Sitting on the Fence - Push or Maschine

[deva]

that guy badly needs therapy.

the pads on my Push are excellent, and pretty even response-wise.

no problem with Pianoteq either, haha. (posting quotes from noob blogs as evidence is really stupid behaviour, btw).

does Push replace an actual keyboard, err, no. would i expect it to? err, no. would i choose it over my 88 key hammer-graded controller for playing piano? err, no.

as for playing chords on a Maschine. my god. i guess you could play Chopsticks on it. or Mary Had a Little Lamb.

It is rather telling of his agenda that he went all around finding any kind of negative comment and collecting them together in order to present a false impression of Push. Humnumb is abusing the open policy of this forum and imo should be banned.

[pencilrocket]

The reality is that all Akai pads have suffered from a fundamental design flaw of a gap between the pads and the sensors that often causes double/missed triggering and are about the least sensitive/responsive pads there are compared to what's available today.

The reality is quite opposite...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce_XOylBCRE

Maschine's pad has fundamental design flaw. I can understand the low quality of Maschine's pad because they are noob in this realm.

[SuburbanThug]

Hey, look. A video demonstrating the very acceptable quality of Push's pad sensitivity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEa2MXHBkB0

[humnumb]

We can agree to disagree but I just think Push is an unfinished product at this stage, especially in terms of how it interfaces with its own software. Along with quality control and possible cost-cutting issues like the RGB LEDs not being able to display white consistently and the decision to use text-based display instead of a graphical one, it all just comes off like it was released way too prematurely, probably in a hurry to be announced with Live 9. And as seen in Gerhard's recent interview with kvr, they're really pushing the whole "open" "blank slate" programmability via max/python angle almost as if that's the solution to all of Push's current shortcomings, so its own customers can pay to be beta-testing guinea pigs.

[SuburbanThug]

How can you have such a strong opinion having never touched one?

[humnumb]

The reality is that all Akai pads have suffered from a fundamental design flaw of a gap between the pads and the sensors that often causes double/missed triggering and are about the least sensitive/responsive pads there are compared to what's available today.

The reality is quite opposite...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce_XOylBCRE

Maschine's pad has fundamental design flaw. I can understand the low quality of Maschine's pad because they are noob in this realm.

lol The noob is that dude in that video (who couldn't even figure out how to remap the pads) complaining because he's trying to play Maschine pads like the MPC/MPD pads where you rest your finger on the padand push down (precisely because there is a gap between the pad and the sensor) and he even admits that "Maschine is a bit more sensitive."

[pencilrocket]

NI has been manufacturing Maschine since 2009 - 4 years.
AKAI has been manufacuring MPC-style products since 1988 - 25 years.

NI obviously lacks the knowledge base and experience, which causes the awkward noob oriented switchy pad. You would be surprised at the velocity range how instrumentalist requires; how hard the pianist hit the keys. They never complain that their finger hurt. Because it isn't switch, and they need that range for the 'instruments'. There is no instruments that won't require practice to aqcuire specific parts of muscle to play them smootly, unless they are intentionaly made for noobs and can be 'played' out of the box.

[humnumb]

NI obviously lacks the knowledge base and experience, which causes the awkward noob oriented switchy pad.

lol Nice try pencilrocket. The dude in that video you posted simply didn't know that other more sensitive pads like Maschine and padkontrol do not have the design flaw of having a gap between the pads and the sensors. That inherent design flaw of Akai's pads is the only reason why he got used to playing the MPD pads by resting the fingers on the pad and pushing down on them.

[SuburbanThug]

There's certainly no gap between the sensors and pad on the Push. As has been previously mentioned, if you set the sensitivity as high as it can go simply blowing on the Push will trigger the pads.

[fishmonkey]

NI obviously lacks the knowledge base and experience, which causes the awkward noob oriented switchy pad.

lol Nice try pencilrocket. The dude in that video you posted simply didn't know that other more sensitive pads like Maschine and padkontrol do not have the design flaw of having a gap between the pads and the sensors. That inherent design flaw of Akai's pads is the only reason why he got used to playing the MPD pads by resting the fingers on the pad and pushing down on them.

do you have any idea that you just look like an idiot? most people here are up for a rational debate, but narrow-minded zealots like you really bring down the tone.

actually the pads on my Push feel much better than my padKontrol. although they are good, the padKontrol pad caps float on the sensors and aren't as direct.

on the Push you can rest your finger on a pad and play repeated notes reliably (even though there is no gap), and i prefer the firmer feel and broader physical velocity range.

[panten]

humnumb still hasn't answered the important question;

Have you had hands on experience with the MPC Ren or Push?

Rather than empirical knowledge of the device he'd rather trawl various forums to back up his (paid?) stance on the subject.

In other news - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEa2MXHBkB0 - thanks for that SuburbanThug.
The Pads on the Push are stupidly sensitive and now we have visual proof of somebody demonstrating it, over some random quotes from what could quite possibly be the same guy.

Other videos demonstrating the very sensitive Push Pads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 0j-4#t=56s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Yl0aUcE54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhPuxyBiHgo

Hopefully this will help others who are sitting on the fence decide for themselves whether Push' pads are worth investing in.

Now please for the sake of everyone's sanity humnumb PLEASE get down off your high horse and have more rational discussion.
.
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This conversation is ridiculous. When you have to quote yourself on a forum from 1 page ago is it time to get out more?

[SuburbanThug]

Every time you get serious with this guy he hides until he knows it's safe to come out and cast his line again. I guarantee you these posts will be buried by tomorrow afternoon.

[panten]

Every time you get serious with this guy he hides until he knows it's safe to come out and cast his line again. I guarantee you these posts will be buried by tomorrow afternoon.

In that case..

[humnumb]

The Pads on the Push are stupidly sensitive and now we have visual proof of somebody demonstrating it, over some random quotes from what could quite possibly be the same guy.

SMH... Are you seriously suggesting all these people are "the same guy" ?:

Ableton forums:

The pads weren't sensitive enough for me out of the box, so I spent a maddening hour looking for the settings the manual assured me should be there, thinking my push was somehow broken.

Playing sustained notes on the pads in note mode is a little harder than I expected. Despite adjusting the sensitivity and the response curve, I seem to have to keep some pressure on a pad to keep the note sounding, but too much pressure activates the aftertouch. Since there's no movement to the pads, it's hard to find the pressure that will keep the note on, but not start sending aftertouch. It's more fatiguing than playing my usual keyboard.

You have to hit pads pretty hard to get velocities >90-ish.

Pad sensitivity has been a bit of an issue as well, but this seems like something that could be fixed quite easily. I've tried using the user-mode hold pad-sensitivity adjustment to some success, but the real problem is that the high-end of the expected input-velocity is just too high for me. The log modes don't really work for me since they have the effect of cutting out the middle section of the velocity curve.

first thing i recognized was, that i have to hit the pads very hard,
its almost impossible for me to play melodies with some instruments. is there a way to set the sensitivity of the pads? i mean, when i stand right before the push, its very easy to play but when i sit i have to hit the pads to hard.

for me its impossible to play fluently on the pads. like on a standard midi keyboard. i try all seetings. i cant find the perfect settings between "hit real hard to get loud" and "too sensitive and too big accent jumps"
dont know if i'll get ever family with those "hard" pads …

If anyone else has suggestions for changing the pad pressure, let me know. My fingertips are going to start developing calluses from wailing on this grid.

One thing is for sure, all PADs don't have the same sensitivity.
You do provide a global setting to edit the (global) PAD sensitivity threshold, as well as a velocity curve adjustment setting, but even with these, some PADs don't (REALLY DON'T) react the same.
As the per-LED suggested calibration mode, could we get per-pad calibration thresholds ?
A simple mode where a user could set a per-pad threshold for each pad, ensuring uniform response ?
(Note, there's also this annoying bug, where one would need to switch to another track, than back to current one, to get ALL pad responsive again.. Happens when you abuse REPEAT button..)

anyone got Feedback from Ableton about the different sensitive Pads on Push? They wrote, we have to contact the support, but no response so far.

I'm having a problem that two of my pads in note mode play distinctly softer than the others.
The problem is less pronounced if I crank the global sensitivity setting to Log 5, but otherwise it's like having a bad hammer on a piano keyboard. Has anyone else seen this?
Anybody know if there is a per-pad sensitivity setting in Note mode? I am aware there's a per-pad setting for drum racks, but these pads don't fall in the rack sector of the grid.

Yep I have this problem, mine are the two keys above the centre cutout bit, so from the bottom 4 across then 5 up and 5 across then 5 up. My guess is faulty pads

I also have several pads with unequal sensiti vity.

Gearslutz:

The only issue I have so far with Push is the pads. They are surprisingly firm (hurt-my-fingers hard) and the trigger sensitivity is not as controllable as I expected. If you press and hold USER, you can adjust both Pad Threshold and Velocity Curve (p.514 of the current Live 9 manual has graphs of the available curves). But I seem unable to dial in a setting that gives reliable triggering and broad dynamic range. Every setting I try has some issue, such as wildly jumping velocity (even when trying to play with consistent finger pressure), missed and double triggering, and/or sore fingers from having to bang the pads hard. It is not unique to one instrument type; I've auditioned drums, bass, synth, bells, pads, etc. I even switched over to my Fatar weighted 88-key controller for a sanity check. The playability of the same instrument devices using my Fatar controller was significantly more reliable and generally more expressive.

My research suggests that Akai, who make the Push, have a reputation for making the least sensitive/responsive pads. By comparison, I've demoed Maschine MkII a couple times, and it seemed to have extremely comfortable jelly-like pads, very expressive and reliable triggering, and an easily controllable and broad dynamic range.

When I set sensitivity to -15, I get lots of stuck pads. The lowest setting my unit seems to handle is -5. At any setting below -5, my playing starts causing pads I didn't even hit to trigger and get stuck.

http://kvestimusic.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... quote]Pads are not good for playing instruments that have good velocity sensitivity and you want your dynamics to come out. Pads did their job when I played with Ableton’s instruments. With Pianoteq they were terrible. Maybe with different velocity curve Pianoteq could be playable with pad, but with default settings it was terrible. There is still need for midi keyboard.[/quote]
These are real people describing real issues. Push apologists like you to trying to attack them as random noobs or whatever doesn't change any of that.

[humnumb]

And the reports keep coming about the problems with the pads on Push. Just from today so far:

My pads are set to -10 threshold & log 3 & i still seem much less sensitive.

Dang, I've got the same issue. Pads 4 & 5 of the top row are both far far "stiffer" than the rest of the pads by a large margin. It's actually impossible to even hit 100% velocity on either of these pads