Push and Native Instruments

[David_R]

has anyone tested how Push works together with Native Instruments VSTs, especially with Battery, Reaktor, Absyth and Kontakt? I'm interested in any experience...

[tecxx]

got the controller today, big and heavy unit, i love it!!

about your question:
i plugged an absynth instace to a midi track, and can play notes on the push controller. it also seems that the macro knobs are correctly assigned. when i turn them, the macro adjusts in absynth.
so that part works fine.

i did not find out how to browse presets in push, but i even can't find out how to do it in live9 gui. i assume it's not possible?

[David_R]

thanks! choosing presets via live/push would be great, but playing notes and manipulating parameters is most necessary. anybody already used Kontakt?

[tecxx]

i plugged in an instance of kontakt, it works also fine, but macros are not auto-mapped. manually mapping them with "configure" in the live9 gui works, they are then adjustable on the push controller.

example:


i hope ableton finds the time and resources to do a tighter integration of NI vsts in a future update *add to whishlist*

[lo.key]

are you using the options.txt autopopulate vst option?

[tecxx]

are you using the options.txt autopopulate vst option?

no, fresh unmodified live 9 installation

i did not know about this special setting before, googled it now, but it changes nothing for me regarding kontakt.
i also noticed, FM8 and massive don't work either. auto-mapping seems to be working with absynth only.
anyone can confirm?

[the bite]

absynth and every other vst with less than 32 parameters, will autopopulate automatically.For other vst, you must change the options.txt if you want autopopulate the first 128 parameters.
I think it,s a good idea no autopopulate in every case, FM8 has an horrible selection of parameters, mostly efects section, and the most interesting part like the operators matrix it,s not mapped by default.It,s better with some vst make your own selection of parameters. But it,s nice sometimes to have a lot of parameters automatically at your disposal. Maybe if we can change this in preferences of ableton instead of options.txt it would be a good idea.

You can made the patchs on absynth and change it via program change

[blinkeye]

choosing presets via live/push would be great, but playing notes and manipulating parameters is most necessary.

Push has no parameter automapping for third party plugins in general (unless it has 32 parameters or less), not just NI plugins. You can use the configure feature beforehand but the mappings will not be saved so you'd have to do that every time before you load the same plugin. Saving as a rack beforehand will work though.

As for being able to browse and load presets for NI plugins from the hardware, Maschine is a no brainer since it automaps to any plugin (automapping can be customized too), and especially now that Maschine's automapping for all of Komplete 9 has been better organized: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcWIW6Muw9U

[Jordi Martinez]

Of couse NI automap his own devices and VSTs. But u ar talking about Ableton mapping everythig others do. The solution is to create a rack with the Vst's parameters u want to control, then u get them all in the Push screen. Plain easy.

[Jordi Martinez]

btw, the possibility to browse the presets of a 3th party VST would be fine. Lets wait and see what Ableton do. It can be done, but not wihtout a lot and clever work.

[yur2die4]

Preset changing has always been a tricky critter for Live.

It requires that you have 'program change' on your controller (that is, if the vst itself supports program change). Push, at the moment has no implementation of such a feature. It'd be fucking awesome if they made that happen. Maybe a special 'Browse' mode?? I don't know.

If you have m4l, there are devices which can send program change. So you'd load that into a Group, and save it with the vst presets. Then you're ready to roll

[cyclicAMP]

If you have m4l, there are devices which can send program change. So you'd load that into a Group, and save it with the vst presets. Then you're ready to roll

Can you point out some of those M4L devices that send program changes? I have had trouble finding one that works. Tried Monolake's but it seems to crash Live9 everytime I drag it onto a track.

[humnumb]

Of couse NI automap his own devices

Actually, it's being revealed by actual Push owners that Push cannot even access all the parameters of Live's own devices, like Operator: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=191772

The biggest turn off for me is that you can't really edit all the parameters of the synths. There appears to be a selection of important parameters but that really doesn't work for me. I use Operator extensively and inside out, and there isn't a way to control something as fundamental as the waveform of the oscillators!!!! So if you load the deafault patch and you don;t wannna use the mouse, all you've got is sine waves. Of course, I know that there is a way to map that to a macro, blablabla, but that's not the point. If you are following the dictum 'create songs from scratch' it is fundamental that you are able to control all of the parameters of the synths. Otherwise, what do you end up with? Using pre-programmed presets? Thanks, but no thanks! Or alternatively you have to spend time first designing the sounds you want to use, and then turn to Push just to play around, record some automation, etc. Sorry, but for me and for many other users the sound design is an essential part of the creative process. Otherwise, this device is just aimed at preset flicker type of 'producers'. I think it should not be such an issue to implement all of the parameters in the Push interface - sure you'll have to go back and forth between menus, but that's much preferable than having to spend separately some time with the mouse making sounds and then putting them to creative use. With time I can imagine getting really fast finding the parameters I need. And really what's the problem of having simply more pages of menus on the Push interface? (I am sure there is even a clever way to implement the powerful additive features of Operator of being able to build custom wave forms within push - it takes 4 fields - harmonic No, Harmonic level, next harmonic, previous harmonic) Anyway, I sincerely hope Ableton figures this out, becuase that's a major turn down.
I use Operator and Analog extensively and the way I work is by starting with a blank patch and creating the sound up to my taste and what works in the context of my track. I'm not interested in any presets.
Other minus points go for Drum racks limitations - like - there should be a way to control everything that you can do on the screen. Like creating nested effect chains and sending signals from each of the sample slots. Also, when you're building, a drum rack from scratch, the hot-swap function should work like it works in Live. When you click the Browse button and you are able to flick with the up and down green buttons, you should be able to hear the samples just by going up and down, and not having to load the samples. It should work like it does on the screen when you hit the hotswap button and you can flick witht he arrow keys to listen to the samples. I know it may seem like a minor point, but this slows down the workflow tremendously.
A big minus point goes also to the step sequencer mode when you want to edit the velocity of the notes. Why show relative changes in the value? what does this bring me, I can't figure out...just show the 1-127 values. I wanted to create some interesting ghost notes type of fills and I found it impossible to work with this relative values - if I know which note is playing at what velocity it would easier.
I sincerely hope these are all a matter of software tweaks and they will be implemented in future updates. If I have to be very crude, I'd say at it's current state Push is pretty much useless for advanced sound design type of work, when it comes even to the native Ableton instruments and devices. I won't even start with third party VSTs.

[yur2die4]

I believe the Old Mackie control is the only way to automatically have control of waveforms in Operator. My plan personally, will be to rack it up, and have the waves on macros. Use that as my starter whenever I bust out Operator (maybe feedback also). The problem is, these pages go in line with Live's basic macro control defaults. In order to access more parameters, they would have to rewrite that, and, there would be a hell of a lot more control pages to choose from which might not be convenient.

Edit: I'll get back to you on the program change... I haven't tested it myself, so you are probably further along than me :/. I've been so busy... And distracted by this really fun button layout for playing haha

[Jordi Martinez]

I do not understand. Nobody ever said Push was a tool for sound design. Ableton decison was to design it as an instrument. Enjoy a wonderful instrument.
Peace and music.