Mark Williams wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:00 pm
Rather limiting and would only appeal to a small market, would also make the unit bigger, which again would be a hard sell, as some already say Push is too big now...
honestly this is the main thing that stops me using it more often. It's powerful, flexible, looks great, but it's big and heavy and mostly only feasible on a desk, when a lot of the time I just want to sit on the sofa or my bed or somewhere comfortable. So a Push mini wouldn't be a bad idea at all IMO
another hardware thing for Push 3 I think would be worth considering is some kind of battery support for the display. I hate using it on USB power because the display is so much dimmer, and me eyesight's not what it was in me old age. So I always end up dragging out the power supply too, which often means an extension lead too. Maybe we're getting close to the point where this might be able to be improved on USB-C bus power, especially in a smaller, lighter Push Mini (iOS compatible too while we're at it!) - bluetooth as well to avoid the USB lead too even better... those things would make a Push 3 upgrade worth it IMO. Probably be able to be cheaper too.
Just having the Push on my lap isn't really that comfortable flat I don't think. So I got myself a couple of laptop stands from office works, both under $30 AUD. One is a quite light cooling stand that is perfect size for the Push for putting it up on the right angle, but doesn't really fit a mouse, which I always end up needing, & and often a bluetooth keyboard too, so it ends up being more for on the desk. I also have a wooden laptop lap-table with a side surface perfect for mouse, and i can even sort of fit the iPad on it. It has metal legs that can fold out that I usually don't use, but being both wood and metal it's pretty heavy, so I end up with a pretty bulky weight on my lap, then USB wires hanging down, and by the time I get the Push, then stands, then EXT HD external HD for all the content because the Macbook air only has a 256 GB drive, I need a USB Hub, Ends up being a lot to drag out to the living room., so I usually don't.
saying all that, it may be partly related to the fact that there is SO much abundance of great tools around now, a lot of the time I'm just wanting to go through everything and listen to all the presets etc.
so one of my main problems is not being able to scroll through presets on VST/AUs -- I know this is a VERY old issue for several reasons, not least the plugin devs' implementation. But these days I think it's more pressing than ever. Just updating all the things I've had for years, most of all Reason and NI Komplete, between them alone it's a huge amount of content and I've barely scratched the surface. And clearly, as music tech has matured and business models have changed, everyone is promoting their constant supplies of new content as reasons to subscribe/upgrade etc. The very first thing it says in the Browsing page of the Push section of the manual is that it can be used to do everything without touching the computer. Well for going through content, this is really not true at all. After recently upgrading Reason to v11 (from v5), it's come a long way and they've fixed most of the problems I used to have with it, including making the rack VST/AU plugin, and in the faint hope they've worked this out by now between them I keep trying to MIDI or KEY map the up/down buttons on the interface of plugins, but it never works. Reason has the same problem itself, as well as in Live as a plugin.
But just in Live, I still haven't finished going through all the add-on Live Packs... some of them are even from Live 9
...and on that — being able to load the MIDI/Live clips that are used in Live packs for their previews when browsing would be great too. Some packs have quite a few really good clips, I don't know why they can't be treated the same in the browser as presets or drum loops, they can serve the same purpose. — oh and you can't drag them all to the same track at the same time together either to go through them as clips, you have to load them one at a time. Just loading up some interesting beats to get something playing then trying the different kits with them is one of the most basic things I tend to do to compare the sounds. Having to start from scratch making my own pattern in a kit I'm not sure I'll use is just a waste of time. I could just make up a template set, but just including the 'MIDI clips' folder when you press browse on a MIDI track would be better, and you could press shift to alternate between loading the kit with a Live Clip, or not.
Likewise, iPad + apps, which can easily be used in Live as a kind of sound module (Moog released all their apps free recently, for Bob's birthday, worth checking if they still are, Model 15 sounds AMAZING). I can send all kinds of MIDI, OSC, various other proprietary ways of connecting, but the first thing I always want to do is just quickly flip through the presets, so same problem again if I'm just using Push as my main controller.
But aside from the size and weight issue, a lot of these things would probably be software issues.