Ableton Push 3 - standalone MPE controller

[machinesworking]

was it Ableton Live 8? Or was it 9?

It was 8.

That started a much slower pace of major releases, and an emphasis on stability (or so I perceive it that way).

Before 8, they released a major pay-for upgrade annually.

8 was so buggy it was hardly useable. The outcry from users was so strong that Ableton promised to halt further development until it was stable... took more than a year.

Famously that's also the same timeframe that a few developers from Ableton quit and started Bitwig.

[machinesworking]

Lastly… There’s no way I believe Ableton would be off the hook from not having a song-mode in Standalone. I do believe its possible to be an oversight in development, or more likely they haven’t worked out the bugs, but having seen how many people were regularly asking Elektron to add song-mode to Digitakt, there’s no way people won’t ask for it on Push 3 especially at the price of Standalone.

I completely agree. IMO it's probably more to do with exactly how to implement it. I don't think they're going to be able to fit all the editing capabilities of the Arrangement Page as it is into Push 3 without allowing Push 3 to use a keyboard and mouse (which the MPCs can use), so they probably want to work out some smooth workflow for arranging Session Clips and recording over the entire song etc. that works with the Push hardware without adding in keyboards and mice just to get it done.

I don't know of course but my guess is they've looked over Maschine+ and the MPCs and want it to be better or more robust, and that's not an easy task.

[pdxindy]

I completely agree. IMO it's probably more to do with exactly how to implement it. I don't think they're going to be able to fit all the editing capabilities of the Arrangement Page as it is into Push 3 without allowing Push 3 to use a keyboard and mouse (which the MPCs can use), so they probably want to work out some smooth workflow for arranging Session Clips and recording over the entire song etc. that works with the Push hardware without adding in keyboards and mice just to get it done.

I don't know of course but my guess is they've looked over Maschine+ and the MPCs and want it to be better or more robust, and that's not an easy task.

Creating arrangements is easier to do on the computer using mouse and screen.

[SteveElbows]

The 2nd beta, that came out today, includes a firmware update which attempts to fix a bunch of things including a stuck touchstrip issue. I did have the touchstrip issue previously, though not the most extreme version of it, so will be crossing my fingers that the new firmware does fix that to my satisfaction.

[liquidsound]

I completely agree. IMO it's probably more to do with exactly how to implement it. I don't think they're going to be able to fit all the editing capabilities of the Arrangement Page as it is into Push 3 without allowing Push 3 to use a keyboard and mouse (which the MPCs can use), so they probably want to work out some smooth workflow for arranging Session Clips and recording over the entire song etc. that works with the Push hardware without adding in keyboards and mice just to get it done.

I don't know of course but my guess is they've looked over Maschine+ and the MPCs and want it to be better or more robust, and that's not an easy task.

Creating arrangements is easier to do on the computer using mouse and screen.

Or…. Finally they were able to fix the leftover mess once they left

[elxsound]

I think you got quoted the wrong one, but I think that change might have worked out well for both sides? Saw some familiar problems in the early versions of BW.

[DrGonzo]

In either case, the disastrous release of Live 8 obviously resulted in fundamental changes over at Ableton and that they are inviting users to public betas is also great.

[drez]

In either case, the disastrous release of Live 8 obviously resulted in fundamental changes over at Ableton and that they are inviting users to public betas is also great.

Agreed. For the push 3 release, it's nice to see them iterating quickly to squash the launch bugs. Those two beta's came out pretty quick.

[nanostream]

I don't know of course but my guess is they've looked over Maschine+ and the MPCs and want it to be better or more robust, and that's not an easy task.

Not only that, presumably it should translate to the desktop version as well, which is another can of worms. But this could mean we’d get a session, arrangement, and … a new song view? Seamlessly integrated, of course, otherwise Live would become a convoluted and confusing mess.

And the workflow would have to be noticeably better than it is now, at least for me as a controller version Push owner: my laptop is right there anyway, and it’s easy enough to simply switch over to it at the right moment to arrange a song.

Tough nut to crack for Ableton, but I can see something like that as main new Live 12 feature.

[drez]

I think that follow actions are going to be the next thing that comes if they do any scene/clip trigger automation and any sort of arrangement view is going to be waaaay down the line if at all. IMO this is a standalone "Push", not really a standalone "Ableton Live", and arrangement view is not the push way. It never has been. I think they want to keep you in the Ableton ecosystem, and that includes their entire offering...the push AND their desktop software. I doubt their target audience is people that just buy Push 3 standalone and never go into desktop Ableton Live. Push has always been a session view first class citizen and then just a midi controller once arrangement view comes into the picture. I couldn't even fathom how you would effectively work an arrangement view across tracks and clips, especially without a touch screen. It would be so painful, it wouldn't be useful. You can just open your computer up and do all that.

For me push1/2/3 excels at creating the music, getting it down, tweaking with automation to get an idea and then moving back to the computer to get into the details.

OR, its great for performing your music, by either creating clips on the fly and triggering them as you go along or assembling those clips into scene's or sample them into simpler and assigning into drum rack pads to create a true performance view that you can do whatever you want with in a live performance setting and not be limited to executing an arrangement view that is exactly organized linearly. The user determines what he wants to do by launching the scenes whenever they want and looping them for as long they want. For example, maybe I want to run the chorus scene and play a lead over it, or tweak parameters for some arbitrary amount of time, the push is great for that. Then you just flip to the session layout and trigger the next scene you want to go to. I've only thought of push that way because that's what it excels at. Follow actions are fine and would be a good alternative to the arrangement view because you still "stay in the session view" and can override those follow actions simply by triggering another scene on the fly.

IMO this is the push way. It always has been. Look at all the video's you ever see of people actually using a push, and they are either creating clips that they are triggering or they are performing a session view that they have been constructing with the push and the computer. The arrangement has never been focused on at all. It's all about the performance side of the session view.

I think this is the target audience and who they built the stand alone for.

I also hit up the Ableton Note product manager to add the ability to send a Note project directly to the Push over WiFi so you could remove the dependency of the computer out of the path. Note is using native ableton devices underneath, so theoretically, you could just transfer a project over to the push standalone just like the desktop ableton does

[elxsound]

I thought it was a shame they didn’t add options to Note that tied directly in with Push 3.

those were my thoughts as well, that it would be nice to transfer directly from note to Push. Going from Push to Note would also be great, but I don’t know if they would consider that for what could be a financial impact (if the computer is not needed).

As for the other topic, I think a song mode similar to how it’s available on Elektron is most likely what would happen.

[drez]

I thought it was a shame they didn’t add options to Note that tied directly in with Push 3.

those were my thoughts as well, that it would be nice to transfer directly from note to Push. Going from Push to Note would also be great, but I don’t know if they would consider that for what could be a financial impact (if the computer is not needed).

I think the issue with push back to note (which you can't go from ableton desktop back to note) is that all the devices aren't available in Note, so you might add one in P3S or Ableton that wouldn't be available in the project on Note and it wouldn't work?

[nanostream]

Yeah I agree, arrangement view doesn’t make much sense on Push, but follow actions would/will be the easy way out — apart from the fact that for many (most?) users they’re readily available anyway, as long as they don’t need standalone mode.

There are better paradigms out there, and it’d be great if Ableton manages to pull something nice out of the hat.

[machinesworking]

Yeah I agree, arrangement view doesn’t make much sense on Push, but follow actions would/will be the easy way out — apart from the fact that for many (most?) users they’re readily available anyway, as long as they don’t need standalone mode.

There are better paradigms out there, and it’d be great if Ableton manages to pull something nice out of the hat.

Follow Actions IMO have to come, the MPCs have Song Mode which is more or less Scene Follow Actions, plus multiple time signatures, better MIDI editing etc. etc. They're way behind the most obvious competition in Force and Maschine etc. That has to change.

Plus, the explicit reason for stand alone is to be able to work without a computer attached, if all you can do is create new loops with Push 3 it remains vastly more limited than any of the competition and hundreds of dollars more expensive. Literally all it really offers is MPE, and that comes in the $1000 cheaper version.

Arguing that the computer is right there is forgetting that some people travel, some of them are musicians. You can literally grab a Maschine+, MPC, Force, Elektron etc. from your bag in a hotel room and write out a song, on the more expensive Push 3 you can write out a loop or ten.

One thing that points to this changing at some time is that Push 3 can "record" into the Arrangement. You can't see it on the stand alone but you can do it, then transfer that Session jam over to the computer and open it in Live. So at some point you should be able to edit those Session clips on the stand alone. I don't expect that to be robust, just possible to some degree.

[drez]

This guy gets it. 45 min...no computer... no arrangement view ...just loops, effects, and live playing, using the ADAT interface to route multiple external effects through sends...a live album worth of material. This is the market for the push.