Unlock Push 3 - change collection names, default tracks, USB and more

[fables]

Step 3: Add public SSH key to the P3

Now here's the cool trick: open your browser and go to:
'http://push.local/ssh'

Enter the code prompted on the P3.

Copy the contents of the .ssh/id_rsa.pub file into clipboard and place it in the box on your browser.

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% cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub 

Click 'Add SSH key' and get ready to press the following key combination on your P3:
<Shift>-<Select>-<Settings> - which is the second button top left, the 'sun' icon.

Then it should say:
SSH key added successfully.

Congratulations, you can now SSH into you P3 and start changing things.

I am on MacOS. Push 3 is running in standalone mode. For whatever reason, my Push says "Failed" every time I try to add the ssh key. I have used

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cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy

to copy the public ssh key into the pastebuffer (after a copy via opening the file in textedit did not work). Obviously I have pasted the public key into the window as instructed and clicked on <Add SSH key>. I have even created a new key, to no avail. I have pressed the shift/select/settings buttons at the same time I assume that is what I need to do. Any ideas why this fails?

Thanks
- fables

[bouke]

Step 3: Add public SSH key to the P3

Now here's the cool trick: open your browser and go to:
'http://push.local/ssh'

Enter the code prompted on the P3.

Copy the contents of the .ssh/id_rsa.pub file into clipboard and place it in the box on your browser.

Code: Select all

% cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub 

Click 'Add SSH key' and get ready to press the following key combination on your P3:
<Shift>-<Select>-<Settings> - which is the second button top left, the 'sun' icon.

Then it should say:
SSH key added successfully.

Congratulations, you can now SSH into you P3 and start changing things.

I am on MacOS. Push 3 is running in standalone mode. For whatever reason, my Push says "Failed" every time I try to add the ssh key. I have used

Code: Select all

cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy

to copy the public ssh key into the pastebuffer (after a copy via opening the file in textedit did not work). Obviously I have pasted the public key into the window as instructed and clicked on <Add SSH key>. I have even created a new key, to no avail. I have pressed the shift/select/settings buttons at the same time I assume that is what I need to do. Any ideas why this fails?

Thanks
- fables

Hi @fables,

You need to do it rather quickly after you submit the page, and it's like a <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<Delete> thing, so <Shift>-<Select>-<Settings> (press and keep the first two pressed and then click the last).

[bouke]

Li(f/v)e has just become a little bit better!!! You can have default audio and MIDI tracks!

Every time you create a new audio or midi track, you'll have all your favorite effects. If that doesn't spice up your workflow?!?

How? Here is a step-by-step:

In Live, create your audio and/or midi track with all the effects, racks, or whatever you want. Then, drag the track to your 'User Library'. You'll get a file <track name>.als. Next, you can drag this file to your Push 3 (yes, unfortunately, you need to put it first in the User Library, you cannot drag and drop it on the Push 3 directly).

Now, check where you've dropped the file on your Push 3. I've put mine in a temp folder (after creating it first).

Now logon as root through ssh:

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ssh root@push.local

For Default Audio Track
Next, create a backup of the default audio track:

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# cd /opt/push3/Defaults/Creating\ Tracks/Audio\ Track
# cp Default\ Audio\ Track.als Default\ Audio\ Track.als.org

Now simply overwrite the file with the new one you just put inside the temp folder:

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# cp /data/Music/Ableton/User\ Library/temp/4-Audio.als ./Default\ Audio\ Track.als

Done, no reboot is needed, every time you create a new default audio track, you'll get an audio track with the effects.

For Default MIDI Track
This is a little bit different, and took some fiddling: the folder doesn't exist (at least on my Push 3).

Check the folder '/opt/push3/Defaults/Creating Tracks/'. If it has 'Default MIDI Track' - perfect! Else, create one (and it's CASE sensitive):

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# cd /opt/push3/Defaults/Creating\ Tracks
# mkdir Default\ MIDI\ Track
# cd Default\ MIDI\ Track
# cp /data/Music/Ableton/User\ Library/temp/1-MIDI.als ./Default\ MIDI\ Track.als

Done, also no reboot is needed, every time you create a new default midi track, you'll get an midi track with the effects.

[Just_Pierre]

Good job, Bouke! Thanks for this.

It looks like there is much more possible than we know.

[fables]

Hi @fables,

You need to do it rather quickly after you submit the page, and it's like a <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<Delete> thing, so <Shift>-<Select>-<Settings> (press and keep the first two pressed and then click the last).

Yes!!! That was it! My Push was on the other side of the room. Now that I have put it on my desktop, access is faster and it worked just fine. I would never have guessed that. Thanks so much.

Let the explorations commence!

[fables]

So, thanks again for opening the door into the Push.

I want to add some things to the knowledge-base here. First, it is really easy to mess up Push when transferring files from Live. Rule of thumb: if you want to copy anything onto Push, create it in in a folder in Live first and copy the whole folder by dropping it on the Push label. Consider the contents of the Push label only to move stuff around or to rename it.

There might be cases where you can copy files directly but for sure, copying projects is not one of those cases. Now, if you, like me, ended up dropping a project file (or maybe it was just the set?) directly below the Push label, you will end up in a set file inside Push with no Project structure (parent folder does not exist). This in turn will lead to a lot of mayhem. Basically, you will not be able to save your project (technically, the save button is doing nothing if the no project folder exists. In other words, you can easily lose your recordings this way. Unless you ssh into Push.

Push stores projects in a temporary folder located below ./Music/Ableton/Live Recordings (I think the root folder here was "data" but you'll figure it out).
Push stores its saved projects below ./Music/Ableton/Sets/

As usual this is confusing because really, it stores projects under "sets". I wish they would clean up that mess.

Now if you – like me - made a mistake copying e.g. a "template" from Live to push, ending up in a set without a project (see above), you can ssh into Push and simply copy the files from the temporary location to the sets location.

One way to do so is to create a new empty project first on Push, so you have the folder structure (record an empty audio file if you want such that the Samples folder is created). Or simply create the structure from the command line. Maybe you can also simply copy the complete temporary folder into the Sets folder, I haven't tried that.

Then copy the content of the samples folder into the corresponding folder of your target project under sets.

I cd'd into the temporary folder first then executed

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cp -R ../Live\ Recordings/2023-10-23\ 153719\ Temp\ Project/Samples/ ./

You will have to adapt the path, obviously.
Now your audio recordings are in a proper place and you can transfer them back to Live!

[fables]

Second bit, much shorter and sweeter:

To set a default template, first create it in Live as hinted at above, then copy your templates folder onto the Push label (not anywhere else!).

That will copy your templates to

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~/Music/Ableton/User Library/Templates

Next simply vi into Library.cfg like so (adapt as needed)

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vi ~/.config/Ableton/Live\ 11.3.12/Library.cfg 

There you need to simply set your default template by setting a value like so:

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                <DefaultTemplateSet Value="/data/Music/Ableton/User Library/Templates/Midronome Sync.als" />

If your template contains any references to samples, be sure they are in your "User Library/Samples" folder on Live and drop that folder onto the Push label to transfer the folder to Push.

Now the references should be intact, the files in the right location (no dreaded "Sample offline" message), and your default template being applied every time you create a new Set (i.e. project).

HTH
- Fables

[bouke]

Awesome idea, perhaps that also works with default audio and MIDI tracks! Thanks, changed it in the original post.

I like this, we've got a tweaking community on the way!!! If anyone asks my opinion about the Push3, I love it! And so far no one replied this: "I think it's one of the most tweakable devices atm!"

[bouke]

I wasn't kidding when I said in another forum post to use the P3 as a standalone DJ Unit to play MP3. However, most of the time you would just want to plug in a USB drive and use that. You actually can!

This hack works in two stages: one to mount the USB when plugging it in, and another to trick the background indexer into adding the contents of the disk into the database. For this hack, you'll need to log in as root.

Phase one:
By default, the automount tool inside the Push mounts and USB key to /run/media on the wrong user- and group id. But that doesn't do us any good. We need it somewhere in our user library.

So let's set it up in /etc/fstab.

Add a new line in

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/etc/fstab

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LABEL=MP3S	/data/Music/Ableton/User\040Library/Music		vfat	nofail,uid=ableton,gid=users	0  0

This needs some explaining
LABEL=MP3S - I've got a USB drive and formatted it, I also labeled it 'MP3S'.
Alternatively, you can do '/dev/sda1', but that restricts some options if you want to add multiple USB drives.
/data/Music/Ableton/User\040Library/Music - The location where the drive is mounted to. Create that folder (with 'mkdir') first and change it to your liking. Replace spaces in the path with \040
vfat - depends on what filesystem you put on the drive. I formatted it in Windows, but other OS might format it in a different filesystem.
nofail,uid=ableton,gid=users nofail: if the drive isn't there during boot, it will not hang during mounting at the start of the P3 (don't try to leave this out, booting will take a long time - you've been warned!!!). uid needs to be ableton, and gid needs to be users, else the Ableton process running on the push isn't able to read from it.

Now plug in the USB key and check if it gets mounted in your desired location.

If it does, move the the next step. If it doesn't, execute the command 'mount -a' or check 'mount -l' and check for any error messages. Also, check if the drive isn't still being mounted to /run/media. By default, it should only have two entries:

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root@push:~# ls -l /run/media/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   40 Oct 25 12:14 nvme0n1p2
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 4096 Sep 28 07:10 nvme0n1p4

Phase two
We need to 'trick' the Ableton indexer when the filesystem has changed. Now, I've been searching for it for some time (so perhaps Ableton or someone else can tell me how to do it correctly). But the only way I've been able to 'trigger' it, was to create a new file in the User Library and 'touch' the folder holding the mount.

The downside is you need to do this every time you plug in or remove the USB drive. But I've found a way! Every time you plug in or remove a drive, it triggers the 'mount.sh' script:

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/etc/udev/scripts/mount.sh

Simply add the following lines in

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/etc/udev/scripts/mount.sh

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touch /data/Music/Ableton/User\ Library/temp.mp3
touch /data/Music/Ableton/User\ Library/Music
rm /data/Music/Ableton/User\ Library/temp.mp3

Now every time you plug in the drive, it will ensure the indexing service triggers and updates the database with all the files on your USB key. Also removing the drive will trigger the update. I'm getting a good mount tonight for my camera, so I hope I can make some video clips showing this in action.

By the way, this method isn't limited. You can use the drive like any other folder in the P3. So from within Ableton you can transfer to and from this drive, make backups, etc.

[xrcst]

Thank you for this!

When replacing the SSD I took a peek at the partitions on the original disk but with my limited Linux skill I couldn't reverse engineer s***t.

However I've found a way into Push via SSH, the only thing needed changing was
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
PasswordAuthentication yes

then login pass is root/root (or ableton/ableton - but this user is limited)
The only problem is every update (beta or ofic) will replace the sshd_config
SO the ssh_key is way way more elegant !

[xrcst]

So I spent some time on the new playground

I've managed to copy over the custom midi remote script (Faderfox_Universal) for my Faderfox EC4.
looks like the location is
/opt/push3/products/live/Live/AppLive/Python/remote-scripts/

That's fine, but it's not working out of the box.
In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32SryF_4iDw
it looks like APC40 is working right away, so there's probably some autoloading for the included midi remote scripts somewhere.

@bouke any ideas where to dig ?

[fables]

I like this, we've got a tweaking community on the way!!! If anyone asks my opinion about the Push3, I love it! And so far no one replied this: "I think it's one of the most tweakable devices atm!"

Agreed. Glad we got this going, there is lots of situations where this will come in handy. I just compared the ~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 11.3.12/ folder with the equivalent on Push, they seem the same, I also compared the Library.cfg files on Live & Push, some keys. In other words, (no revelation) this is probably a pretty standard Live version running on Push (being compiled for Linux). Hence everything that works with regards to how Live is set up on the Mac should more or less also work on Push.

[fables]

@bouke - that USB mounting hack is superb work! I really like how you solved the triggering the indexer issue. viewtopic.php?p=1817421#p1817394

[bouke]

Lots of time with trial and error.

The mounting was quite easy, since thats normal Linux.

At some point I noticed when I copied a file from the mounted USB and everything started to appear. Then moved to just creating a file with touch was enough. Also noticed this mount script in the /var/log/messages, then it was an easy fix.

Very nice you like it!

[bouke]

So I spent some time on the new playground

I've managed to copy over the custom midi remote script (Faderfox_Universal) for my Faderfox EC4.
looks like the location is
/opt/push3/products/live/Live/AppLive/Python/remote-scripts/

That's fine, but it's not working out of the box.
In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32SryF_4iDw
it looks like APC40 is working right away, so there's probably some autoloading for the included midi remote scripts somewhere.

@bouke any ideas where to dig ?

You could try to put the midi remote scripts to the following folder:

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/data/.config/Ableton/Live <current version>/User Remote Scripts

I don't have such device at hand, so I couldn't check for you, sorry.