Ableton Forum

The time to return the Push 3 standalone has come. The number of issues its software has is really high. The software is very limited compared to the regular Live.

I would've loved to keep this device if it had fewer bugs and more features. The software doesn't seem to be anywhere near fixed within the 30 days of the return window. Bug fixes seem to be coming in the next beta. Nothing was said regarding the missing functionality. That's a rather serious concern for me. I don't want to give all that money to Ableton while keeping a product which is not finished. Ableton seems to have misled customers by not saying that the hardware and the software have bugs and missing functionality.

There are a few problems with the Push 3 standalone. One of them is the fact that we're paying customers who are effectively beta testing a product. You could even argue that we're alpha testing the software and beta testing the hardware. The software has numerous bugs and countless missing features. Some people have received broken Push 3 units or units which have serious hardware issues with the sound, the controls, the touch strip, the pads, not even booting and so on.

The lack of support for USB class compliant audio interfaces makes me wonder what's going on with this product. The MPCs have support for such USB class compliant audio interfaces at a lower price. The countless broken or completely missing features make me wonder what everyone at Ableton had on their minds when releasing this product. It's not even able to map macros for instrument racks, midi, create instrument racks and chains, and map max 4 live parameters properly in standalone mode. It's so severely limited and unstable that it turns into a sort of dark joke after paying the full price of the product and that of Ableton Live Suite.

My experience with syncing Push 3 to Live was also not great. I could only get Live to see the Push 3 standalone when connected via an Ethernet adapter when toggling the "show Push" button in Live. Here are some suggestions: enable SFTP for direct file transfer, provide support for USB transfer for projects with file navigation on the Push or at least a copy-to-external drive function.

The Push 3 drains the battery very quickly while it sits doing nothing. I can see the battery indicator go down and down in the settings menu while the device is completely idle. Turn the device on with 95% battery, let it sit idle for 2-4 minutes and it has already gone down to below 90%. Play with a wavetable or analog synth on track for a few minutes and watch it go down even faster.

The i3 11th gen NUC compute element seems to chew through that battery as if it's a pair of AA batteries. It's not a particularly fast or power efficient CPU.

Perhaps they'll fix all the bugs and implement the missing functionality. I might take another look at the Push 3 standalone in 6-9 months from now. The Push 3 controller will likely be a better choice for me. The standalone seems a bad choice due to the power hungry and sluggish i3 11th gen NUC compute element. You can probably buy a faster laptop, desktop computer or a mac mini with with the difference between the price of Push 3 standalone and the controller version.

I'm waiting for the support team who processes returns to get back to me. I've been waiting for about two days to receive instructions for the return. I look forward to returning the product.

I understand your frustration.

Let me tell you that from the point of view of an old Push 2 user since launch date, I've bough into the Push 3S knowing that it would have been "unfinished" to a certain extent.
I also knew that the battery would act more of a backup emergency battery given the processor power consumption.

What I didn't expect was the following:

- Finding out that the software is almost on par with the old Push 2 with very few additional features to start with.

- The lack of updates a month after launch date.

- The lack of information from the company about a roadmap for the product development.

- The lack of participation and excitement from the company in this forum.


I hope that they will sort things out quickly, in the meantime I'm gonna keep my unit because I have faith in Ableton and the potential of this new machine is just really promising.

However I cannot hide my disappointment.

Audivit wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2023 2:56 pm

What I didn't expect was the following:

- Finding out that the software is almost on par with the old Push 2 with very few additional features to start with.

- The lack of updates a month after launch date.

- The lack of information from the company about a roadmap for the product development.

- The lack of participation and excitement from the company in this forum.

Exactly!
Same here.
100%.

Audivit wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2023 2:56 pm

I understand your frustration.

Let me tell you that from the point of view of an old Push 2 user since launch date, I've bough into the Push 3S knowing that it would have been "unfinished" to a certain extent.
I also knew that the battery would act more of a backup emergency battery given the processor power consumption.

What I didn't expect was the following:

- Finding out that the software is almost on par with the old Push 2 with very few additional features to start with.

- The lack of updates a month after launch date.

- The lack of information from the company about a roadmap for the product development.

- The lack of participation and excitement from the company in this forum.


I hope that they will sort things out quickly, in the meantime I'm gonna keep my unit because I have faith in Ableton and the potential of this new machine is just really promising.

However I cannot hide my disappointment.

You can imagine how disappointing it can be for a newcomer who's excited to see the Push 3 standalone and then see all the problems you've seen. It seems to be more of an update of Push 2 than anything else.

I may have even some references to "Push 2 going away" in my crash logs. I guess the same code for Push 2 was updated for Push 3 without that many changes? Who knows.

It does seem that there's not much involvement from Ableton with the Push 3 on the forums. We've only had forum admins chime in and help.

Please keep in mind that it IS Push Standalone, not Ableton Live Standalone, so it's not surprising that the Push 3 is very similar to Push 2. Just without the cables. More features will definitely come, and I agree that the roll out definitely felt a bit rushed to me as well.

Public beta is live as of today though, so people are welcome to try that and see if it fixes any issues they currently have.

At this current state Push 3 is nothing more than an hardware upgrade and a standalone upgrade of Push 2.

I love the hardware upgrades, but it would have been nice to see more efforts made in advancing the software.

I'm fully into Ableton ecosystem, I own Push 3, Suite and Max 8 and so I'd like to have more informations about the roadmap.

I know that they've added RNBO support in the latest Live updates, does this mean that we will have the ability in the future to develop and test RNBO DSP directly on Push as well as the ability to later compile RNBO DSP as Max externals for Push 3?

Also I'm missing developers documentation for integrating Max devices in Push 3, with clear informations about Live's API, Instructions about accessing the pad grid, display and buttons for developing Max devices for Push 3 such as sequencers, instruments and effects with at least some ability to design a graphical interface on the screen..

I will not be returning my Push 3.

The current iteration of Live running on P3 standalone shows that even though I might not be able to do assignments on envelope follower or other M4L devices or can't do X or Y yet, the fact that I can drop a desktop project onto the P3S and it recognizes those settings and can even kick off arrangements means that it CAN do those functions. My opinion is that they just haven't gotten the code written for the UI integration. It IS possible, because it's being done on the compressor, for example. I believe that every one of the things you can do when the push is setup in controller mode to Live on the desktop will be added to the P3 standalone Live in increments and even more functionality, like additions to M4L that allow deeper integration into the Push UI, we can already see some of that with this last M4L update. And that doesn't make the P3S unusable right now. I use it daily and enjoy it. But, I didn't buy it thinking "Now I can do every single thing I can do in desktop", but I guess for people that thought that, you'd be disappointed. Personally, I think your expectations were unrealistic, but whatever, that's up to you.

Also, I have zero hardware problems at this point. Everything I need it for works. I've had it for over ten days and haven't even hooked it up to my computer yet. I'm just writing ideas and, at some point, will transfer those to my desktop, throw the PS3 in controller mode, and go to town. That workflow is just fine for me at this point. I'm going to have this thing for years, I expect the iterations to take awhile. But I am convinced that, based on what they've done with the P1 and P2, Ableton have gone all in on this and will make it better and better, and I'll be using and enjoying it the entire time.

Good luck returners!

Bugs aside, people seem to be judging it on what's perceived to be missing rather than what's there.

I wonder if it might have been a good idea for Ableton to have initially presented the standalone as running a version of Live rather than Live itself.

They could have called it "Live for Push", or something like that.

It certainly would have managed expectations.

It wouln't surprise me at all if the decision otherwise came from somebody other than the software engineers. Perhaps the devs said it's not ready if you want to say it's Live in a box and marketing said, tough shit that's what we're giong with because that'll shift the most units.

As a software developer with 30 years experience I've never met a single developer who wants to release software that's got bugs in it. Not least of all because they're so much harder to fix when something's out in the wild.

If it was rushed to market, don't be too quick to judge who made it so.

Make no mistake, once an organisation is large enough there'll be some f'ing arseholes in it. I've sat in meetings and said to people - normally money people - "do not release this app. Your customer's data is not secure" and they reply "... it's secure enough."

What you have to consider is the overall potential of a proposition and I think the proposition of P3S is a good one. I think Ableton will see good on it. That said, nobody has to stick around and find out if they don't want to. That's fair enough.

Tarekith wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2023 3:34 pm

Please keep in mind that it IS Push Standalone, not Ableton Live Standalone, so it's not surprising that the Push 3 is very similar to Push 2. Just without the cables. More features will definitely come, and I agree that the roll out definitely felt a bit rushed to me as well.

Public beta is live as of today though, so people are welcome to try that and see if it fixes any issues they currently have.

The way this is presented on the sales page doesn't imply that this is a separate product with a reduced feature set. It's quite the opposite: it tells the customers on the checkout page that they can use the included Live intro, buy the standard version or the suite version. That right there makes it look bad when it turns out it lacks most of the functionality provided by live, not to mention the hardware defects, the software bugs and incomplete implementation of the existing features.

I really liked the Push 3 standalone as a product. I don't like the bugs, the instability, the hardware defects (noise on the headphones, battery drain, uneven buttons, other hardware issues), the lack of communication, the way support is handled, Ableton's team absence from the forums, the absence of a roadmap, no acknowledgement of the bugs, not having the means to restore the Linux based OS when it stops booting and so on.

The Push 3 standalone is the most expensive buggy and poor quality product I've ever bought. It would've gone back to Ableton the following week If I didn't like it at all or didn't find it fun for making music. I wouldn't have waited for Ableton to release fixed software.

drez wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2023 4:07 pm

I will not be returning my Push 3.

The current iteration of Live running on P3 standalone shows that even though I might not be able to do assignments on envelope follower or other M4L devices or can't do X or Y yet, the fact that I can drop a desktop project onto the P3S and it recognizes those settings and can even kick off arrangements means that it CAN do those functions. My opinion is that they just haven't gotten the code written for the UI integration. It IS possible, because it's being done on the compressor, for example. I believe that every one of the things you can do when the push is setup in controller mode to Live on the desktop will be added to the P3 standalone Live in increments and even more functionality, like additions to M4L that allow deeper integration into the Push UI, we can already see some of that with this last M4L update. And that doesn't make the P3S unusable right now. I use it daily and enjoy it. But, I didn't buy it thinking "Now I can do every single thing I can do in desktop", but I guess for people that thought that, you'd be disappointed. Personally, I think your expectations were unrealistic, but whatever, that's up to you.

Also, I have zero hardware problems at this point. Everything I need it for works. I've had it for over ten days and haven't even hooked it up to my computer yet. I'm just writing ideas and, at some point, will transfer those to my desktop, throw the PS3 in controller mode, and go to town. That workflow is just fine for me at this point. I'm going to have this thing for years, I expect the iterations to take awhile. But I am convinced that, based on what they've done with the P1 and P2, Ableton have gone all in on this and will make it better and better, and I'll be using and enjoying it the entire time.

Good luck returners!

Your post gives me the impression you make a lot of assumptions about what other people may expect from such an expensive product. Let's get rid of all these assumptions, ok? I'll tell you exactly what I expected.

First of all, I expected to be given a functional product which doesn't:
- enter a crash loop when starting up the first time
- crash when loading the most basic default template set or the first start welcome guide
- load devices and sets slowly
- freeze and crash when doing some operations
- have limited midi editing capabilities and bugs with note editing
- drain the battery rapidly while the device is idle
- drain the battery while turned off
- is incompatible with most max 4 live sequencers which are part of the oficial packs (made worse by the fact that the midi editing is in this state)
- enter an update loop during software update
- have uneven buttons on the front panel
- have noise on the headphone output like a 200 euros synth
- have problems communicating with Live on the desktop
- need an Ethernet USB adapter to put the device on the same network for activation purposes

As I've quite plainly stated in my original post, I expected to not be a beta tester for their hardware and an alpha tester for their software. All of this could've been avoided if the software was labeled work in progress. I would've avoided their product in that case. I don't do beta testing for products which cost 1900 euros with software which costs 450 euros.

The hardware defects don't go away even if the software has zero bugs and has all the features every single customer wants. The only way to fix the hardware defects is to return the product to Ableton. This is exactly what I'm doing.

Nobody expected this product to have all the features of the desktop version. That's an extreme point of view. The problem is that the Push appears to be at the opposite extreme. It lacks many of the features of the desktop version of Live. It doesn't have an arranger view, clips can't be reordered, tracks can't be reordered, instrument racks can't be created, macros can't be set up, lots of content from the official packs is unusable, there's no way to copy midi notes in a clip and so on. I'm not even someone who's gone and tried every single thing they do on the desktop version of Live. I've tried to use what's already on the Push.

dcjams wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2023 5:36 pm

Bugs aside, people seem to be judging it on what's perceived to be missing rather than what's there.

I wonder if it might have been a good idea for Ableton to have initially presented the standalone as running a version of Live rather than Live itself.

They could have called it "Live for Push", or something like that.

It certainly would have managed expectations.

It wouln't surprise me at all if the decision otherwise came from somebody other than the software engineers. Perhaps the devs said it's not ready if you want to say it's Live in a box and marketing said, tough shit that's what we're giong with because that'll shift the most units.

As a software developer with 30 years experience I've never met a single developer who wants to release software that's got bugs in it. Not least of all because they're so much harder to fix when something's out in the wild.

If it was rushed to market, don't be too quick to judge who made it so.

Make no mistake, once an organisation is large enough there'll be some f'ing arseholes in it. I've sat in meetings and said to people - normally money people - "do not release this app. Your customer's data is not secure" and they reply "... it's secure enough."

What you have to consider is the overall potential of a proposition and I think the proposition of P3S is a good one. I think Ableton will see good on it. That said, nobody has to stick around and find out if they don't want to. That's fair enough.

A lot isn't there right now. The hardware has defects. The software is usable for simple projects if you save often and back up using Live for desktop.

This is a piece of hardware. It's an inanimate object sold by a company to make money. The product will be judged based on what it is and how it works. There's a mismatch between the price tag and its quality.

It doesn't really matter who's responsible for not differentiating between Live and Live on Push. I haven't blamed developers or anyone in particular. Only the fact this product we've been sold has hardware defects and unstable software matters. Corporate greed will always be corporate greed.

A notice on the product page which says that the software is work in progress would've made this a lot easier for everyone. Every single person could've decided for themselves if they want to buy it and wait for Ableton to fix the issues or not.

resequenced wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 8:37 am

I haven't blamed developers or anyone in particular.

I didn't mean to imply that you did, although my post does look that way for sure!

I think I had some other responses or threads in my head. It was meant to be addressed to anybody/everyone/anyone etc

resequenced wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 8:37 am

drez wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2023 4:07 pm

I will not be returning my Push 3.

The current iteration of Live running on P3 standalone shows that even though I might not be able to do assignments on envelope follower or other M4L devices or can't do X or Y yet, the fact that I can drop a desktop project onto the P3S and it recognizes those settings and can even kick off arrangements means that it CAN do those functions. My opinion is that they just haven't gotten the code written for the UI integration. It IS possible, because it's being done on the compressor, for example. I believe that every one of the things you can do when the push is setup in controller mode to Live on the desktop will be added to the P3 standalone Live in increments and even more functionality, like additions to M4L that allow deeper integration into the Push UI, we can already see some of that with this last M4L update. And that doesn't make the P3S unusable right now. I use it daily and enjoy it. But, I didn't buy it thinking "Now I can do every single thing I can do in desktop", but I guess for people that thought that, you'd be disappointed. Personally, I think your expectations were unrealistic, but whatever, that's up to you.

Also, I have zero hardware problems at this point. Everything I need it for works. I've had it for over ten days and haven't even hooked it up to my computer yet. I'm just writing ideas and, at some point, will transfer those to my desktop, throw the PS3 in controller mode, and go to town. That workflow is just fine for me at this point. I'm going to have this thing for years, I expect the iterations to take awhile. But I am convinced that, based on what they've done with the P1 and P2, Ableton have gone all in on this and will make it better and better, and I'll be using and enjoying it the entire time.

Good luck returners!

Your post gives me the impression you make a lot of assumptions about what other people may expect from such an expensive product. Let's get rid of all these assumptions, ok? I'll tell you exactly what I expected.

Oh I have zero assumptions on why you want to return your push. You've stated it ad nauseam in many push 3 posts already. I've read every one of your issues and the same one's in different threads multiple times. Anyone reading this forum can see that exact list. I knew all of that information. I could link all those right here, but all I had to do was go through your post history on your profile and anyone can confirm.

And for certain you, and any other person, can have whatever expectation you want from any product you want.

But my post is to let others that read this thread that not everybody cares about all those things and there are others of us that don't have any of the hardware problems stated or care about any of those current software limitations. I've been using push since I ordered push 1 the day it came out, and the push 2 the day it came out. I know what to expect from the workflow and how to leverage it. I've got 30+ song starters already done with P3S and I'll be making many more by just booting it up on my couch or at the coffee shop. All the MPE programability has been a boon to my creativity. I haven't missed any of the current things that it can't do because I've been focused on what it can do. And, for me, that easily offsets the current software shortcomings. Like I said, I still haven't hooked it up to my computer, and I'm not missing it. I've had a blast with what it can currently do.

After using the push 3 for a couple weeks, I would buy the push 3 again, with no hesitation.

Everybody's workflow is different and if it doesn't work for you, do whatever you want with it. I hope you find your unicorn! If that day ever happens, I hope its everything you could dream of

drez wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 4:34 pm

I've been focused on what it can do

Amen to that. I don't go as far back as you (I bought a Push 2) but I'm getting completely addicted to standalone boxes.

First I got a Maschine+ which also gets lots of negative comments about what it can't do, then more recently an Akai MPC X SE. The Push 3 completes the trilogy and they all have their good and bad points, but they've all been giving me so much fun.

102455 wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 7:51 pm

drez wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 4:34 pm

I've been focused on what it can do

Amen to that. I don't go as far back as you (I bought a Push 2) but I'm getting completely addicted to standalone boxes.

First I got a Maschine+ which also gets lots of negative comments about what it can't do, then more recently an Akai MPC X SE. The Push 3 completes the trilogy and they all have their good and bad points, but they've all been giving me so much fun.

This is the crux of it for me, regardless of the state it’s in now there’s not a better proposition for me.

Why?

For certain workflows and tasks, I went round and round in circles with hardware sequencers. I tried them all. I’d been a Logic user for years and hadn’t looked at Live since a very early version. I noticed there was a 90 day trial. What have I got to lose?

Nothing it turned out and everything to gain. Live totally worked for me. I added Push 2 and concluded okay I’ll stop there. This is as close as I’m going to get to what I want from a hardware sequencer. It’s a compromise because I’m tethered to a computer but Live plus Push 2 does it for me.

Then out of the blue comes Push 3 standalone. It’s a no-brainier, for me at least.

Mine’s on pre-order. If it has hardware issues I’ll send it back until it doesn’t and continue using my Push 2.

Bugs? Yeah they’ll be annoying but they’ll be fixed.

Limitations? If it can do what Push 2 does then sorry but I don’t see any limitations, only opportunities.

dcjams wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 8:16 pm

Limitations? If it can do what Push 2 does then sorry but I don’t see any limitations, only opportunities.

Well currently Push 2 connected to a laptop with the lid closed and without using VSTs and MPE can actually do more things than Push 3, all M4L devices are working, also you'll have access to cool alternative sequencers like those in the Tricky Traps pack by Sonic Faction & other cool utilities.

So I think you're missing the point here, if you're so content about the current state of the Push 3 then don't update when new features come.

But in case you do, remember that those additional features and bug fixes are also thanks to people like the OP which after spending a significant amount of money has all the rights to express his frustration about what he finds lacking in the product itself.

Audivit wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 8:45 pm

dcjams wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 24, 2023 8:16 pm

Limitations? If it can do what Push 2 does then sorry but I don’t see any limitations, only opportunities.

Well currently Push 2 connected to a laptop with the lid closed and without using VSTs and MPE can actually do more things than Push 3, all M4L devices are working, also you'll have access to cool alternative sequencers like those in the Tricky Traps pack by Sonic Faction & other cool utilities.

So I think you're missing the point here, if you're so content about the current state of the Push 3 then don't update when new features come.

But in case you do, remember that those additional features and bug fixes are also thanks to people like the OP which after spending a significant amount of money has all the rights to express his frustration about what he finds lacking in the product itself.

He can do what he likes. I’m not stopping him. I’m sharing my thoughts, as is he.

He’s not much help to Ableton if he gets rid of it. He can’t feedback on later versions if he never uses them.

Anyway, are you saying Push 3 non-standalone can do less than Push 2? Because yes that would be disappointing, but even then I’m confident it’ll catch up and I’m not getting rid of my Push 2.

So I think you're missing the point here, if you're so content about the current state of the Push 3 then don't update when new features come.

Eh … so discontent with a current feature set is the only reason to add a subsequent feature set? …. M’kay.