Ableton Push 3
ableton.com
ableton.com
Doesn't really seem to be much talk about the actual product, I must say I haven't owned either, but it looks super cool! The video was very well done showcasing the product and in/out with the guitar. I am still not a 100% sure who the target market is, hobby musicians? Professional DJs?
I also wonder how easy it is to repeat an action, on a guitar a C major sounds like a C major on that same guitar. But you can't really remember did I move my finger 4 blocks and 3/4th of the other block of 5 blocks and a half?
On the other hand, the Linnstrument is fantastic for bringing out creative ideas, and it plays well with the many MPE instruments available for iPads. Add in an iConnectivity interface that can simultaneously hook up with a laptop to record everything including the resulting audio and that’s a powerful machine.
My only regret in modern music creation is now that I can afford all the fun toys and now that we have nearly limitless potential to create any sound we could never imagine, I don’t have nearly as much time as when I was a kid with an Alesis Ion and a pirated copy of Reason, so I end up creating a quarter of the music with 20x more gear :/
As a software developer that works remotely, I have extremely limited desire to sit in front of my computer when work is over, and thus I end up using my music gear (which is unfortunately all crammed in my home office) much less than I'd like to. The appeal of a product like this is that I can take it into a different room and scratch the music production itch when I have it without feeling like I'm sitting at my work office all day.
Same here, I like to think of it as my studio, a place where I do creative things. Same crammed room but it sounds a lot more romantic.
Push 3 looks awesome and I’m glad to see them jumping onto the standalone game like NI have with Maschine along with many others. The Polyend Play and Tracker are lots of fun too.
This Push looks even more fun with controls beyond pads. And this is a page out of Framework — atypical in DAWs and music gear:
> You can add the standalone components later using the Upgrade Kit, and replace your processor, battery or hard drive to keep up with advances in technology.
For some reason, it just seems that I am forcing myself to make music. If I take a mini MIDI keyboard and make music somewhere else, it's much easier to do.
From my perspective I see this as a mixed bag. I don’t think i would want to use the push as a lap device while sitting on the couch. This looks to be about the same dimensions as the push 2. It’s a squareish device that is about 14” or ~35cm wide and tall and about an inch and a half thick. I have and have had several other stand alone devices and they have to be much smaller than the push to tempt me away from my music pc desk.
That said maybe as a desktop device for traveling etc I could see it.
The other thing is that stand alone mode doesn’t allow both “views” in Ableton. One is the linear arrangement view (unavailable in standalone mode) and one is the session view that is more for clip launching and attaching musical phrases to a button on the push grid. This is the view that standalone mode allows. Here is the link to the manual for that https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/session-view/
In my opinion this mode is great for remixing and spinning up new ideas but I typically use live as I would a hardware sampler back in the day. Layer up ideas in arrangement view record everything and then go back and chop. To me, that is what I would rather do on a couch than remix clips.
The hardware running live is adequate but I see why they may have limited the standalone functionality. I run live on an iMac Pro with 32gb ram and the 8core Xeon standard cpu. Live 11 can really tax this machine especially with plugins in the mix. This is the other limitation that I understand but don’t really like. No external plugins. I’m not sure if max will be available but suspect that the built in efx and max live edition will be there(I haven’t watched all the videos yet)
@dubcanada - the push is super cool and can be assigned scales/modes so that the buttons play scales up and down the octave range. Or if it’s controlling a drum machine you get the familiar 16 pad interface x4 You can use it for step sequencing, playing chords with polyphonic expression (also in the push 2 but 3 looks to be improved) or just sit there and launch clips with 1 finger.
As I read what I have written I think I’m going to stick with my push 2 but if you use live and want a push the 3 is the one I would buy today, but probably the upgradable one that acts like push 2. Then I would see if I could upgrade it myself and not with the ableton kit. They hint that it will be.
The standalone Push 3 seems a great step forward. macOS has increasingly become user-hostile when it comes to audio (and other pro) users.
For instance I have an expensive sound card that became useless with after a minor OS upgrade. I never got to troubleshoot it or find an official solution.
That was incredibly discouraging - enough to move on to other hobbies. And I'm a programmer - don't want to imagine the pains that musicians have to go through.
I've been teaching myself keys the last few years and had been planning to one day get myself a big $6k stage keyboard, when I felt that I had sufficiently developed to warrant it.
I have since tried out Zynthian, and my conclusion was that with a pianoteq license and a good controller, I can have way more functionality and sounds and every thing for a small fraction of the price of that Nord.
Your comment is fascinating, because domination of music is one of the pillars of Mac's success. If they're not just neglecting that, but actively screwing with people... They've lost the plot. Like so many giant piles of capital masquerading as a company.
OSX occasionally warns me about third party kernel extensions, and that's not an encouraging direction of travel.
I bought my audio interface precisely because RME have a reputation for writing reliable and performant drivers.
They’ve lost many plots.
Musicians, developers, and even photographers.
Apple’s playbook seems to have changed to:
- Hook a demographic with functionality that’s anywhere from just good enough to excellent
- Railroad them in to using as many first-part services as possible (especially if that means getting them to buy more Apple devices)
- Slowly lock them down so it’s harder and harder to move to competitors (aka boil the frog)
- Move staff from those first party products as the users are trapped and it’s no longer necessary for the quality to be excellent
Apple isn't a software company, it's a phone company. Everything that isn't an iPhone represents a minuscule contribution to their bottom line. Apple doesn't give a shit about pro users, even if it's profitable, because they're too big to care.
I have a cheap MIDI keyboard but the keyfeel is all wrong compared to the upright pianos I used to play as a kid. I'd like to get back into piano, and I know I struggled with phrasing/dynamics, and I worry that unweighted keys will teach me bad habits even though they're technically velocity sensitive...
I thought that was super cool when I realized that.
I definitely recommend it, but I'd suggest trying it out in-person if possible. The key weights seem very heavy to me.. but it's entirely possible that this is how higher-end pianos feel and I lack the experience/familiarity.
I do also own a Roland VR-09, which by the way is incredibly hackable courtest of Ctrlr and a couple of custom panels. What is pretty cool about the Roland is, in organ mode the keys respond to hair trigger touch like a real B3, so you can do those really fast funky effects. I will probably always return to it for organ, at least until I can afford a real Hammond.
The arguments people are making about having a piece of hardware that you just turn on is certainly valid, but they are also comparing to a stock laptop running a general purpose OS, and also, clearly can afford to spend the money. For those of us who are so well off, Zynthian is a project that greatly streamlines things, and encompasses basically everything out there in the Linux audio ecosystem, including Pianoteq, on a Raspberry Pi. They're also just about to release a new version. I've been messing around with them for about a year now and they're the real deal.
Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 [2]
Both with hammer action Fatar keybeds.
[1] https://www.arturia.com/products/hybrid-synths/keylab-88-mki...
[2] https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyb...
It's an old Software that runs on... Windows 10...
Anyway, I'd recommend it for anyone that's at that point of taking their practice seriously, but might not have the space/neighbors for an acoustic piano.
> I really would love a new grand piano sample
If you haven't already seen the Nord Piano Library, it's amazing:
https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libraries/nord-piano-lib...
Anyways, everyone seems to have misread my pianoteq comment as me intending to use a laptop; not the case.
Zynthian is a raspberry Pi project that collects up basically everything Linux has available for music and puts it in a small box suitable for pedalboard, rack, on top of your Nord, etc. It works beautifully and with a hifiberry sound card is the equal of anything, sonically.
It also implements pianoteq as an engine, so with a pianoteq license, it really does do everything the Stage does, minus the keyboard natch, and quite a lot more besides (DSP with stereo in out, mod devices, puredata). So you could have a bunch more piano sounds in a small device that is also a full box of toys for not too much.
They are also weeks/days away from releasing a new hardware version that looks really great, the bdfl has been posting stuff in the discourse.
Things are progressing in Linux, folks. Good times.
Yes, but also buy yourself a big old 90s ROMpler workstation for a couple of hundred quid, and keep it around for when you need something, I don't know, just *different*. Or if you need to do an impromptu gig and don't want to cart your super-expensive controller and super-delicate laptop to a pub.
Think of it as the musical equivalent of your gardening boots.
If you understand Midi or are willing to learn about storing snapshots and setting channels, you can set it up to be just as convenient (more convenient actually). It rewards the curious more than others, as in all nice things.
My plan - I genuinely did budget myself $6k, I have several times that much in guitar gear so I do take this seriously - is to build several dedicated ones, both for redundancy and to make sure they are extremely robust. Since I can code I'm even thinking orchestration of redundant raid-like units via a digital mixer. This will all cost a small fraction of a Nord Stage 3 and if anyone steals it, I mean, good luck to em lol
I still have the laptop and Pianoteq and use them with the Nord as a controller sometimes, when I want to work with digital music. But most of the time, the laptop stays shut, and I've found I am able to more deeply engage with the music that way.
Apple is clearly committed to their Pro users, but I can see why them dropping driver support for older hardware is frustrating. It's not that they are dropping driver support, it's just that the hardware manufacturers aren't updating drivers to support ARM Macs and not load as a low level kernel driver (insecure). I think your anger is a bit misplaced - maybe you should direct it towards the sound card manufacturer that refuses to update drivers for years?
If Apple is only concerned with Professionals, they should stop marketing to the peons.
Anyone doing it professionally will check all of their plugins/hardware has support for the latest macOS version before updating.
I’m a professional programmer it’s not like I test if my mouse or keyboard will work with a new windows update.
Professionals tend to keep a stable system running for as long as possible. The first studio I worked in had a B room that was running OS 9 at a point where OS X had been out for 7 years.
My current setup at home is a 2010 MacMini on v10.13, using a firewire interface. I plan to keep it running as long as possible.
I recently tried to reinstall an old MacBook 13" that had a hard drive replacement. I couldn't log in to perform the install, Apple servers were throwing me an error. The only choice I had is to put another OS on it.
We're talking about guys who will use a trackball simply because it makes sure their cursor will be where they left it. Their demands for stability are beyond even what I have seen doing sysadmin at a hospital.
Core audio is the API. You still need a driver for the audio interface. If it’s USB class compliant, then you get a driver for free. Not all devices are class compliant (for good reasons). You would be limited to the feature set provided by the USB audio class spec.
I also think some of the comments in this thread about audio people never upgrading are a little dated. Maybe 10 years ago it was more common for someone to sit on an ancient version of Protools if they were a full time studio, but most of the market is hobbyists and semi professionals who have a single personal MacBook or PC that they use for everything, not just recording. Airgapping something like that isn’t really an option.
Audio people “never” upgrading is a bit extreme. But it is still extremely common to delay updates until you know that your gear works with the new OS. We’re not necessarily talking about some ancient version of Pro Tools here, but maybe a couple plugins you use that are getting long in the tooth. Maybe you would like to upgrade them, but you’d need to pay.
Like?
Apparently it's not a completely unheard of problem no pun intended. I've had to go back to my windows machine (bitwig and FL) + MOTU, and pretty much abandoned Mac music with logic pro completely. Really ticks me off.
The Push 3 has more sophisticated pads with MPE and I'm very skeptical Ableton could pull that off with good QA.
The other thing that I find ridiculous is they sell you a barebones computer for $1,000 with an i3, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. A computer which you cannot use for anything else and you're dependent on Ableton to fix/replace.
For that kind of money you could buy an M2 iPad Pro with more performance and a lot more battery time than 2.5 hours. An iPad can be bought and repaired on any country. If you're touring you can travel with a backup iPad or even buy one pretty much in any big city on Earth.
After all, they are probably running some Linux distro in the Push 3 so they had to invest in that anyway.
It's a lot of work though. And the pay sucks, especially on iPad/iOS where Apple refuses to let you make a profit without letting them take a bite. On MacOS it's a sustainable practice, but unless Apple changes something architecturally I wouldn't anticipate Live coming to iOS anytime soon. At least any sooner than Linux support, which is apparently(?) finished internally.
By the grace of the flying spaghetti monster, please let this be true... Ableton is the last program stopping me from leaving Windows behind.
And it wouldn't have pads, dedicated dials, MIDI, inputs and outputs, MPE, and everything else. It would be just a big screen with a iPad-like touch UI. So nothing like this.
For musicians (professional or semi-pro) that use Logic on a laptop the feature parity is nowhere there. They depend on tens of AUs ("VSTs") that aren't available on the iPad for example, on top of lots of other stuff.
Biggest issue on iPad is lack of device drivers. Class Compliant audio only gets you so far.
Of course ableton comes with a pretty good array of instruments and effects, so maybe this isn’t that big a deal.
But the context in this subthread was addressing the parent's claim that Logic on iPadOS has complete parity with Logic macOS and can replace it in its use - not Push.
This has a strong https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 vibe to it.
The computing-part hardware specs don't matter at all, the same way you don't compare the cpu specs of a phone or a synth to a laptop or tablet. This is about the interface, pads, firmware, comprehensiveness and convenience as a Live controller and as a standalone performance sequencer/drum machine/instrument.
It's sort of ironic now, though, because Dropbox has not been doing very well the last few years, because their product wasn't novel enough to compete with the better-integrated solutions from Microsoft, Apple, and Google that Dropbox inspired
Yes, but not for the reasons that famous comment thought it wouldn't (people ...trivially rolling their own with Linux+FTP+SVN or whatever). If anything, for the opposite reasons: because even more turnkey/integrated solutions than Dropbox became available as you say. Which makes that comment appear even more off now!
(Of course the point of that comment was already obliterated when Dropbox turned on to become a multi-billion worth company, even if it's "not doing very well" 15+ years after the comment was made. We could only wish we have that kind of "failure"!).
1) Its feature-set is easily duplicated (from a technical perspective)
2) It doesn't solve one particular use-case (that it wasn't designed to solve)
3) It's hard to imagine it catching on, let alone making money
Point #1 was widely mocked after Dropbox caught on, but turned out to be kind of correct - it just wasn't end-users that mimicked its feature-set, it was other companies.
Point #2 is irrelevant.
Point #3 was hilariously wrong. It went viral as hell, and the founders could've rode off into the sunset with a boatload of cash if they sold the company to Apple when they were approached. In the alternate universe where that happened, Apple devices just have a Dropbox feature instead of iCloud, a la Siri and Shazam.
Whether it could be duplicated by other companies (with billions in the bank and thousands of engineers and OS/device access for integration) is irrelevant to the original comment's point.
It's become something of a symbol for how hackernews commenters sometimes confidently miss the appeal of products/services. It's relevant here because the Push 3 doesn't compete with iPads on processing power.
Edit: it looks like a few other folks responded with a similar comment as I did. Sorry to spam you.
> No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
(iPod launch, CmdrTaco, /. 2001)
(Though I'd prefer Galileo in the top spot instead of Columbus; if anything Columbus could replace Bozo: the people that laughed at him were actually completely right, not failing to recognize his genius.)
Except when you're trying to run dozens of VST plugins which are extremely CPU hungry.
What does that even mean?
How many Diva instances can it run?
Edit:
And BTW, AKAI MPC users hit CPU limits all the time. And that's not even using heavy VSTs like Diva but the ARM optimized plugins included.
It means that it has enough specs to run the plugins and use cases Ableton designed it for, and tested it with.
It's not a complete studio or meant to replace a desktop studio computer for all uses. It's a dedicated standalone thing, and has its own capabilities and limitations. So, like any other "groovebox" style device.
The other annoying thing is that it doesn’t even include a Live standard license at this price, only Live Intro. That’s just being cheap on Ableton’s part.
The big benefit I see of this over something like a Linnstrument + iPad + iConnectivity AUDIO4c is portability and Live compatibility, but I’d personally wait and see how stable the software is before pulling the trigger. Relying on a brand new software stack on x86 to do the exact right things in perfect time for live music is a bet I wouldn’t take. I hope it’s amazing, and I’m sure lots of folks worked very hard on this, but the proof will be in the pudding. There’s a reason that you don’t see Pioneer and Denon decks / mixers or really any other live audio gear rocking x86.
If I can trivially make a better version of the thing you are selling at 1/3rd the price, then something isn't right.
From the marketing piece:
> Intel 11th Gen Core™ i3-1115G4 processor with 8GB of RAM Built-in lithium battery with up to 2.5 hours play time Built-in 256GB SSD hard drive Replace processor, battery and hard drive as technology improves
Swap real pads and knobs for a touch screen? No thanks, even if they would give it to me for free. Not judging Ableton stuff prices, and I'm also not into this kind of devices (aside my Korg Padkontrol) because as a prog rock wannabe musician I would probably have little use for them, but when using electronic instruments, nothing comes close to real things you can manipulate, read state, and get tactile feedback from. Touch screens can look indeed cool, but they're way behind real controls when it comes to input capabilities.
If I did tour, yes, I would want backup equipment where feasible.
The most fundamental appeal of the Push is that it is a very nicely-integrated hardware controller, and -- this is the big thing -- has physical knobs, buttons, pads, etc, a massive selling point to loads and loads and loads of musicians.
An iPad by definition lacks the latter, and will never approach the integration of the Push no matter how much work you put into whichever controller app you're using (TouchOSC, etc). And that's even before you consider the fact that the Push also doubles as an audio interface.
Literally no one in the Push's audience is looking to replace/upgrade the Push's hardware. No one cares what CPU it has. I'm honestly surprised that Ableton published the specs, because it just doesn't matter. It's not a "computer" (even though, yes, technically it is indeed a computer). Depending on which model you buy, its raison d'etre is as an accessory to a computer, more specifically a very specific application; or an appliance designed to run one app and one app only. You might as well be saying that you'd rather buy an iPad over a Tesla because the iPad has a better CPU.
> No one cares what CPU it has
Good luck running a dozen instances of Diva if you don't care about the CPU :)
> Good luck running a dozen instances of Diva if you don't care about the CPU
Good luck running...most plugins, u-he or otherwise, on an iPad.
That said, the question of which plugins will/won't work running directly on the Push is an interesting question. It runs Linux, no? u-he is one of the few "big" plugin devs that supports Linux, but if I had to guess, the standalone Push 3 will run first-party Ableton plugins only.
Yeah that's a good point. OTOH all the U-He stuff is already ARM native for macOS.
But my point about the iPad was more about comparing the cost. If Ableton had chosen to sell the computer part at a more reasonable price (say $300) I would't have even mentioned it.
Right, the problem is not a technical one, it's an app ecosystem one. Urs has spoken about this at length on KVR. This IMO is a great reason for Ableton to have not gone the iPad route, because it's a problem that doesn't look like it'll be solved anytime soon.
But also this likely won't support Diva, probably just Operator, Analog, etc.
> Literally no one in the Push's audience is looking to replace/upgrade the Push's hardware.
Ableton:
> Replace processor, battery and hard drive as technology improves
And why do people want to throw around the Dunning-Kruger effect in so many discussions. Does it help your point ?
But that initial barrier is such that a beginner will be able to get much more mileage out of such a device. They might never even run into the limitations though it may limit the musical space that they can work in on some dimensions.
In the end what matters is the result, not so much how it was reached.
I grew up playing classical guitar and use to own a Ztar and this was the issue I had with it. My guitar chops transferred to it pretty nicely but it is still its own instrument. Own instrument with no music or practice material, no transcriptions of anything other than what you come up with yourself.
How far would anyone get learning piano if they had to also come up with the music and practice material outside of drilling scales concurrently with learning the instrument itself? It would just be a nearly useless gimmicky instrument.
As with anything, it does just take practice, and these instruments are so much easier to play than something like a guitar that just noodling around will also get you places.
I have folders full of sketches I've built up in years of using it but very few things I'd call finished.
From there, I see it the way a sculptor might see a slab of rock, and start “carving out” the song.
The OP-1 is where I've found this to be especially the case, incredibly easy to make a loop on but never managed to make a full song on it, aside from using mutes/effects on a single loop to stretch it out into a full track
But most importantly, I agree with your very last sentence, we're all different and what's optimal differs a lot from person to person.
I prefer to be DAWless when I am in "discovery mode" or just want to jam around like with a regular instrument. However when I am ready to assembly everything into a song I prefer to use a DAW.
Sunvox is pretty great for quickly roughing out an idea. I use my MIDI keyboard for building patterns. I'll record the notes for a pattern and then play it back in a loop to adjust the rest of the parameters. I use the other mapped controls live until I have what I want. I prefer having tons of physical controls ready to go for this part. I have a few project files I always start from and their corresponding templates are saved into the keyboard. Then I go into audacity and record my guitar, voice, or whatever else to a click and import them into the timeline. I think it's more important to have your workflow down than be distracted by new shiny toys.
But one of the main things that saves time is how loud or soft each note is. Doing this in a DAW is far more tedious, neglected completely for just repetitive electronic music, or requires scripting to provide random-ish entropy to each note. Whereas with a Push its based on how hard you press.
To add some objectivity to this, I would say its more about the learning curve, I couldn't expect someone to pick up a Push and get anywhere fast with it.
But I think people familiar with a keyboard and mouse would benefit from a Push and accelerate their work.
I can understand the value of it if you're performing live, however the hard reality is that it's a really inefficient way to create electronic music. The mouse and keyboard are simply a lot faster to use.
With that said, maybe that's for you. But if you're trying to make advanced productions as quickly as possible, then I really see no value in the Push. You could of course use it as a MIDI controller, but it's a damn expensive one if your sole purpose is to use it as a MIDI controller.
It's really up to personal preference and what you are most trained with. I'm sure I could make a full song faster than at least 50% of Ableton users on a Analog Rytm and/or the Octatrack, as I could probably do that workflow in my sleep. But I'm also use that 99% of Ableton users could use Ableton faster than me to create full songs, simply because I'm much more used to using hardware than software.
Just like some people are better with console controllers than keyboard/mouse, even when playing FPS games, it's just a matter of practice (although FPS example has a skill-ceiling I don't think exists in music creation, so slightly shitty example)
In terms of speed, I'm also not sure how quickly you can create articulations like vibrato and slides with a mouse and keyboard, but that seems like it would be fairly tedious to do manually? Wouldn't that require a lot of envelope tweaking?
Speaking personally, playing on a pad controller uses a different part of my brain and body than using a keyboard and a mouse. When I create stuff with a keyboard and mouse, I am in "design mode", where I am thinking in a deliberate way, similar to programming. When I create stuff on a pad controller, I am in "express mode", where I am not really thinking at all.
This is exactly my experience. I started with mouse/keyboard only fiddling with electronic music (no music background whatsoever) and the day I bought a basic MIDI controller I ended up playing it until it was time to go to work the next morning.. It was such an overwhelming experience, not just the keys themselves but also the buttons and the trackpad. Finally I could just do all these tiny variations which make groove on the spot, immediately, in infinite variations, instead of going back and forth dragging things with a mouse in only one dimension.
This is the most important thing you said IMO. Maybe keyboard shortcuts and ninja mouse skills can get you into a flow state, "improvisation" mode, but chances are your composer brain will be in the lead.
For me at least, music originates from my imagination. It starts in my head, not from playing an instrument, so to speak. I say this as a composer, not as a musician.
Sure, if you really mastered an instrument i.e. Push 3, then you could use it as a form of expression. But when you're composing, often you're trying to tame many different instruments and ideas at once, so I find it much easier to do it all in my head first, and then think of the quickest way to translate it all into the computer, and for me that's the mouse and keyboard.
I'm also primarily a song writer/producer, so for me I think in terms of composition after the fact i.e. once the lyrics have been written. But yeah, I certainly do appreciate those who can utilise platforms like the Push 3. However I would still argue that even if it is what works for you, it's still ultimately slower. Again, nothing wrong with that if it works for you.
Completely agree. I currently run 5 MIDI controllers with Ableton: 3 Launchpads (one for launching clips, and the other two for controlling step sequencers), a Launch Control for knobs, and a basic 61-key MIDI keyboard.
I used to do it all with a mouse, but when I added that first Launchpad for punching in sequences by hand, I felt so much more creative.
Clearly, I still use the mouse for lots of things. And, doing everything by way of a controller (like the Push) is not really desirable to me. But creating patterns, playing chords/melodies on the keys, and tweaking synth params with hardware pots by hand just feels better. Like you, I don't have to think about what I'm doing. I just do it. Clicking in notes on piano roll really can't compete. imo.
Obviously, a lot (if not all) of the Push UX is only possible and satisfying because of how closely it integrates with Live.
I didn’t think a Push 3 would come so soon, because I couldn’t see how the hardware or design could be improved. I was wrong. It seems the design has been slightly improved. But I never thought Ableton would release a stand-alone version of the Push. It’s a hefty price tag, it doesn’t support third party plugins, and its portability is limited. But I can’t shake off the idea that Ableton just released the ultimate musical device for someone like me.
Controls are mostly self-explanatory. It has a fantastic tutorial when you first use it; overall a really polished experience. The MPI on the pads is very impressive, although I didn’t spend enough time to see how useful I personally will find it. The build quality is awesome though. That large wheel on the top right has the slickest horizontal shift movement I’ve ever experienced on a knob.
It’s just slick. And yes, I just ordered one :D.
My Push 2 also has one rotary knob that doesn’t rotate as well and it always annoyed the hell out of me. The plastics did age well on my Push 2 though.
https://dcpianos.com/products/kawai-ca48-the-ultimate-piano-...
You can add beats, different sound libraries, and maybe you can add a microphone looper for ~300 dollars extra.
However, it is disingenuous to compare a groovebox to a digital piano. It's also bold to assume that someone wants or needs 88 keys or even wants piano-like action. It's something different. That's valid. If it isn't for you or me, that's also valid.
It also comes with an MPE controller and those are not cheap.
The price is a lot higher than I was expecting. I'd definitely love to not be tied to the computer, but in reality I'm in most instances going to be next to a laptop. Hard to say if it's worth it.
Edit: I do love that if you buy the cheaper model, you can still upgrade it to add a hard drive and processor later. That's a great feature.
The Linnstrument looks better and has more buttons, and more is better, right?
It would also be excellent if the Linnstrument supported VSTs at all.
They seem to be identical in this respect.
yes. always.
Everything has (or will eventually have) MPE so everyone is "just building Linnstruments", just like everyone has been "just building MPCs".
The touch interface of the Linnstrument has limitations that the Push probably doesn't. For example, the Linnstrument can register no more than three simultaneous touches in a single column.
Have a look at pushbase and Push2 to look at Push source code.
A starter kit I use when bootstrapping projects: https://github.com/R9295/ableton-live-control-surface-starte...
To the best of my knowledge, this is as far as it goes. The blogs and articles I found are mostly out of date as Ableton has two versions of it's API and blogs mostly use v1. I wouldn't work on anything serious using v1 of the API
Many controllers, including Push use v2 as it's allegedly simpler and more featured. I talked to a person working at Native Instruments and they also told me that their experience with the API was a nightmare.
Does that seem correct to you? And if so, with some amount of reverse engineering work, shouldn't it be possible to send those same pixels over to an iPad app that pretends to be a Push?
(It wouldn't be the same without real pads/touch controls, of course, but it might form the spine of a pretty good remote control app?)
(using https://openchessboard.com/ )
1. Users have been asking for Push 3 for years
2. MPE support looks great
3. Now it's here - and standalone
4. It's modular - you can start out with the non-standalone version and upgrade later
It seems like the Push standalone was designed for performers in mind? Would be pretty sweet to not have to bring a laptop up on stage with you, I’d imagine, especially if your setup is modular and otherwise DAW-less.
Sketch out things when you're out and about, some simple recordings etc., then bring it back to the studio and just plug it in and have everything there. It's a good plan, and it looks like a great execution, too.
"Send your Live sets to Push to work without a computer, then back again."
That's a killer feature for me. I bought an Akai Force about a year ago so that I could play my solo electronic stuff at open mics without needing to bring a laptop and audio interface as well as my Push 1. But after spending a good amount of time with it, the Force just doesn't feel as well thought out for live gigs as the Push. A lot of functions I want to perform live require 2 hands on the force (so I can't play notes with my right hand and manage the controller with my left), or require doing a long-press which effectively means a big latency on enabling the function. I need to watch some demo videos to make sure they haven't ditched any of the focus on live performance without pauses, but this looks like what I hoped the Force would be.
Looks like they've already updated the online manual to include Push 3, will have to dig through that later, but some initial thoughts from the photos: I like some of the new button placement, undo is far away from anything, Double is no longer right next to Quantize. Solo and Mute being smaller might be an issue, it might not be. I wonder what the lock and square buttons do. New "Convert" button makes me think they've added a dedicated button for audio->MIDI conversion which seems great. Looks like there's a new metronome button? I like it, but I might just continue using a hidden track with a custom metronome loop.
MPE and CV-capable output are also nice bonuses.
The specs are a bit weak, but more than capable for a live set with several synthesizers and samplers. I bet you can swap out the SSD for a bigger one, I wonder if you could swap out the RAM or CPU as well, since you can purchase the non-standalone device and buy their upgrade kit to manually install the PC components.
Maschine+ by Native Instruments (basically the same device but by another company) runs Linux although Maschine desktop software does not support Linux, so maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up.
Now that I'm back to the audio software business, our current product has shipped on Linux so far, but we're dropping support in the next version because of the disproportionate support costs. To a first approximation, Linux support a bit more expensive than supporting macOS or Windows, with about 1/50th the return.
Again, that calculus would change for embedded usage.
- Standard libraries for audio software are less tested on Linux and tend to be buggier there, and we have to chase down those bugs.
- There are a bajillion versions of Linux, and even if you say you only support some subset of those, Linux users will ignore that and still write to support when it doesn't work on their distro / version. Sometimes that even extends to writing bad reviews online.
- Packaging on Linux is annoying since there are a bunch of different formats, and nothing will make everyone happy.
Because of those issues, we probably get almost as much support mail for Linux as for macOS or Windows, despite Linux being 1% of our user base. From a cost perspective, it just doesn't make sense to keep supporting it. Ironically, we'll keep developing it, because we do some of the development on Linux, and often test on Linux before Windows. From what I know of other companies: we're not unique there, and I thought some of this might be interesting info for pro-audio Linux users.
I can't help but feel that maybe you read too much into what you get sent.
I would pick one "known good config" (your distro of choice), present it as what it gets tested on prior to release, and for anything else, you're on your own, that's part-and-parcel to being a Linux user. It assumes some kind of ability to troubleshoot and solve your own problems. It isn't for everybody, just like a Mac or Windows isn't for everybody.
Officially, DaVinci Resolve has CentOS as the only supported config, but it runs on other Linux distros just fine. Doesn't seem to hurt its popularity on Linux.
If you go back a couple decades, there was even developer-recommended hardware for specific DAWs. People will use whatever gets the job done, your product or not, Linux or not.
But I think your post illustrates the idea that, unlike windows or mac users, us Linux users have opinions about how the business should be run, and we tend to voice them through support channels and emails and social media etc.
Every time we voice our ideas, it generates a ticket or a discussion or a decision that they have to deal with. The act of contemplating these possible ideas, whether that means discussing them with the team or deleting the email or reading the slashdot thread, costs the business time and attention.
Each time a company makes a concrete decision -- "let's only support Fedora," to use your example -- 80% of the potential linux user base you'd even care about (ubuntu users) is out of luck. This is true for "let's care only about pulseaudio," "let's only care about ALSA," "let's only care about this specific glib version," etc. The intersection of these decisions is very small.
You're saying they should pick one supported configuration and stick with it. That's what they're already doing though -- it's just not an operating system that runs Linux. We can keep around a hardware-specific Windows box just the same.
I have plenty of public and private opinions about software that aren't Linux-centric too, and you're assuming that I only use Linux, when no, a good chunk of my workflow is on Windows because that's where the software and driver support is for cutting-edge DSP and video game middleware. Some companies even pay for consulting. Businesses that rely on selling licenses to customers for new features heavily rely on feedback.
You only have to look at the likes of the Native Instruments forum or their Centercode to see that providing feedback isn't some kind of Linux-exclusive phenomena, and most reasonable businesses encourage that feedback. However, triaging and actioning that feedback is an entirely separate matter.
> it generates a ticket or a discussion or a decision that they have to deal with
They don't need to do anything. That's entirely a business decision whether or not a company acts on user feedback, or feedback from potential customers. A lot of biz pay handsomely to run focus groups and and actually get feedback whatsoever, but there's a big difference between a social media discussion, a feature request, a bug report, or a support request.
Who is seeking support for an audio product via Slashdot? Nobody. It's an audio product on Linux. You go where the devs are, where you'll get help, if they're indeed offering it.
If somebody buys a license for x on Linux, you ask them what OS they use on the contact form in a dropdown or text field on a webpage, you use conditional logic where if it isn't the supported OS, you tell them "sorry, this isn't a supported configuration, if you would like support, please use the recommended/supported distro, here's a link for more info". This eliminates almost all cases of this. Prior to selling them a license, you have them tick a box that acknowledges that Linux support is limited and that unless they use x, they're SOL on getting support unless they go to the forum or elsewhere and figure it out either on their own, or with others.
> The intersection of these decisions is very small.
Then those customers or potential customers make a decision as to whether it is appropriate for them, if they are willing to compromise by changing x, or if Linux as a whole is appropriate for them in the same way that people who want to use Logic Pro will need to buy a Mac, and that might mean that some plugins aren't available on macOS, or aren't yet natively supporting Apple Silicon, and if you want to exclusively use Windows then you aren't going to be using MetaSynth.
Renoise users on Linux seem to be able to navigate this without problem in terms of understanding `glibc >= 2.27 (e.g. Ubuntu 18) on x86_64 based systems`. Same goes for Bitwig Studio users understanding Flatpak and PipeWire support.
If people want to have their cake and eat it, they use Windows or macOS. Linux users are accustomed to compromise, it goes with the territory.
> That's what they're already doing though
And he dismissed my response as being an example of the problem when that wasn't what I was saying whatsoever, thus was not an example of his problem, and now you're latching onto that like I didn't already understand this.
Furthermore, this entire discussion ignores the potential for a return by supporting an influential power user on a niche OS. It may actually bring significant sales of something in. That's strategy.
E.g., DaVinci Resolve may not have the majority of its userbase on Linux, but because x major director or studio uses DaVinci Resolve on Linux on y film, they will sell a lot of software and hardware to z users on other operating systems. Audio has some of the most influenced people niche-wise because they want to use what their hero uses, hence signature versions of guitars, hence signature guitar pedals, hence VST collabs, and preset and sample packs from x producer.
tl;dr: it's a misconstrued and misrepresented throwaway comment that of course turned into an irrelevant tangent because it's HN. On an interesting thread for an interesting product launch, and this is what people focus on? Exhausting.
Getting things to work as well on a variety of Linuxes is something that would take us as long as implementing a new feature that a bunch of our users care about. But the former helps some subset of 1% of our users, whereas the latter helps the majority of 99% of our users.
It's not about not caring about Linux; both of us on the project come from a Linux multimedia background (we're both former KDE developers). But at some point in a business you have to decide which place of focusing our effort leaves more users happy.
That's literally what we've tried, and it hasn't worked. Despite us saying that's all we support, we still get tons of reports / requests about it not working on other Linuxes.
I wonder why? They already support Live on Apple Silicon.
CDM [1] reports that standalone is running Linux on that intel core, so they have Live running on Linux Intel. Maybe it was too much work to get running on Linux ARM? Or maybe performance just wasn’t good enough?
A bit off tangent, but a (very) minor reason I like to see that is because their capabilities are much easier to research. If you go watch a video of the deluge in action, you'll see what the deluge can do. Aside from in a few cases, if you go on youtube and search for Moog Subharmonicon videos, you can see what you can do with it IF you combine it with a full board of effects, a massive modular synth and an expensive midi keyboard, but if you want to see what it can do on its own, keep looking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivuy9QYLFVY
So cool! Not sure where they are in producing it, but it's neat!
You might be better off getting a Circuit Tracks or something (any groovebox) before diving deeper into the hobby, it will be more gratifying than buying individual hardware like that.
Or what would be the functional difference between a MIDI generator and controller?
I loved the Push 2 but if it got any amount of sunlight on it the rubber outer shell would sweat and become this sticky rubber mess. I don't have a fully protected area to keep the device in and it became so gross it was unpleasant to use and I stopped using it. A lot of people complained but they didn't deal with it very well, and directed you to hope for the best by scrubbing it with orange oil products. I hope they sorted this out because otherwise Push 2 was amazing and this looks like a very nice set of improvements.
I cannot express how happy i'm to finally be able to let go of OSX & Windows forever.
This is what i'm realizing writing these lines.
I'm so happy right now.
As a entry-device, Circuit Tracks is nice, immediate and not hard to learn to get your feet wet. It's also way cheaper than Push 3 but obviously a bit more limited.
Otherwise, there is a bunch of different devices at different price points, here is a one list sorted by "popularity": https://www.thomann.de/intl/groove_boxes.html
I had a (current model) Electribe and it was a bit frustrating, lots of features are technically there but too fiddly/time-consuming to use.
The OP-Z is not in the Thomann list, but I find that to be excellent - and not expensive compared to the OP-1. A rare example of an experts-only UI, it needs to be learned properly in order to do anything really, but once you know how to do it it's nice.
If Behringer ever releases their "HiroTribe" thing that might be a very compelling option on the budget end of the spectrum.
If you want something standalone, well as said in a previous comment, the Novation Circuit or any of the other grooveboxes in the market can offer interesting workflows.
Of course people will still keep creating, and I'm sure there will be an 'organic' no-AI movement, but the exciting music tech of the next 10 years is going to be in that space in between the two...
(Ableton user since version 4)
This is meant for live "playing" as well as recording, so the feel of the buttons rather than a touch screen is important.
You should check out videos of people using the original push as a live instrument - it can take serious talent.
The Push lets you turn physical knobs to adjust sound parameters, and the pressure sensitive pads let you play drums / piano / whatever softly to loudly. The external sound interface is very low latency so playing a guitar along with sequenced music feels natural and records in time. And of course it’s more durable for live performances.
But technically, with the right software, you could produce the same music on an iPad. There are step sequencers and Ableton controllers in the App Store. They’re just much less satisfying / expressive / empowering to use.