M4L, Push, PDK, and other methods.

[patrickstinson]

I am curious how many people are using Ableton Push with Max. I have been having a GREAT time augmenting my complex Looper/MIDI/Push setup with a custom UI on the Push grid controller using the current Push Development Kit. The creative possibilities are so fun to play with and customizing Push’s functionality seems like a no-brainer for a M4L developer.

It appears that while the Push Development Kit is an indispensable tool for this, but I’m concerned that it is not being maintained and some of the features are beginning to lose compatibility or could be more stable. If the idea of customizing Push is as attractive to others as it is to me, I’d love to hear everyone else’s opinion on the state of the PDK (or other methods for communicating with Push) and the outlook for the future. I would love to maintain and improve the kit if I ever get familiar enough with it and Push’s communication protocol and am curious if anyone else feels the same.

Current PDK issues (or am I wrong?):
– Can only get push_grid object to work. Encoders, buttons, etc appear non-functional.
– Can’t save the patch to disk without breaking the PDK. Requires delete/recreate of M4L device, slowing dev time.
– closebang bug (in Max?) where you can’t release the Push controls when the device is deleted.

Am I the only one thinking that maintaining a solid PDK is worth our efforts as Max users? What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks so much!

[dataf1ow]

I have a big looper/mlr style patch where I successfully grab the grid, the track select and state buttons, encoders, and scene launch buttons. Seems you can grab all of them. As a disclaimer I running this inside of Live, so it relies on the control script, Not sure how this would work in Max standalone.

Are you asking about using the Push in Max or inside of Live via M4L?

[patrickstinson]

I am using M4L from inside Live. The topic is mostly about forward thinking in terms of a reliable PDK or other toolkit.

[unix23]

What happened to the PDK site?

http://florianzand.de/push

http://florianzand.de/blog

is down

though the file is still here:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/oys0gk

[patrickkidd]

Right, that's what tipped me off that the future of the PDK might be unclear.

[Valiumdupeuple]

I think the PDK is a good place to start and study how Push communicates with M4L. But once you get the idea there's a lot of way to do things more efficiently/simpler.
If the PDK should be maintain, it should be reworked first, IMHO.

[patrickstinson]

I think the PDK is a good place to start and study how Push communicates with M4L. But once you get the idea there's a lot of way to do things more efficiently/simpler.
If the PDK should be maintain, it should be reworked first, IMHO.

After digging for three weeks I am starting to get a handle on the fact that communication with Push is basically no different than with other control surfaces, although comes with a few nuances. For a while there I thought that the PDK was using some magic reverse-engineered communication protocol.

So now the Push Development Kit is looking obsolete and buggy to me. Most of the code is a bit messy and somewhat overkill, and any serious patcher will just end up re-writing most of the PDK's features using standard Max objects anyway. So I think it would be a better idea to just maintain a list of example abstractions and document the relatively non-standard Push nuances that set it apart from other [control_surface] implementations.

My knowledge and motivation on this topic is building, so stay tuned and I'll be posting this type of stuff on my blog @ pkaudio.blogspot.com.