious if you want to convert a whole preset library though. There are third parties who sell pre-racked libraries. You can also use one of the Max4Live devices to scroll through presets via program change. I prefer racks though, as you can see on Push's display what you're looking for (if you named them properly).

[elxsound]

I've had Push for 4 weeks now, and am starting to feel comfortable with it. The pads have a nice feel and I find them very playable. My only disappointment so far is not being able to load third party plugins from Push's menu. I still have much to learn.

I like the sound of the new updates, especially aftertouch control, altho' in order to use it I'm gonna have to update my OS. Still on XP (yes, I know).

Loading 3rd party plugs from Push just requires saving the plugin as a live instrument. I wouldn't bother with saving the macro setting, but enabling parameters to automate first before saving, will allow you to adjust parameters more accurately via Push.

It's only tedious if you save one for each preset.

Plus there's a couple guys/companies selling pre-compiled live instruments, including patches for your 3rd party plugs.

[memyselfandus]

ok so trying to fully understand this. Do you guys have to save the plugin as a live instrument every new project?

"It's only tedious if you save one for each preset."

what do you mean bu this? ^^

and

what is Aftertouch anyway? I'm old...

[tedlogan]

ok so trying to fully understand this. Do you guys have to save the plugin as a live instrument every new project?

"It's only tedious if you save one for each preset."

what do you mean bu this? ^^

You only have to save the plugin as a Live rack once, which you can then browse from Push/Live and drag into any project, just like, say- an Operator or Analog preset. You will need to save each preset of said plugin as its own rack IF you want to browse them by name from Push. If you're happy to simply load up the plugin and then change presets with either:

keyboard arrows
the mouse
a Max 4 Live program change device, like Keyboard Control, which can dial through presets and banks

then you don't have to rack much up at all. A little prep goes a long way in the longterm though.

what is Aftertouch anyway? I'm old...

Aftertouch will affect an assigned parameter (let's make it cutoff for this example) by the pressure you exert on an AT-enabled instrument, like Push, after the initial impact of striking the pad. Pressing harder, in this example, will open the cutoff filter, lighter will close it. Brighter or duller.

I've recently started assigning pitchbending-AT on some of my guitar/koto-esque string instrument patches for Hive, as another example. Before the update, just the lightest touch would change the pitch over 4 semitones with little control, resulting in a mess when playing. Now, I have that same patch with aftertouch controlling pitchbend down over 12 semitones, and I can perfectly control it by pressing harder or softer on Push's pads. I love it.

[memyselfandus]

ok so trying to fully understand this. Do you guys have to save the plugin as a live instrument every new project?

"It's only tedious if you save one for each preset."

what do you mean bu this? ^^

You only have to save the plugin as a Live rack once, which you can then browse from Push/Live and drag into any project, just like, say- an Operator or Analog preset. You will need to save each preset of said plugin as its own rack IF you want to browse them by name from Push. If you're happy to simply load up the plugin and then change presets with either:

keyboard arrows
the mouse
a Max 4 Live program change device, like Keyboard Control, which can dial through presets and banks

then you don't have to rack much up at all. A little prep goes a long way in the longterm though.

what is Aftertouch anyway? I'm old...

Aftertouch will affect an assigned parameter (let's make it cutoff for this example) by the pressure you exert on an AT-enabled instrument, like Push, after the initial impact of striking the pad. Pressing harder, in this example, will open the cutoff filter, lighter will close it. Brighter or duller.

I've recently started assigning pitchbending-AT on some of my string instrument patches for Hive, as another example. Before the update, just the lightest touch would change the pitch over 4 semitones with little control, resulting in a mess when playing. Now, I have that same patch with aftertouch controlling pitchbend down over 12 semitones, and I can perfectly control it by pressing harder or softer on Push's pads. I love it.

very nice if you don't save each preset for the vst.. what patch does it load via the rack? init?

[tedlogan]

The rack would load whichever preset was chosen when you saved the rack, be it init, or anything you want.

[memyselfandus]

Thank you! I have been wanting to use and make my own presets again anyway. Having all the VST parameters tweakable in push sounds fantastic for my desired workflow.

[thecontrolcentre]

Thanks for the workaround info ... I think I read about it on Live's website too. It's still not ideal is it? Having to save every preset is a pain unless you roll your own mainly ... I suppose it could be a good way of filtering the factory content.

@ elxsound Thanks for the info. btw I am one of those few guys who make ready-made instruments for Live

[memyselfandus]

Maybe you guys or whoever.. could share some of these rack presets in the future?

[tedlogan]

Thank you! I have been wanting to use and make my own presets again anyway. Having all the VST parameters tweakable in push sounds fantastic for my desired workflow.

No worries

About "all the VST parameters" - Live has a limit of 128 parameters to tweak per instance of any given plugin, so be aware of that. You open the Configure panel in Live, click on the parameters on the VST's interface which you'd like to control, and they appear in this configure panel. Here you can re-order them, and they will appear on Push as "Bank 1"; "bank2, etc, of 8 parameters per bank. You cannot currently rename the banks nor the parameters, which is something I've been asking for for quite a while now. It works fine though, but I would love to have better organising of it.

Something like Zebra or Bazille is not ideal at all to operate from Push due to its modular nature and 1000+ parameters (zebra), but I find Hive, for example, works extremely well. It's certainly not quicker than using the mouse, but it is great for tweaking patches you've already made. Regardless, I've made a template for Bazille which I enjoy using. Filters 1 - 4 for Banks 1 - 4, then Osc 1 - 4 and so on, to fill a maximum of 16 banks (16 banks x 8 parameters = 128 limit).

There is a thirdparty script called Ubermap which enables renaming etc, but it doesn't work for some, including myself, as it's in Alpha state and more stable on Macs I believe.

Thanks for the workaround info ... I think I read about it on Live's website too. It's still not ideal is it? Having to save every preset is a pain unless you roll your own mainly ... I suppose it could be a good way of filtering the factory content.

It's not ideal if you prefer presets, no.Great way of filtering factory content I'd imagine yes. But like I said, there are quite a few pre-racked preset libraries of popular synths for sale on the web, and not expensive either.

Obviously I'm a bit of a u-he fanboy (hey, their synths float my boat), but here is a good example of a pre-racked library from Mableton: http://craftedsound.com/product/u-he-zebra/ : for Zebra -free- with the 2.5 factory presets + Howard's 10th anniversary presets, and includes the old 2.1 factory bank as well! These guys also do other popular synths' preset racks for sale, like Sylenth etc.

Then you have this guy http://audiomodder.myshopify.com/produc ... vst-bridge who's made an extensive NI Komplete library for Push, for 20 AUS dollars.

[rod_zero]

I didn't like loading racked presets from Push it is slow, as it has to load the plug in again.

To me the best solution ofr this is using the MIDI program change functionality in plug ins, this is done placing a M4L device before the VST which can send MIDI program change messages. Works quite well and is much more faster.