Ableton Push: Questions & Answers

[Relo]

Hi...im an ableton user and really love the program....im not a big mpc an because of to much limitations...but one thing is has over ableton ...is that u can push numbers to change beats....will ableton ever add the feature of hitting numbers to jump to different scenes?...i would really love to see that...i use ableton as my mpc...and i have a lot of scenes sometimes and it would really be nice to hit numbers and changes scenes insted of using push to select 8 scenes at a time....i hope this is taken into consideration and looked into..thanks....ease do this for me...or point me in the right direction of who to talk to..thanks again

[anamexis]

Thanks Jesse!

Will a programming reference for Push (along the lines of the Launchpad one) be released?

[lo.key]

@nennmichwieduwillst what you ask for will definitely be possible, using the control_surface call to the live object model. You'll be able to control how particular aspects of the push surface without affecting the rest of the devices functionality.


basically the logic for grabbing just the 8x8 pad matrix, for example is:
* Find the Push in the control_surfaces list
* Find its button matrix control
* Issue a "grab" message

When you do that the pads go black and it all submits to your control. This is outside of user mode. You can basically create a patch that says "okay, if the user has a Push, and my Max device is focussed by the Blue Hand, then grab the button matrix and completely change what it does."

[triant]

to julien and anyone else who's looking to hack the push's scale list (see julien's post about that here: http://julienbayle.net/ableton-push/#scales), i've found this page of various scales - includes all the traditional western ones plus a number of so-called 'exotic' ones, many of which are not included in the push's (admittedly exensive) default list:

http://www.filearchivehaven.com/music/scales/

they're not in the same format as push's scale arrays, but easily translated from the 'half-steps' format.

e.g. a major scale described in half steps is:
2-2-1-2-2-2-1
whereas in push's scale array notation, it's:
[0,2,4,5,7,9,11]

so basically, just start with 0, add 2, then 2, then 1 (according to the half-step notation) and you get a list of numbers that you can feed to push.

julien will probably be all over this, but i'm planning to use these scales in the meantime on my monome to do a push-style note-layout while i wait

cheers

[nennmichwieduwillst]

@lo.key
sounds interesting. but i didnt get u exactly. how can i do such stunts?
do i have to learn phyton and write this into the scripts or can i easy midify seperatly in the special modis?

(have no max and no will to earn it... i´m deepdived into reaktor and well, it was interessting but steals me to much tim, from making music instead, i dont want a sequal with with phyton/max;)

[lo.key]

@nennmichwieduwillst, the method i was discussing uses m4l and calls to the live-object-model. I expect there will be some template or example patches which will show this behaviour at or around release (and ableton if youre reading this: release them now you fools, so we can start to really understand this device!). It should not require a great deal of coding, but i suppose it will depend on how deep you want to go with it. Customization does require detail ;p

but i hear you on, this sort of thing does distract from actually making music, so i hope that ableton has given some good thought as to making the push as easily flexible as possible. Ive spend years coding monome apps, i must say im quite looking forward to something that actually works out of the box, just for a change ;D

[flocked]

Is it possible to get control of Push's led colours AND the display in Ableton via m4l? for example I like to port some monome m4l devices to the Push.

And can it be programmed so, that Push automatically switches to my custom led/button mode, when my m4l device gets selected?

Will the selected device stay selected, when you switch between tracks?

Thanks

[panten]

Is it possible to get control of Push's led colours AND the display in Ableton via m4l? for example I like to port some monome m4l devices to the Push.

I believe so..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyPRj7604ew

[lo.key]

@flocked, the sysex protocols for the display havent really been well documented, but i do know that using the control_surfaces aspect of the LOM lets you 'grab' control of selected chunks of the push, so it should be fairly straightforward. I intend to port over my monome smplr app asap, what i would like to do is place the patch on an audio track, and then 'grab' control of the pads and function buttons when the track its placed on is selected, and use that to remap the pads into a mlr style buffer~ slicer. It will be nice to have the function buttons control the app behaviour, rather than need to use a control toggle as i have with the monome version ;D

[flocked]

@flocked, the sysex protocols for the display havent really been well documented, but i do know that using the control_surfaces aspect of the LOM lets you 'grab' control of selected chunks of the push, so it should be fairly straightforward. I intend to port over my monome smplr app asap, what i would like to do is place the patch on an audio track, and then 'grab' control of the pads and function buttons when the track its placed on is selected, and use that to remap the pads into a mlr style buffer~ slicer. It will be nice to have the function buttons control the app behaviour, rather than need to use a control toggle as i have with the monome version ;D

Yes, that would be nice. But I spoke with julienb and it seems like this isn't possible. You need to put your Push in user mode or use it normally (with the drum sequencer, etc.) - But if you use your Push normally you can't get control of the push buttons/leds with m4l.
That means, you can't use the Push normally, put a custom m4l device in a track, switch to the track via Push and the custom interface appears (then switch back to another e.g. instrument track and the normal note grid appears again) - This isn't possible :/ You need to put your Push in user mode and then you can get control of the Push, but you will lose all the Push functions, like the note grid, etc.
This is a huge letdown. I thought about porting monome apps to m4l. Then I would have had a monome like interface on one track and on another track the normal drum sequencer interface. etc.

[TYLRbass]

@flocked, the sysex protocols for the display havent really been well documented, but i do know that using the control_surfaces aspect of the LOM lets you 'grab' control of selected chunks of the push, so it should be fairly straightforward. I intend to port over my monome smplr app asap, what i would like to do is place the patch on an audio track, and then 'grab' control of the pads and function buttons when the track its placed on is selected, and use that to remap the pads into a mlr style buffer~ slicer. It will be nice to have the function buttons control the app behaviour, rather than need to use a control toggle as i have with the monome version ;D

Yes, that would be nice. But I spoke with julienb and it seems like this isn't possible. You need to put your Push in user mode or use it normally (with the drum sequencer, etc.) - But if you use your Push normally you can't get control of the push buttons/leds with m4l.
That means, you can't use the Push normally, put a custom m4l device in a track, switch to the track via Push and the custom interface appears (then switch back to another e.g. instrument track and the normal note grid appears again) - This isn't possible :/ You need to put your Push in user mode and then you can get control of the Push, but you will lose all the Push functions, like the note grid, etc.
This is a huge letdown. I thought about porting monome apps to m4l. Then I would have had a monome like interface on one track and on another track the normal drum sequencer interface. etc.

So basically you can't remap and override certain functions the way you would on an APC40? it's either default functions or full on user mode but no combination of both?

[flocked]

So basically you can't remap and override certain functions the way you would on an APC40? it's either default functions or full on user mode but no combination of both?

Yes, if I understand julienb right, its either the default functions without any m4l control or the user mode without any of the default functions but with full control… Really sad :/

There are only two unrealistic "workarounds":
1. Rewrite all the functionality of Push in m4l for the user mode… Unlikely that you can do it… would take years, would have performance problems and you would always update it.
2. Learn python and modify the orignal scripts to add e.g. monome like sequencers. This would introduce many new problems. You would need to add a menu in Push to e.g. switch between the normal sequencer and a monome like sequencer…

I would have loved to see the possibility to get control of pushs 8x8 grid, if my push m4l patch gets selected/highlighted. This would allow so many possibilities!
Imagine a m4l beat repeater with a custom 8x8 interface. Now if you highlight the device/effect via push, the push automatically switches to the custom, m4l programmed control mode. And if you select another effect/device in the track, it automatically switches back to the normal 8x8 control mode (like the beat sequencer).

I had so many ideas. They are all shattered.

[skatr2]

Its been a while since I used an APC, but I thought outside of user modes, the only things you could remap via midi were the pots, buttons around the pots, and the faders. The track selection buttons weren't remapable outside of changing the python script. So essentially the same functionality. In User-mode, I imagine you would be able to remap the whole controller to your heart's desire.

[neuromodulator]

But you can toggle instantly between user mode and default, right?

[cyclicAMP]

Sorry if this has been asked before (and/or answered).

When recording session automation in Push, can the clip envelope be unlinked to allow the duration of the automation to be longer then the clip length itself?