Ableton Push 2 for guitarist

[baggio]

I am thinking of purchasing a Push 2 as I like the way that it can be set up to 4ths, so that it makes more sense to a guitarist in terms of chords, scales etc. Has anybody else used Push on this way.

Also, would be interested in other controllers that can work a similar way.

[Mumdad]

Yeah, this was the thing that made me buy one. Well, that and needing to be able to have my controller on my lap.

It works well for it and I kind of like that it leads to a different way of playing versus a piano layout.

I've been looking into other options myself since I was debating moving away from Live and there's the Linnstrument which looks superb but is pretty expensive. I was also looking at the Polyend Medusa and there was some speculation that they might do the grid controller as a standalone thing at some point but nothing seems to have come of that as yet. I guess other more generic grid controllers could be set up the same way fairly easily but I imagine most of them would be a fair downgrade from the Push in terms of quality. It really is built superbly well.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Push 2 is nice enough for playing chords and melodies but once you try a controller that allows vibrato like the linnstrument, it feels sorely missing from Push. It's also nicer to have smaller squares on the linnstrument, it makes some chord shapes easier. But Push needs to work as a drum pad player as well so the size is meant for that as well.

[pdxindy]

I used to use Push that way... Then I got a Linnstrument and the Push sat unused and then went in the closet.

[baggio]

Thanks for responses. The Linnstrument looks interesting but a bit out of my ballpark at the moment.

I have a chance to buy a version 1 push for not much money. Will this still do what I want so that I can try it out before going for something more expensive.

[spacepluk]

I had a push 2 for a while and I ended up selling it. I felt the pads weren’t responsive enough and it was hard to control the dynamics. Apparently the new launchpads have better sensitivity but I haven’t tried those.

[Mumdad]

I have a chance to buy a version 1 push for not much money. Will this still do what I want so that I can try it out before going for something more expensive.

Yeah, the Push 1 still has the chromatic (4ths) mode.

Depending on what else you want to do with it it might be all you need.. To be honest it bothers me that I use so little of the functionality of the Push 2 and it's effectively a glorified (but lovely) pad and knobs MIDI controller. I keep trying to find excuses to use it more but when not playing things in live or recording manual automation it always feels faster to not bother picking it up and just do stuff with the mouse and keyboard.

I really liked the idea of being able to make tracks away from the PC screen but in practice it hasn't really worked out that way. That's probably my failing though rather than the hardware's.

[spacepluk]

I read that some people find the Push 1 is more responsive than the Push 2.

[dr_loop]

+1 for the LinnStrument!

If that is beyond your financial resources and you can wait, have a look at the Erae Touch www.embodme.com

Looks very promising!

If a Push, I'd rather get a Push 1, with some patience you can get it quite cheap (~$100-$150)
And it doesn't have the heavy CPU-load of the Push 2.
YMMV

[bmanic]

I read that some people find the Push 1 is more responsive than the Push 2.

Definitely not the case when I did a direct comparison between Push 1 and Push 2. Push 2, at least my unit, has far superior responsiveness than Push 1 had. Of all my drum pad things, the only one surpassing the Push 2 in terms of responsiveness (going from very light touch to super hard touch) is the NI Maschine mk3 (and probably Maschine+). My old Korg Padkontrol thing was also amazing but sadly I've lost it somewhere.. probably lent it to somebody and since forgotten who!

If a Push, I'd rather get a Push 1, with some patience you can get it quite cheap (~$100-$150)
And it doesn't have the heavy CPU-load of the Push 2.
YMMV

This too is complete news to me and I can not verify it at all. I never noticed a single difference in CPU usage between Push 1 vs Push 2. Maybe it is system dependent?

[spacepluk]

Maybe it depends on the playing style. There was a thread about it in the Ableton forum where people complained that the maximum sensitivity in the Push 1 was more sensitive than any combination of settings in the Push 2. And that the 2 didn't work as well if you wanted to play fast with a light touch.

I've never tried the 1, but for me the Push 2 wasn't sensitive enough to play expressively with it.

[dr_loop]

This too is complete news to me and I can not verify it at all. I never noticed a single difference in CPU usage between Push 1 vs Push 2. Maybe it is system dependent?

...well, beside Live itself, there's the Push 2 display process (don't remember the exact name, don't have the Push 2 anymore)
As long as nothing is updated on the Push-screen it is more or less idle, but as soon there is even the tinniest update, it consumes easily up to 20% even of a modern CPU. Not nice!
(may be the process is more clever than I think and it reduces the framerate if total CPU-load goes up, I don't know)

[spacepluk]

That's interesting, I thought it was using hardware acceleration since it's all Qt/QML. But if it's using so much CPU it must be doing software rendering.

[bmanic]

As long as nothing is updated on the Push-screen it is more or less idle, but as soon there is even the tinniest update, it consumes easily up to 20% even of a modern CPU. Not nice!
(may be the process is more clever than I think and it reduces the framerate if total CPU-load goes up, I don't know)

Nope. Can't confirm that at all. I have tons of automation going on this track, thus a lot of graphics movements on my Push 2 when I select for instance my FabFilter Twin instance (4 different automation lanes going, one pretty violent). I've compared the general windows task bar CPU usage with and without the push connected and I'm most definitely not seeing any noticeable CPU increase at all.

.. and this is on a 8 year old i7 3630qm. I've also got an Nvidia GTX675m GPU in this, maybe that plays a role?

I suspect these high CPU reports are mac users.. probably also people who run old OS X versions.

At least on Windows 8.1 I don't see any real problems. Yes, there is perhaps a few % extra overhead but it's hard to really see. Windows task manager is not easy to monitor for consistency at small changes.

[dr_loop]

...well, may be it has improved. I cannot really check, I had the Push2 only for two days and it's been a while since. But on my PC (i5 3350P, W8.1, GF GTX650, 8GB) the Push2DisplayProcess ate some 15%+ CPU-power as soon it was updating *anything* on the screen.
May be it's system dependent, but I sure was not the only one with this observation.
Just google for it.