Ableton Push!

While the design of the Push controller is obviously Maschine-inspired and an indication that Ableton and Akai are attempting to get a slice of the pie from Maschine's success story, it's not going to be that much of a competition to Maschine:

- Push doesn't automap to third party plugins: "With VSTs, we currently can't access parameters in an automatic and consistent way, as we can with our own devices, so you would be left with a way to load a VST, but not control it automatically. https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1445043#p1445043

- it can't do step automation (step parameter lock): "We don't have per step automation of devices (also known as parameter lock)" https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1445659#p1445659

- no waveforms on the hardware LCD when sample editing and will still force you to look back and forth at the computer screen for a lot of things

- still requires you to use the mouse/trackpad for a lot of things like opening/closing plugin windows, even with cramming in lots of dedicated buttons

- the pads are too small for those who like to use more than one finger at a time on a pad

- has an unfortunate design flaw of the knobs being positioned above the LCD screen

- no Komplete preset integration on the hardware, obviously

- way overpriced in comparison to Maschine ($948 with standard version of Live, $1198 with Live Suite)

What Push does provide is a potentially useful case study for what can happen if NI suddenly decided to bloat Maschine with DAW features so that you lose the mouseless capability of Maschine's fully hands-on workflow.

 

I dont think its meant to replace maschine as a groovebox but as a integrated controller for Live...and some of these, like pad size, knob position, and komplete integration are...well...

also about price..Live offers way more than maschine offers...theyre not really meant to be compared that way...and pricing reflects this (though Live is too expensive period)

but the more differences the better...all the more reason to own both

 

heh well i seen u on some of the same ableton forum threads, and people have reported there getting it for a lot less than 179.
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that isn't too surprising, cos ableton already has a far better way for controlling vst params: racks!

i think i'd prefer that over the way maschine handles it: automapping every param, even useless ones, in no particular order!

 

You do know that you can customize the automapping in Maschine, right?

 

if you are talking about making new pages and learning each param in the order you want to, yes i do.

but you can't control more than 1 param at a time on a single knob. whereas in ableton you can control as many as you want with a single knob. so for my needs it is way easier to make a logical rack of 8 knobs that 'do the **** i want them to do' without the kind of page diving and messing around that maschine requires.

 

Agree, when I have to map things myself, I prefer the Kore2 way and the ableton live rack way way over noiserots way

 

It is not a design flaw that the knobs are above the screen, the hardware developer has been posting on the forum- apparently they made many versions to test, and the original had the knobs below, but they found that from the seated position the knobs obscured the display. Also the display is also for the buttons directly below the display (that need to be connected to the main grid)

You will be able to control any vst by putting it in a rack and and. Aping what you want to control with macro - just like any rack instrument you can map one control from say Diva, one from another vst effect and so on.

The step editing looks very good, press a step and the knobs become nudge, velocity etc, just like a good hardware step synth (and 32 stps)

I think a great deal of thought has gone in to this product, and combined with M4L it will be very versatile (far more so than VSTi mapping, which will no doubt be added)

It isn't supposed to compete with Maschine or any other MPC clone, I think it is so much more than that, but if Live is your main DAW, it may make you question using Maschine with Live if you have PUSH.

 

I'd rather have Maschine's automapping and mouseless workflow over being able to assign multiple parameters to a single knob anyday.

Anyway, like Live's racks, you can save plugins or chains of plugins as Maschine modules, or even as a group with multiple layered plugins and browse and load them entirely from Maschine's controller without ever looking at the computer screen or touching a trackpad/mouse. And you can of course save it into the default template if you wish. The point being, you don't need to touch or look at the computer to browse and load plugins into Maschine and have them automap and start using it right away, without being limited to just 8 knobs and needing to decide what multiple assignments to make to which knob. You can't do that with Live/Push.

 

Awesome!

 

Hard to compare really. Ableton is vast compared to Maschine's very limited capacity and function. Ableton is a hugely versatile swiss army knife audio app, able to cover so many different audio jobs way beyond assembling beats.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5obV0TAADhE#!


looks like u can browse sounds hopefully u can chop or at least do start ad end point even if it is numerical

but i willget mk2 and i can see my self getting live 9 and push as an alternative


but trust ni gonna come with it with version 2

 

One thing I noticed from that video and another one where the same Ableton employee performs that live at the Live 9 preview event is that there doesn't seem to be a way to select samples without triggering it.

All in all, it's great that Maschine's success shocked their system enough that Ableton is trying to catch up to Maschine's mouseless hands-on workflow but it's obviously not quite there on that level. It's understandable though since Live is more of a full-on DAW with years of feature bloat that there's really no way to avoid clicking around with a mouse on a computer screen, even with something like Push.

 

having the expanded ability of using Maschine's knobs when you are on a midi out channel would be nice. being able to do CC assignments out from Maschine to a hardware synth without being in midi mode just makes sense to me.

 

You've got to be joking. In one move Ableton Jump has trumped Maschine tenfold. It will require an absolute quantum leap of development for Maschine to be in the same league as Ableton.

Feature bloat? Like track capacity, unlimited routing options, advanced MIDI control, ReWire, audio recording, etc ...etc? Hardly what I'd consider bloat. More to the point, any comparison shows up Maschine's limited capacity.

There is a one click option to switch audition off or route it through headphones.

 

as allways

 

You're obviously missing the point that I was comparing Maschine and Live in the mouseless hands-on workflow department.

It's funny that some people can't grasp that people have different preferences and needs on how they use different tools to make music and what they consider essential features, and what tools to use for what tasks...etc.

I completely disagree with your sweeping statement that "any comparison shows up Maschine's limited capacity" as I mentioned above and evidenced in this example:

- Push doesn't automap to third party plugins: "With VSTs, we currently can't access parameters in an automatic and consistent way, as we can with our own devices, so you would be left with a way to load a VST, but not control it automatically. https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1445043#p1445043

- it can't do step automation (step parameter lock): "We don't have per step automation of devices (also known as parameter lock)" https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p=1445659#p1445659

- no waveforms on the hardware LCD when sample editing and will still force you to look back and forth at the computer screen for a lot of things

- still requires you to use the mouse/trackpad for a lot of things like opening/closing plugin windows, even with cramming in lots of dedicated buttons

- the pads are too small for those who like to use more than one finger at a time on a pad

- has an unfortunate design flaw of the knobs being positioned above the LCD screen

- no Komplete preset integration on the hardware, obviously

 

lol...your utter contempt for anything not maschine is both admirable and laughable in the same breath

Maschine is a groovebox..hardware..software...whatever

It doesnt compete with Live and its "years of feature bloat" its not meant too...but its in no way superior or better than Live, thats just being silly, its a good deal cheaper and more limited for a reason...and push is not meant to be maschine either imo, its a controller, not the front end of a groovebox. Youre as bad as some of the MPC crowd dude..but dont stop, its mostly funny

 

"Superior" or "better" are obviously subjective terms that depend entirely on the context of what's being compared. So, no, it's not true that there's "no way" that Maschine can be "superior or better than Live" in any comparison like some of you may try to claim, and any such sweeping generalization without context is completely meaningless. For what Maschine is and does as a software/hardware hybrid groovebox or whatever you wanna call it with unmatched hands-on workflow that allows you to ditch the mouse and feels more like using a hardware instrument, then Maschine is still vastly superior or better than combining Live with any of its controllers, including what we know about Push so far.

 

Push, to me, is even more than just a controller. Seen the the way you can play harmonies/melodies? It's like a new instrument. Like an eigenharp is a "new", another type of instrument. Not "just" pads and knobs.

Plus it is programmable by MIDI, as far as I understand. Open source, if you want, even the displays accessible via sysex. Imagine the possibilities with m4l, which should soon be available as x64, too, when L9 will be released.

Very interesting!

 

@ noiserot

you're welcome to disagree.

personally I find Maschine very limited .... 8 tracks for example (i could easily list a dozen more). Many of your comments suggest you don't know Ableton Live very well. If you're happy working within Maschine the way it is, stay with it.

To me, it looks like Push provides 10 times the hands on capabiltiy plus (Live) 10 times+ the on screen capabilty of Maschine .... that's pretty obvious. As TabSel suggests: check out the advanced features and 'imagine the possibilties'.