Ableton Forum

Push is looking very interesting to me, and I'm excited to try it out. One question I have is about the pad configuration(s):

In the hour-long product release video, the first pad configuration that is shown has the pads divided into 3 sections - step sequencer across the top 4 rows, 16 drum pads in the lower left, and something else in the lower right. Will this mode be user-programmable at all? Let's say I would rather have 32 drum pads across the bottom, or a 24-step sequencer across the top and 2 banks of 20 pads on the bottom, can I do that?

Another question about the pads - I see that they're RGB, and the video shows a number of different colors, including multiple shades of blue. How many colors can they display, and is there any user control over those colors?

All in all (and despite the whole upgrade pricing snafu) this looks like it will be a good update to Live, and I'm really looking forward to rocking the Push!

....uhhh....vst is almost gone....

let's keep it simple for now......push is so fresh and you guys want it to be THE solution for ALL already?

all i want from it in the first version, is a rock solid integration with live and it's endless options in a innovative and musical way......

and always remember.....there is no sound you could'nt invent your own from scratch with abletons built in devices only....

and i really don't see any need for any further vst plug ins if you even call a reason rack your own.....

if push can even adress rewire clients, i'm more than happy with it.....

Hi,
what is the resolution of the encoders?

Jesse wrote: Bonus points: I use a M4L device which dynamically sends each note of a chord to a different external monophonic synth...joy.
.
.
.
.
Best,
Jesse
Push Project Manager

Is this a publicly available device?

reeloy wrote:....uhhh....vst is almost gone....

What?! Gotta disagree on this one. That's like saying hardware is outdated, so why use it?

reeloy wrote: let's keep it simple for now......push is so fresh and you guys want it to be THE solution for ALL already?

No. I just want something that will allow me to ditch the mouse and computer keyboard more than 90% of the time. If Push doesn't do that, it's not the right tool for me, that's all.

reeloy wrote: all i want from it in the first version, is a rock solid integration with live and it's endless options in a innovative and musical way......

Rock solid integration for me means it handles VSTs somehow. I'm fine if there are workarounds, M4L scripts, whatever.

reeloy wrote: and always remember.....there is no sound you could'nt invent your own from scratch with abletons built in devices only....

You mean in Suite? Not all of us have that (me).

reeloy wrote: and i really don't see any need for any further vst plug ins if you even call a reason rack your own.....

Hmm, maybe you weren't speaking to me after all? Hehehe. I love Reason but I've all but stopped using it in favor of Live and my NI plugs. It's just a better workflow for the most part.

reeloy wrote: if push can even adress rewire clients, i'm more than happy with it.....

I'm a lot more excited about Push than I have been about anything else in recent memory, I just have a few needs I'm hoping it will fill, and if it's worth it, I'm totally on board, hopefully with R1.

Cheers,

-ix

banned wrote:Does it send/receive plain MIDI and show up as a MIDI device on the OS, or does it use some proprietary protocol?

I too am very interested in this! Is there a MIDI specification chart available for Push? Push is one of the most exciting products I've seen and I can't wait until it's out. Probably I will buy one ASAP.

Thanks Jesse for taking your time and answering so many of our questions. Thats what I call good customer support!
Your answers keep my interest in Push very high, even though no "Patern lock" is a big one for me, as I work with it a lot on Maschine. (Its so much easier to get the timing right than when working with automation through knob twiddling). But having worked the Scale device into the keyboard mode is just so full of win, I will probably not know how I ever lived without it (I just wish you could have somehow also worked in the full Arpeggiator device instead of just the note repeat function - but I guess I can just add it to my channels)
I just wonder though without parameter lock, how does one enter melodies into the step sequencer? Or is note pitch like velocity and note length a parameter that is adjustable on a per step basis?

you can do all this scale stuff already with m4l+LaunchPad...
no velocity/pressure though...

Nobody seems to adress the fact that there are no FADERS on Push, so that means i have to throw in my backpack a Push AND a Nano Kontrol. Rats !

...push with nano?...will still fit in...
...push with faders?....you better get a bigger bag....

and i'm pretty sure the push encoders will do a faders job some day, too....

Yeah I'm thinking those encoders aren't just one trick ponies. I'm anticipating being able to configure them pretty much any way I need to.

Cheers,

-ix

Push obviously works exactly like the APC40 or any other instant mapping in terms of mapping VSTs and Live devices. Just with a display. The nice thing about VSTs over live devices is that you can change the order of parameters that are visible to instant mapping. With Live devices you're stuck how they decided to lay it out. However as 3dot mentioned, it really sucks not being able to have empty spots so you can organize the placement better. And since they didn't expand the number of macros in racks from 8, it looks like Max for Live will be the best way to assign custom parameter layouts (like Hoffman2K's clip mapper and 16 macros).

What I'm interested in is how easy it is to get to different isntrument within rack chains or to different banks of parameters. The worst is when there are only next/previous buttons for banks. You spend so much time hitting buttons repeatedly. The APC40 is nice because it at least lets you directly chose one of 8 parameter banks for a selected device (although with a shift modifier). I really hope Push has a way to directly select the bank you want to control.

And Jesse if you're still reading this, could I bother you to check out this thread?:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=186208&p=1447845#p1447845

Jesse wrote: I just tested with Arturia Oberheim Sem. I used 'configuration mode' to map 16 parameters.

Thanks for answering questions Jesse, great customer service! So if you can map the Push knobs to different banks of VST controls that you have configured... can the same thing be done with live devices? I always wanted more than 8 macros to use with my APC and operator or sampler etc. Will this be possible with Push? Thanks!

And how about mapping to AUs? There's a lot talking about "VSTs" here but I guess this all applies to AUs as well?

Per Boysen wrote:And how about mapping to AUs? There's a lot talking about "VSTs" here but I guess this all applies to AUs as well?

Same concepts apply to both as far as parameter mapping to hardware via automation parameters (ie. configuration parameters)

UCAudio wrote: So if you can map the Push knobs to different banks of VST controls that you have configured... can the same thing be done with live devices? I always wanted more than 8 macros to use with my APC and operator or sampler etc. Will this be possible with Push? Thanks!

You've always been able to access different banks of parameters for live devices if they have more than 8 parameters. The only problem is that you can't put them in the order you want, whereas you can with VSTs. Ableton decides what order and what banks the different parameters are in, for example with Operator. You can't change it. Push will not change the way that Ableton's automap works, it's the same as the APC40 or any other supported device.

I'm pretty surprised they haven't expanded the number of racks macros. Max for Live seems to be the alternative. And actually it has benefits over racks such as the fact that you can create a macro device which maps to other track parameters or send amounts. So you could for example have a group rack and on the main group track you could have a macro device with parameters controlling thing within those child group layers.

The probelm with Max for Live devices is that the names of mapped parameters haven't been retained for things that display names. For example touchable on the ipad just has generic names for the Max for Live mapped parameters, which is no good. Hopefully that is fixed with Max6/Live9.