Ableton Push 3 - standalone MPE controller

[pdxindy]

EDIT: To be more specific, what do you consider the most important "axis" of the MPE experience? What features of MPE do you find most expressive, most natural to use? I'm trying to find a controller that allows me to make presets for various upcoming stuff that make the end user experience as natural and effortless as possible. Obviously this means I should have multiple controllers available but that is not economically feasible for me right now.

For me, with my Linnstrument, the most important axis is X - pitch. Second is Y - Timbre. Last is pressure.

Different with the Osmose. There, pressure is first, pitch second and timbre a distant third.

I haven’t tried Push 3 but that would be my recommendation for you to start with MPE.

I wouldn’t want Push 3 as my only MPE controller. Not enough pads. It’s only half of the pads of the Linnstrument 128 and only a 3rd of the Linn 200. I haven’t calculated, but my quick guess is that P3 is equivalent to a regular 37 key keyboard. It’s kinda small.

I don’t like using scales on a Grid controller. It messes with my muscle memory. I keep my Linnstrument on the same pad relationship and chromatic at all times. I switch scales and play notes sometimes out of the scale so it means too much switching from scale to scale and scale to chromatic and then it gets heady instead of my hands knowing what to do. That’s why I settled on one configuration for my Linnstrument and never switch it.

I haven’t read up on Push 3 all that much. I don’t know for example if it has a split mode like the Linnstrument. I don’t use the split mode often. What I do use all the time is the Linnstrument’s channel per row mode. I find it constantly useful for all sorts of creative uses. I would never give that up!

The Linnstrument is also very configurable. You can define which and how many midi channels are played. When controlling say a multi-timbral hardware synth like the Analog 4, you can put the same preset on 4 tracks and it can be used as a 4 voice MPE synth. The thing is, the A4 does not support Timbre (cc74). It does support cc2 breath. So I can easily switch timbre on the Linnstrument to cc2 breath. In this way the Linnstrument is very flexible to work with lots of hardware. I haven’t read the Push 3 manual yet to see how flexible it is.

Regardless of all that, if you are not already experienced with MPE, I would just get Push 3 as a good starting point.

The Osmose is just something else and neither Push or Linnstrument has its particular strengths.

[DrGonzo]

This is why I have this love-hate relationship with forums. They always make my GAS reach new levels of cravings.

If there is any company that I would trust on their long term commitment on a standalone, its Ableton. I cannot see them doing a Maschine+ cash-in and runaway with it.

[elxsound]

This is why I have this love-hate relationship with forums. They always make my GAS reach new levels of cravings.

If there is any company that I would trust on their long term commitment on a standalone, its Ableton. I cannot see them doing a Maschine+ cash-in and runaway with it.

Imagine if they were to add Fors Opal as a native device

Right now I’m looking at all the basic things that need to be added but it’s hard not to get excited about what they could do in the future and yes… You’re right, this isn’t NI. Kore was the biggest reason I didn’t jump on Maschine.

[SLiC]

This is why I have this love-hate relationship with forums. They always make my GAS reach new levels of cravings.

If there is any company that I would trust on their long term commitment on a standalone, its Ableton. I cannot see them doing a Maschine+ cash-in and runaway with it.

Imagine if they were to add Fors Opal as a native device

Right now I’m looking at all the basic things that need to be added but it’s hard not to get excited about what they could do in the future and yes… You’re right, this isn’t NI. Kore was the biggest reason I didn’t jump on Maschine.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CtFwCNrNivp/

Opal running on stand-alone

[DrGonzo]

Opal running on stand-alone

Wow. Looks like the Push community really have embraced the new model 3.

[SLiC]

I think MAX on P3 turns it in to a stand-alone platform for many cool developers….oh, and it also runs Live

[elxsound]

This is why I have this love-hate relationship with forums. They always make my GAS reach new levels of cravings.

If there is any company that I would trust on their long term commitment on a standalone, its Ableton. I cannot see them doing a Maschine+ cash-in and runaway with it.

Imagine if they were to add Fors Opal as a native device

Right now I’m looking at all the basic things that need to be added but it’s hard not to get excited about what they could do in the future and yes… You’re right, this isn’t NI. Kore was the biggest reason I didn’t jump on Maschine.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CtFwCNrNivp/

Opal running on stand-alone

What I’d love is the Opal Interface on Push!

[drez]

I think you will start to see some Push specific M4L UI enhancements coming soon for developers to take advantage of. It’s obviously possible considering the native devices have support for it, so I think this will be the next evolution of M4L on Push.

[TVbene]

I loaded Opal with my Push 2 connected and for now only the individual devices are mapped. For the MIDI only version of the sequencer you can only scroll through the patterns.

[machinesworking]

This is why I have this love-hate relationship with forums. They always make my GAS reach new levels of cravings.

If there is any company that I would trust on their long term commitment on a standalone, its Ableton. I cannot see them doing a Maschine+ cash-in and runaway with it.

Imagine if they were to add Fors Opal as a native device

Right now I’m looking at all the basic things that need to be added but it’s hard not to get excited about what they could do in the future and yes… You’re right, this isn’t NI. Kore was the biggest reason I didn’t jump on Maschine.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CtFwCNrNivp/

Opal running on stand-alone

What I’d love is the Opal Interface on Push!

I emailed the developer, here's his reply.

The Push 3 Max for Live integration seems to be more or less in a beta stage, all our devices should technically work but in some cases the controls end up on the wrong parameter page.
This is unfortunately out of our control at the moment, but I’m sure that Ableton will adress these issues soon.

For what it’s worth, all the devices in Opal works on Push 3 and most of our other stuff does too. Note that the main sequencer device in Opal is not Push-controllable, this was the case on Push 2 as well.

Anyway definitely getting Opel, the amount of glowing reviews and that it works at all in stand alone is a bonus

[DrGonzo]

Not trolling here, but everything seems a bit like a late-build beta. Been reading on their forum and there seems to be tuning issues with Drift and wonkiness with syncing standalone to external gear, so hearing from Fors saying M4L is a bit beta-ish feels about right to me.

I rarely have any confidence in developers that they will sort out their code, but with Ableton I do. They aren't the quickest guys in town though. But I am sure they will nail it perfectly eventually.

[machinesworking]

Not trolling here, but everything seems a bit like a late-build beta. Been reading on their forum and there seems to be tuning issues with Drift and wonkiness with syncing standalone to external gear, so hearing from Fors saying M4L is a bit beta-ish feels about right to me.

I rarely have any confidence in developers that they will sort out their code, but with Ableton I do. They aren't the quickest guys in town though. But I am sure they will nail it perfectly eventually.

I'm not worried, I've got one on pre order. I have all kinds of gripes with Ableton, kind of natural since I've owned Live for 20 years, but they're generally fast to fix things. Live 8.0 was the only exception, and Max 4 Live integration I would argue is a bigger deal than Push 3 code wise.

[TVbene]

Novel music even offers custom mappings for the pads for some of the sequencers.
https://youtu.be/U08xcVLXfzU
Could be cool on the standalone if it works.

[machinesworking]

I should add this to it's own thread but I'm probably canceling my Push 3 stand alone order.
Found out today that Scenes do not have their own tempos and time signatures. This is a deal breaker here. So far we have no VST/AU, Arrangement mode, no Follow actions, only global time signatures and tempo.

I sold my MPC Live for various reason, but the main thing was how much work it is to have tracks with their own time signature in stand alone. It works perfectly easy in the MPC 2 software, but it's a total PITA in the stand alone. It's still better than Maschine, Push 3 SA, Circuit etc. that cannot do anything but one global time signature.

I emailed Ableton, but I don't expect anything of it, they intentionally left that feature out, and it's probably because for most of their users it's not a thing. Sucks to be the odd meter person in electronic music these days.

[drez]

I should add this to it's own thread but I'm probably canceling my Push 3 stand alone order.
Found out today that Scenes do not have their own tempos and time signatures. This is a deal breaker here. So far we have no VST/AU, Arrangement mode, no Follow actions, only global time signatures and tempo.

I sold my MPC Live for various reason, but the main thing was how much work it is to have tracks with their own time signature in stand alone. It works perfectly easy in the MPC 2 software, but it's a total PITA in the stand alone. It's still better than Maschine, Push 3 SA, Circuit etc. that cannot do anything but one global time signature.

I emailed Ableton, but I don't expect anything of it, they intentionally left that feature out, and it's probably because for most of their users it's not a thing. Sucks to be the odd meter person in electronic music these days.

I don't think they intentionally left it out, along with a lot of other things like mappings. I just don't think they've _gotten there yet_. I expect to see those things trickle in as they add those "features" to the standalone Live, but for sure, you gotta do what you think is right.