Push workflow -for making music (not performing)

[Soarer]

I'm considering buying Push and would like to hear what you Push owners say about this:
How do you find Push for making music at home or in the studio?
I'm really exited about the use of Push but I'm not going to perform live at anytime soon.
I'm still fiddling around in Live with Reaktor instruments, M4L and Lives effects and making sound design with drum racks and EQing etc. Speaking of making music, will I get another workflow once I get use to Push or will I end up using the mouse to twist all these knobs?

I make Electronica/IDM/Ambient

[tedlogan]

I'm considering buying Push and would like to hear what you Push owners say about this:
How do you find Push for making music at home or in the studio?

I find it most enjoyable. Long ago, I used to operate some of Live with a normal MIDI keyboard, then added an APC40 and a Vestax Pad One. It was ok. With Push, I operate most of Live, but only after doing some prepwork first.

I'm really exited about the use of Push but I'm not going to perform live at anytime soon.
I'm still fiddling around in Live with Reaktor instruments, M4L and Lives effects and making sound design with drum racks and EQing etc. Speaking of making music, will I get another workflow once I get use to Push or will I end up using the mouse to twist all these knobs?

You can operate all of Live's devices from Push with access to 99.9% of their parameters though, once you've installed the community device mappings (a simple .py file to copy and paste).

VSTs - depends how you're gonna use them. I do most initial sound design with the mouse, and racking each instrument/patch I've made. Stuff like M4L's expression/envelope/LFO controls will require the mouse to initially map stuff to anyway. If you take the time to create a template of configured parameters for each VST, and then save this in an Instrument Rack, you can save each patch you make in there, and each will have the same 16 banks of 8 parameters (128 parameters) to control from Push. Unfortunately, you cannot (yet) rename the banks, so on Push, they display as "Bank 1"; "Bank 2" and so on. I personally use templates for Granulator II, Hive, Zebra 2, Satin and Bazille that suit me quite well, and are great for tweaking of already existing patches. I use it so often that by now I remember which bank is which.

It's very quick to load these racks and play/operate/automate them from Push. I highly recommend creating default MIDI/audio tracks with effects already loaded that you use often, as well as an empty instrument rack saved in your own folder within Places. This latter enables you to jump straight to your own racks when pressing Browse on Push, as opposed to starting at the top of the menu each time, having to scroll all the way down the menus.

In general, recording and playback of clips, automation, loading effects/instruments/jamming, adjusting parameters and track volumes/sends etc is great with Push, and often quicker than using a mouse. The drumrack sequencer is excellent.

It lacks arrangement controls, drumrack send controls, and a few small other things I cannot remember right now. I suppose they're not that important to me. I'd just like a few tweaks here and there, and some functionality that will need to be added to Live itself (renaming of parameters and banks in the VST configure panel).

Using Live without Push feels like one arm tied behind my back now.

You certainly don't need Push to use Live effectively at all, especially if you already have a nice MIDI keyboard, a pad controller etc, but it really does enhance the whole experience greatly for me.

[Valiumdupeuple]

Personnaly, I couldn't live without it now.

[login]

For composing it's excelent, makes it fast and fun.

Sound design depends, on VST's since it need to configure VSTis previously it can be not as enjoyable, also I find 8 encoders limited for programming synth. I also prefer to do this by mouse most of the time. The encoders come usefull for recording automation.

Controlling fx feels way better simply because FX have fewer parameters.

To me the biggest shortcmoing of Push is the lack of control over the drum rack mixeR: you can't adjust individual volume or sends. While this can be achieved using PXT Live by nativekontrol I find switching modes not as intuitive as I had expected.

Also the update brings the posibility to use the touch strip as modwheel, which was a big omission when it was released.


Overall I am very happy with Push, you will find many complaints about some stuff lacking but people tend to concentrate on what is missing. What it already does, it does it pretty well and above all to me it makes composing fun and you can avoid looking at the screen or using the mouse for a good part of the creative process.

[Soarer]

Using Live without Push feels like one arm tied behind my back now.
You certainly don't need Push to use Live effectively at all, especially if you already have a nice MIDI keyboard, a pad controller etc, but it really does enhance the whole experience greatly for me.

Personnaly, I couldn't live without it now.

Juuuuuust what I wanted to hear!

Thanks for your detailed reply tedlogan. I will do the things that you recommended.
I have definitely seen the value of Push I just wasn't completely sure about these things
but I feel very positive about getting Push now.

[Soarer]

Sound design depends, on VST's since it need to configure VSTis previously it can be not as enjoyable, also I find 8 encoders limited for programming synth. I also prefer to do this by mouse most of the time. The encoders come usefull for recording automation.

Yes this is ok. I don't mind using my mouse when I really need to dig into a synths parameters.
And you can still do quite a lot of tweaking with 8 encoders.

[Stromkraft]

I'm considering buying Push and would like to hear what you Push owners say about this:
How do you find Push for making music at home or in the studio?
I'm really exited about the use of Push but I'm not going to perform live at anytime soon.
I'm still fiddling around in Live with Reaktor instruments, M4L and Lives effects and making sound design with drum racks and EQing etc. Speaking of making music, will I get another workflow once I get use to Push or will I end up using the mouse to twist all these knobs?

The more I have moved all creation to the pads and knobs on the Push the more comfortable I am intuitively getting my ideas down without much analysis. While I can fall back on just using the keyboard when traveling for instance, tracks come out much better with the Push for me. Getting VST control has taken a lot of work and tweaking for me. When I turn knobs I feel I make better sounds than when using the mouse. I'm thinking about getting an even more versatile controller for programming.

There are some things missing and this is why I got PXT recently (After 1.5 years using the Push). Initially you can do without that.

[Soarer]

Sounds good thanks.
Do you use touchable too? I think it will be great to use these two together.

[hyperscientist]

I actually learned Push prior to learning Live… To be precise: I first got a grasp of Live functionality in general (basic functions), but quickly after I did a quite comprehensive course of Push (AskVideo series + reading of manual) and so this is how I use Live. Only when Push simply couldn't do something I would reach for computer - it was the natural way for me. In time certain things would prove to be painful though, so for example instead of browsing the library of instruments and presets or rearranging effects or sometimes manipulating them - I then go straight to computer.

But I actually believe it worked for me very well - to learn Push first and Live second.

[Airyck]

I don't think I will ever stop using Push (except in the case of Push V2) as long as I use Ableton Live. It's actually much better for creation than performance IMHO.

If you dig into PXT Live Plus (though you should learn the basic Push functionality first) you can use the Accessory mode to control the Live 9 browser and load audio clips, copy, and paste, etc... They are user assignable so you can really send any keystroke you want from the Push controller.

So when you're ready to expand the options are there.

[Stromkraft]

Sounds good thanks.
Do you use touchable too? I think it will be great to use these two together.

I don't have an iPad. I might get one later.

[Soarer]

Very glad to hear that you find Push so intuitive to use for making music.
Really hope I can afford it soon.

Speaking of Push V2... No rumors yet are there?
Probably it will come out with Live 10...
At least I hope I don't buy Push right before a second version comes out.

[blof_eld]

If my push was stolen, I would buy another one tomorrow. It's really excellent.

I also bought pxt-live, which I would also buy since it's worth the $20 for sure, but I've found it more confusing to use than I thought I would. There's a lot of memorization and reading of the manual necessary to use it, and I often find it difficult to tell exactly which mode the board is in.

[Stromkraft]

If my push was stolen, I would buy another one tomorrow. It's really excellent.

I also bought pxt-live, which I would also buy since it's worth the $20 for sure, but I've found it more confusing to use than I thought I would. There's a lot of memorization and reading of the manual necessary to use it, and I often find it difficult to tell exactly which mode the board is in.

yeah, but that's how Push felt at the beginning for me. PXT-Live is worth the effort.

[Soarer]

I did get Push about a month ago and I'm very happy with it.
I haven't tried the PXT yet. What are the main benefits of it?