Ableton Push.. How is it?

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I've gotten what I believe are "bounced" notes a couple of times. I've played with the sensitivity buttons quite a bit. Not really sure technically why what I'm using works for me but it mostly does.

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hibidy wrote:I just find it the most irritating non-functional "how do people use this" mess.
Huh. I'm surprised to hear you say this Hib. As a fellow guitar player I'd think that you'd appreciate the way Aftertouch works as it's very analogous to the way you'd add expression with your finger on a guitar string. I remember the first time I played a Novation keyboard... maybe a Supernova? It had aftertouch and I fell in love.

But Novation does a great job with how their implement aftertouch and how it feels. It just feels right to me. Push, on the other hand, feels completely wrong. Not just badly implemented, but "this is a bug" wrong. Aftertouch is supposed to be extra pressure applied after the initial note strike... a second stage of resistance. Push starts sending it as soon as the pad is touched and the pads are a single stage of resistance. I could deal with that if there was a way to natively add a control to set a threshold, like the M4L plug in does.

I guess I now have to ask myself, "Do I get rid of my Remote 25sl (which Push was to replace) and use the proceeds to make Push useable?" Note, I still will have my Remote 61. That's not going anywhere.... though, I guess I could sell the 61 and keep the 25sl. The Automap and sliders are useful and I can already see me missing them a bit. I just do like to have a 61 key keyboard around even though it takes up a giant chunk of my desk. I'm conflicted.
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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hibidy wrote:I'm a relatively simple live user. Push allows me to muddle through my slop with relative ease. The tempo, swing, controllers (which even with 3rd party is easier to set up than my impulse usually) pads, scene changes (huge being all in one) and the quantize all make it a no-brainer for me.

But it has some limitations. For example, my biggest beef is that if you record a midi clip and want to overdub from push, the metronome won't have a precount. It's actually really annoying. Having max, I just filter out aftertouch (which I hate) when its there. I turn aftertouch OFF in studio one. I just find it the most irritating non-functional "how do people use this" mess.
I really wish they added an all-clip-stop on Push. That would correct that problem, but otherwise, the workaround is to switch to session view and launch a scene with no clips. It's a two-button press option instead of a single button press.

I Also wish this had both a mod wheel slider in addition to the pitch slider. And yes, it's another one that has M4L fixes (so this won't help until you cave, zercrossing :borg: but it's nice to have).

Another gripe is the default setting on fixed clip length. I would love to change this from 2 to 4 or 8 bars. Anyone know if this something easily editable by changing a number in one of the scripts?

I would love an easier way to work with 3rd party plugins and samples. I know there are hacks like product from audiomodder and then there's walkthrough for adding custom folders to sample browsing (but I can't remember where that link is), but it's one of those things, where it just would have been nice to have working right out the box.

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zerocrossing wrote:
hibidy wrote:I just find it the most irritating non-functional "how do people use this" mess.
Huh. I'm surprised to hear you say this Hib. As a fellow guitar player I'd think that you'd appreciate the way Aftertouch works as it's very analogous to the way you'd add expression with your finger on a guitar string. I remember the first time I played a Novation keyboard... maybe a Supernova? It had aftertouch and I fell in love.

But Novation does a great job with how their implement aftertouch and how it feels. It just feels right to me. Push, on the other hand, feels completely wrong. Not just badly implemented, but "this is a bug" wrong. Aftertouch is supposed to be extra pressure applied after the initial note strike... a second stage of resistance. Push starts sending it as soon as the pad is touched and the pads are a single stage of resistance. I could deal with that if there was a way to natively add a control to set a threshold, like the M4L plug in does.

I guess I now have to ask myself, "Do I get rid of my Remote 25sl (which Push was to replace) and use the proceeds to make Push useable?" Note, I still will have my Remote 61. That's not going anywhere.... though, I guess I could sell the 61 and keep the 25sl. The Automap and sliders are useful and I can already see me missing them a bit. I just do like to have a 61 key keyboard around even though it takes up a giant chunk of my desk. I'm conflicted.
The velocity control on the Push pads is excellent... more expressive than my keyboards... I just stopped using AT with it cause the implementation sucks (haven't tried the M4L device even though I have M4L). I also love playing the pads as they are very fast and fluid. I can play stuff on the Push that I cannot on my keyboard. I can play arpeggios and patterns more precisely. I can play across more than 2 octaves with 1 hand. Maybe it is because with the pads you are not pushing something down before it activates, but my timing is better on the Push. It is easy to use two fingers to play the same note quickly.

I just don't care that much that the AT is wonky cause it is so good in other ways. And I use my expression pedal in place of the AT.

It took me a bit of time to get used to the pads. For example, if you want to hold a note, it requires a bit more pressure than a keyboard otherwise notes can easily retrigger.

No way I would give up the Push because it is its own unique expressive controller.

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It's all trade off with this stuff, isn't it guys? I mean, I'd be devastated if for some reason I couldn't use push. Also, the stuff we have to weigh...I can live with a/b/c because I really want x/y/z. And it's different for everyone.

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amyhughes wrote:I can't play sustained notes on the thing without bouncing. It's probably my technique, but I tried quite a bit to get used to it and can't. I can't do much other than finger drumming on it.

Curiously, some instruments are worse than others, so maybe it's aftertouch that is causing me trouble. I had just assumed it was re-triggering notes. With Pianoteq, I get occasional bounced notes, but Shreddage II is unplayable. I can sometimes press a pad a dozen times and get only one or two sustained notes, and the rest bounce. Depending on articulation and settings in Shreddage, the second hit turns the note off, so I get very short guitar stabs instead of sustained notes.
Sounds like maybe you have the pad sensitivity set wrong. I like it set really high but if you set it to high it'll self trigger and do weird stuff. You hit the "User" button and then adjust the highlighted knob. Though, aftertouch can really make it react badly especially if you have something like filter cutoff frequency or resonance set with a lot of range.
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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hibidy wrote:It's all trade off with this stuff, isn't it guys? I mean, I'd be devastated if for some reason I couldn't use push. Also, the stuff we have to weigh...I can live with a/b/c because I really want x/y/z. And it's different for everyone.
Sure, I get that. That's what I'm currently doing. Weighing Push's benefits.

I know part of my anger happens to come from working in software development myself. I can't, for the life of me, imagine advertising a fairly generic feature, especially one that has a long history, that doesn't work remotely correctly. The clavichord had it in the 14th frack'n century! It's not like someone at Ableton would have a hard time finding a modern instrument that uses it correctly. The inexpensive Arturia Minibrute, for example, has it as do all the Novation keyboards.

So my mind boggles... How could this happen? Not just a single person, but entire teams and middle and upper management had to have touched this thing and said, "Sure, this sucks but ship it!"

OK. So somehow it slipped out into the world with a major defect. Ableton must have it's software team working to fix the issue, right?
Ableton Live Support wrote:We are sorry to hear about your issues with Push.

First of all we have to tell you that there are no direct solutions to your issues, we are afraid.

At this point the aftertouch behaves like you described it. There are though, some Max for Live patches from users, which might be helpful here:

This one prevent AT to be recorded:
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... aftertouch

This other lets you adjust the AT sensitivity:
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/1688/at-scaler

Of course, since you have Live Standard, Max for Live is not included.
Uh, so that sounds to me like a big, "No. We're aware of the issue and we're cool with our users developing a work around that will only work if you have Live Suite. So thanks for your cash, but get out that credit card again because we're not done."

I've been a Live user since v4 and a pretty vocal proponent of it, even when it was a bug riddled mess... but this stings in a special way that can only come from finding out the hardware controller you dropped $500 on doesn't work as advertised and while fixing it is possible with software, the developer is content to not fix it.

Alternatives? Well, I guess there aren't really any unless I feel like spending a ton more cash. I could put my Novation Remote 25 SL back into action and just continue using Maschine as my pad controller. :dog: Or, I could spend another $300 on an upgrade who's features I won't really use except for a user developed work around for the developer's mistake. :x
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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They don't sell M4L by itself anymore?

***Edit** They do, but it's $199 for just M4L (and only another $100 to get the suite).

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I understand your frustration zero, I was being a bit more general.

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I've enjoyed Push immensely. What is really fun is using the scale mode with hardware synths. I can't hit a wrong note on my Sub Phatty. Plus you can do step automation with the step sequencer. Very inspiring when composing.
http://www.soundcloud.com/gradynickel
MacBook Pro, iMac, Software, Hardware, Instruments, etc.

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For the user having the aftertouch problem with the Sub Phatty:
You basically have to turn AT off on the Sub Phatty itself. Don't remember exactly how I did it. Google it
http://www.soundcloud.com/gradynickel
MacBook Pro, iMac, Software, Hardware, Instruments, etc.

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elxsound wrote:They don't sell M4L by itself anymore?

***Edit** They do, but it's $199 for just M4L (and only another $100 to get the suite).
Oh really? I didn't see it on their site at all...
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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joeyfivecents wrote:For the user having the aftertouch problem with the Sub Phatty:
You basically have to turn AT off on the Sub Phatty itself. Don't remember exactly how I did it. Google it
Oh, the problem isn't with the aftertouch on the Sub Phatty. The problem is the way Push implements aftertouch. I love aftertouch and I dial it into almost all my patches.
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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After try Push allways again i must say, it takes out any creativity and put me in a system that don´t want.
First, the right name for this controller should be Ableton ,,browse´´ Starting from scratch is impossible. My fav plugins are not mapped in any kind so take the mouse again... and again and again...
Synth Edit is Pain like all other DAW Controllers. Jumping between different pages. From Filter on page B to Volume on Page F and back again and again and again.
It´s a DAW Controller of course but why paint a automation track if you three times faster in create, edit and change with mouse und computer.
My results on this controller sounds allways the same. Something electronic but notthing which goes deep or special. (On Maschine had i much cooler results, can´t explain why)
https://soundcloud.com/tags/trance%20without%20supersaw
In my opinion, it was not a good idea to build a controller which enter every part of the Ableton Universe. A Jam Controller for the first inspirations and for deeper explore taking the mouse and Ableton would be mor joy to me.

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