Using Push 3 for live performance… problematic

[Heve Stilmy]

I bough Push 3 for international gigs, to replace 3 pieces of gear, my interface, drum pads, and clip launcher/mixer.I have a performance next month in Romania, but I’m having all kinds or issues I have to work around using Push for real time performance. Seems like Push 3 is not really designed as a live performance instrument? Perhaps someone here has some solutions…

1. I can’t play the pads and launch a clip at the same time. This is maddening, obviously you have to switch modes on Push to do this so I use another controller to send a MIDI message to launch a clip while playing on the Push pads. The Push focus shifts from the track I am playing to the track that has the clip when the clip is launched! I have an inelegant solution but maybe there’s a fix?

2. User mode seems to be unfinished. With no visual feedback I find it extremely difficult to use.

3. Levels. I think for musician performing with others, be they musicians or dancers or for theatre, having control over track levels is essential. Having to switch from clip view to track level view is a real inconvenience for me when I am making musical decisions in the moment. I generally have all slots filled and 20 -30 tracks so I am finding that a gesture on stage that merits a shift in music (this is improv) can easily be missed by me fiddling with the different views. Ironically the knob for each track that allows level changes is unused - does nothing- in clip view… if there was an option to assign it to level it would truly make my life easier.

There a a ton of similar issues that individually are small but collectively damp real time decision making for improvisation. Like having to hold the shift button and the stop button to stop all clips - my right hand is playing the keyboard so combination buttons that require two hands are impossible.

Oh one other head scratcher. I can’t use MPE. Well I can but since it’s a mode for the entire piece of hardware any instrument that uses aftertouch can’t be performed on without sacrificing aftertouch. One or the other instead of being able to assign MPE or channel aftertouch or polyphonic aftertouch on a track by track basis.

My sense is that this pieces of hardware is a work in progress, and currently designed as a studio tool rather than an instrument.

Anyway I wonder if anyone here performs on Push 3 live and has some workarounds for such things?

[braduro]

Hi!
Well for 1) couldn’t you a) set your settings to clip launch mode (rather than scene) b) perform in session/scene view c) navigate to the clip you wish to record, all while remaining on the track you are performing from? You could even use a pedal to punch record and not take your hands off the pads

[braduro]

2) user mode is truly leveraged when you subscribe to additional python scripts, like clyphx. Stray was recruited by the Ableton team, so you’re now seeing these development cycles at the rate of Ableton. You are not late to the party: we’re all waiting for when user mode will be formally implemented.

[braduro]

3) I made a tutorial leveraging macrobats, which are racks with altered functionality, also the brainchild of Stray.
What Push doesn’t have is a single view for Trim pots. Any mixer channel would have a crude gain for corralling gain structure, which then leaves the faders for mixing. These “trim” devices put all your tracks in one device view on the push. Haven’t tried it on Push standalone. You really want it already set up on a template, which is another thing that hasn’t been implemented yet.

[braduro]

All in all, you are not wrong for butting up against its limitations, and MPE is already a per channel basis, I wonder how that would work? You’re playing the keyboard into the push, but the push into the keyboard renders the polyphonic aftertouch unusable? Try configuring an MPE Control device in live on the track that push is sending out then save it to Push? I haven’t played with that thing, but it’s all about converting MPE messages to the other usual suspects.

The best Push performers set things nicely for themselves. They get skilled at the necessary dexterity involved in making those transitions seemless. Things like wide reaches with modifier keys are definitely trouble, but we’ll have to wait and see: I’m already seeing one push user on here who is working out a vocabulary of clyphx clips. Or maybe you’ll need to stop clips with a pedal.

Imagine a pipe organ and the stops involved in switching sounds. Or violinists adjusting the bridge. There are awkward moves on every instrument. Push has a name for solving things, but it’s still just an instrument

We are definitely ableton’s lab rats at this stage. Controller mode, me thinks, is still the more stable platform of the two. Maybe have an external mixer on the stage for now, such that you can rescue a performance if everything goes sideways. But I think we’re going to get to that end goal of a sturdy platform

[Heve Stilmy]

Good responses! The way I perform is probably not typical: I have many sample clips, some long textures, some pitched, most semi or non pitched, some long loops, some rhythmic, etc. I layer them together choosing in the moment during performance. At the same time I’ve set up 12 channels for synth playing, with pgm changes I have a fairly vast pallet and 20 years or so of patches I’ve programmed which is one reason stand alone is not of interest to me. Several pad percussion instruments on 4 channels…

Launching sample clips, while simultaneously playing on the keyboard and drum pads allows me to generate the musical complexity I want, and generally what the groups I collaborate with want, which are primarily modern dance and hybrid dance and theater troupes.

On push launching clips with my left hand and controlling levels while playing the keyboard with my right is a tricky business, some have to resort to MIDI mapping etc. some things I used to be able to do using a Lemur and a full featured pad controller are now impossible. That being said I’m getting used to Push, I’m just a little surprised that it is still seemingly unfinished and rather obtuse with regard to real time performance. I do really like having 64 pads to work with but, as I mentioned, launching a clip while playing the pads is not doable which kind of blows my mind a bit.

The only recording I do is to capture the performance so we can mix the audio with video for festival submissions etc. All performing I do is free or loosely scripted improv

So for the next few gigs I am now just using a compact kybd a small pad controller and push. Easy to travel with and just barely enough for my music!

I’ll investigate the suggestions above, thanks.

[braduro]

As for answer 1) I meant Scene view on the display. The last of the 4 encoder-view options, Device, Mixer, Clip, Session/Scene I’ll correct that now.

If you navigate to a highlighted clip, you can launch it without loosing focus of the instrument track you are playing from

[Heve Stilmy]

Nope. There’s no way to launch an audio clip while playing pads. Tried all suggestions. Not on Push or using an external controller mapped. I’m willing to put my very poor python coding hat on but no time now, gotta prep for the summer performances. I’m guessing it’s possible but will involve more compromises. Like I wrote I find that particular limitation astonishing!

[Heve Stilmy]

Correction: there is. User error. In *Live* prefs “select on launch” was on, I switched it off and viola, Push remains focused on the pads I was playing! Whew that solves a lot of issues for the next performance which is a theater production where sonic accents are a part of the game.

Been using live for performance since 2006, never looked at that particular preference!

I have to say, I’m no fan boy, but the reason I chose Push 3 as a replacement master controller was my great regard for Ableton. Live has always been the most flexible and generally stable platform I’ve used, my assumption was Push would be also, and it does work well but it’s not quite finished yet. I’m on Live 11, though I have 12, because some plug-ins I use are not compatible. Actually I’m using both 11 and 9 simultaneously for some stuff because I use some excellent 32 bit plugins that will never be upgraded unfortunately. It’s a testament to Ableton programming that two versions of the same software can not only be used at the same time, but can synch up painlessly

Cheers!