Make Push 3 Standalone a workstation

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Machinesworking
Posts: 11551
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Make Push 3 Standalone a workstation

Post by Machinesworking » Wed Oct 16, 2024 2:04 am

New Push 3 Standalone owner here. I did not initially buy it because although it's obviously not getting an Arranger page, it had no way to arrange Scenes into a song, no way to set time signatures and tempos for Scenes, and no Follow Actions.

A year and half later it still has none of these things. It can host Live 12 Suites plugins and instruments, it can do basic editing of MIDI and audio Clips, it's a versatile and great sound module and MPE instrument, it can play back full Scenes of Clips etc. etc. Why is it still not capable of being a standalone workstation? I get that for more complex music you will want to use it in controller mode and work with Live Suite on a PC or Mac, but not every song needs to be complex. This thing is so close, but so far away from what companies like Akai are doing with their easily less powerful chips and mostly less interesting plugins.

I mean this is not as complex as people have made it out to be, a simple Scene arrange page could be implemented on Pushes smaller screen, its been a thing on MPCs and other sequencer sampler standalone workstations for a couple decades now. Time signatures and tempos per Scene allow one to make each Scene (or group of Scenes if one chooses to play them), into a backing track for a live performance.

This way Push 3 Standalone actually becomes a way to compose an entire song, play a live set, and actually be it's own entity. I'm glad it works well with Live on a computer, but I feal like NI and Ableton completely lost the point of standalone, it's not just to write a groove on your couch, then bring it over to the computer to make it a song, (like every freaking add for the thing...), it's to play live sets, compose without ever using the computer. Akai are the only company that are doing this right, but I'm also a big fan of Abletons instruments and FX. It's been a year and a half, why are these things missing from a mobile workstation with a replaceable motherboard, ADAT in/out, a solid D/A (guitar sounds great though it), and 64 pad MPE grid?

It's a professional piece of hardware, but the software is lacking. Just some basic composing tools, please. :)

tanis
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2024 5:06 pm

Re: Make Push 3 Standalone a workstation

Post by tanis » Sat Feb 01, 2025 6:06 pm

I've been waiting for the same for a long time too.. :(

Machinesworking
Posts: 11551
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:30 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Make Push 3 Standalone a workstation

Post by Machinesworking » Sun Feb 02, 2025 7:25 am

tanis wrote:
Sat Feb 01, 2025 6:06 pm
I've been waiting for the same for a long time too.. :(
I've used Live forever, they make good products usually, but the Standalone version of Push 3 is absolutely mediocre. I bought it used for cheap, but I still feel like I should have just gotten the one without a computer inside. I own an MPC and I end up using that all the time, because you can actually write a song on it without the desktop computer.

I refuse to understand why a company would choose to spend likely millions on developing the standalone version, but not make any way to tie Scenes together into a simple arrangement? It's roughly $1000 USD extra for the standalone, and the software is just a clip launcher in terms of a sequencer, it boggles my mind.

tanis
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2024 5:06 pm

Re: Make Push 3 Standalone a workstation

Post by tanis » Sun Feb 02, 2025 8:22 am

I also own an MPC Live 2 and I mostly go back to it when I want to get the structure of a song down quickly. It’s fair to say that Akai also screwed up the arrangement mode as it is just a view of a sequence with all the tracks shown together.

My take o. The standalone is that Ableton was in a rush to get into the market of standalone hardware like the MPC and Machine+ and they released something only half-baked. Eventually in a few years they will have the software ready for it

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