Ableton Push 3

[stripou]

I wasn't going to weigh in here (I've already done so abundantly elsewhere) but I think that some of the irrational exuberance could be tamed.

Or you could just let people be excited about it? It's a harmless, simple pleasure, to dig some new gear.

It’s not harmless if it promotes a very expensive object under false hopes and pretences… spending money can be very fucking harmful to some people, so can be identifying with objects…

[Back Down the Path]

It’s not harmless if it promotes a very expensive object under false hopes and pretences… spending money can be very fucking harmful to some people, so can be identifying with objects…

Thanks for being the Catcher in the Rye of music equipment.

[Scatre]

It’s not harmless if it promotes a very expensive object under false hopes and pretences… spending money can be very fucking harmful to some people, so can be identifying with objects…

Thanks for being the Catcher in the Rye of music equipment.

[ObsoleteModular]

I wasn't going to weigh in here (I've already done so abundantly elsewhere) but I think that some of the irrational exuberance could be tamed.

Or you could just let people be excited about it? It's a harmless, simple pleasure, to dig some new gear.

It’s not harmless if it promotes a very expensive object under false hopes and pretences… spending money can be very fucking harmful to some people, so can be identifying with objects…

bit dramatic, it's just a gizmo

[everydaycurry]

It’s not harmless if it promotes a very expensive object under false hopes and pretences… spending money can be very fucking harmful to some people, so can be identifying with objects…

Unless there are a bunch of 12-year olds with $2k on a credit card, we're talking about adults making purchases here, right?

[everydaycurry]

Yes, if you step into this cold you have to buy Ableton... but how many 'electronic musicians' already have Ableton Suite? From what I can tell, in our niche, it appears to be the most popular DAW. The Venn Diagram of "interested in Push 3" and "already invested in Ableton" is not a circle but the overlap is significant.

[forestcaver]

Someone else got an ableton notification? Mine is arriving tomorrow

Hey ! Long time no speak! Hope life is good!
Let us know how you find it - I was excited when I saw the announcement, the battery and the i/o. Then I started thinking what it would give me over the Push 2 (which I love). I probably wouldnt use the MPE stuff to any great extent. The battery is a bit too weak for the couch or to take out and about. If I connected the i/o then I’d probably never move it from the desk.
I dream about it for the lounge connected to power but it seems overkill.
I’m quite excited about it, am keen and I suspect I’ll get one in the next 12 months if a few more things are added like better m4l compatability - still not sure what works and what doesnt and if my devices will work or what I would need to do to them!
So I’m desperately keen to see how *other* people find it before I commit - so report back!

Ps give me a shout if you fancy any pcbs - got a few unreleased interesting things you may like!

[lukas412]

I wasn't going to weigh in here (I've already done so abundantly elsewhere) but I think that some of the irrational exuberance could be tamed.

Or you could just let people be excited about it? It's a harmless, simple pleasure, to dig some new gear.

It’s not harmless if it promotes a very expensive object under false hopes and pretences… spending money can be very fucking harmful to some people, so can be identifying with objects…

You've done us a great service here sir. I will be sending my back the moment it gets here.

[Koekepan]

... nha mate ... it was absolutely a propper mice drop ..´its like there is dust and silence in the air right now with every other manufacture staring eachother in the eyes with surprised disbelieve

So you say, but from where I'm standing, if I were Roland or Akai or KORG, I wouldn't be losing sleep. In fact, I doubt that this even woke Kurzweil up. Let's see why not.

I think your tottally missing the point, ..

All right. My point is bang per buck. Let's get into it.

#I/O are done via expandability USB ADAT ..

Fewer USB connections than Force, Maschine+, Live II, X, as many as the One, which is, what, a third of the price? ADAT gear tends to be expensive, and ADAT connections are more rare on a lot of gear. Also, ADAT is digital audio specifically, so if you want to use a lot of USB gear for MIDI, storage, audio, whatever, you'll run into problems sooner. Of course, the USB device compatibility list is more constrained than the Akai family or Maschine+. Bad on the bang per buck front, for studio masters.

Speaking of I/O, no phantom power so if you want to do the smoky crooner vocals into your large diaphragm mic you'll be using some kind of DI box or equivalent. In fact, they're jack inputs where most of the supposed competition offers combo jacks. So, again, not good for bang per buck.

What makes the I/O situation worse is that they tout their CV/gate connections. Good for them! Except that you need adapters that will convert their pedal inputs into CV/Gate outputs - if you want more than the basic two outputs that you can see in the pictures. Bang per buck strikes again.

#Screen is absolutely fine /its a gorgeous LCD btw full of colors and backlit .. nothing wrong with it ... take it over a that huge elbows in the air workflow of a design the MPC X is with cringe pitching finger on screen operation ...

I'm sure that the screen is beautiful. However, according to their own tech specs, it's a glorious, gorgeous ... 1.5 inches vertical. I could almost cover that with my thumb. If their approach were something like a '90s era LCD, that would be plenty but it's not what they're doing. They're giving you the Session View. More on this in a moment, but it turns out that the Akai Professional Force's matrix view is a lot more legible. Why? Vertical screen real estate. The MPC X has an even bigger screen.

#no arranger view ? ..are you sure its not coming in a firmware upgrade .. Common dude .. performance record has always been a highlight of the clip based + controller experience ..

Even if they firmware upgraded the software, they can't firmware upgrade the hardware, and before you get all indignant about being able to upgrade the hardware please remember that the screen is built into the chassis.

This implies that even if you were to get a firmware update that gave you the arrangement view, you wouldn't even have 1080P screen to arrange your work; you'd have 1.5 inches of vertical space to arrange things. That's half of Ableton Live's workflow benefit for composition simply unavailable. They could have made up for it with, say, an HDMI port. But they didn't add one. It's like Maschine+, except that from Native Instruments nobody expects Ableton Live's arrangement view. On this front Akai Professional is head and shoulders above the Push 3 with every single one of their devices, even ignoring the touch function, simply because of screen real estate. Again, bang per buck. KORG's Nautilus also beats it here, and while Kurzweil's PC4 (and upscale, more expensive K2700) have small screens they are offering a different approach to music creation (your classic keyboard workstation), so things like arrangement views aren't really relevant.

But Ableton is offering a standalone device with Live inside - of which you can reach half. Bang per buck doesn't look good. A freaking $500 Asus laptop will get you more even after paying for Live, simply because of screen real estate. At this point, Ableton's real opposition is Asus and Lenovo and Dell, not Native Instruments.

#the battery life span is likely just thought of as temporary thing .. most live acts are around an hour... the solution is a powerbank .. (perhaps a larger battery was technically not possible) ...

I would give you the battery as a fancy win, if there weren't more battery life, for less money, in the Live I and Live II. Again, bang per buck. For north of $2K, I don't want something that will crap out in under 3 hours while the beatmaking powerhouse or the consumer-grade laptop next to me is still going strong.

And I don't think you can compare this to the M+ or the force .. this is a completely different level, like they are standing in line wile the Push is smoking cigars and doing blow of some silicons the vip lounge ... I will agree that the whole licence and registering thing is a drag ... but everything else you state is solely based on opinionated conclusions rater than on the units factual focus ...

I wanted to be fair to you, so I brought verifiable facts from the manufacturers themselves. Go on; look them up. The I/O is clearly verifiable in tech specs as well as in pictures. The size of the screen, ditto. The price on offer, ditto.

The only thing on the table that I can see is the MPE XY pad interface. Unfortunately, I could buy a brand, spanking new Live II, and a brand, spanking new K-board for less money than the standalone Push 3, without even paying for a Live upgrade. And yes, the Keith McMillen K-board does all of that including per-note modulations and pitch bend and aftertouch. Again, bang per buck.

I'm afraid that your image of doing lines in the VIP room is more true than you know, from the perspective of price.

at the core this is a very flawless release .. and for what you get again I'd say fairly priced .. its a full on fully expandable production suite .. its seams to be top pro level built quality ..

If that is a fair price, then the Live II is a screaming deal like midnight on Black Friday. Bigger screen, more I/O, more flexible I/O, more battery life, and all at half the price.

Biggest con IMO is its over 4kg .. (not really a con, its intended to be a serious mainstage unit,.. packpack is a little under the dress code,.. but I am sure there will be suitable travel cases..

Can you please point me at one, objectively recorded (as in, technical specifications) element about it that offers better bang per buck than, say, the Live II? Knobs? If I were a brand new entrant to the market, 18 years old and my first month's pay clutched in my sweating hand, why would this be a better deal than a laptop, an audio interface, a controller keyboard and a copy of -insert DAW of choice here-? I can get a new Apple with Logic for less than the Push 3 (not that I would want to).

All in all ... This is the biggest mike drop in the pan of all groovebox/samplers and cross platform since .. well since beginning of sampling ..

Brave words. Now back them up with specifics. Details.

[ObsoleteModular]

All right. My point is bang per buck. Let's get into it.

Bang for buck is hardly the only criteria for consideration. You don't get much bang for buck with an Oberheim OB-X8 but it's a beautiful instrument and competitive amongst its peers.

The point about the ADAT connection is that you can use an ADAT expander for additional analogue IO. You could get an Audient ASP880 and have 8 mic pres that toast the competition.

It's disingenuous to suggest it's equivalent to a collection of similar separate parts, and you could say the same of all similar products, anyway. The point is, the degree of integration between those parts.

For me Push 2 plus Ableton Live is a great experience. Creative, intuitive, productive. Push 3 just adds more of that good stuff.

I don't care about the competition because they don't run Live, my DAW of choice, nor can they control it (let alone host it). So comparisons are kind of moot anyway.

Here are some of the reasons why I think it's an exciting product (which I already posted upthread but repeat here for reference)

- a new standalone MPE controller comparable to the Linnstrument, Osmose, Rise etc

- the implementation, albeit partial, of one of the three major DAWs to a standalone battery powered device - Ableton Live - including its suite of software instruments and audio effects (all of which are very mature products in themselves)

Cubase, Logic, Bitwig ain't standalone

- a computer-based music hardware product with a manufacturer endorsed, processor, memory and storage upgrade path, baked-in to the design. You could argue it's an entirely new platform

- Max4Live running under Linux on a standalone hardware device

- significant enhancements to an already established industry standard platform (Ableton Live plus Push controller); CV/gate, ADAT I/O, on-board audio interface etc

[everydaycurry]

Looking at it simply as a standalone sampler - an Octatrack is $1600 new, an Isla S2400 is $1800 new (covering both sides of the 'sound quality' argument). If it runs Granulator via M4L that's a Tempera ($650). You don't need a massive screen to see the waveform of samples.

I didn't buy one - I wasn't sure about how it suits me standalone and since I'm using Logic as much as Ableton these days the tethered version would be a luxury - but it seems like a fairly reasonable price given competition.

[stripou]

For me Push 2 plus Ableton Live is a great experience. Creative, intuitive, productive. Push 3 just adds more of that good stuff.

But what more stuff?

I don't care about the competition because they don't run Live, my DAW of choice, nor can they control it (let alone host it). So comparisons are kind of moot anyway.

DAW and midi controllers, ipads etc.. no?

[ObsoleteModular]

For me Push 2 plus Ableton Live is a great experience. Creative, intuitive, productive. Push 3 just adds more of that good stuff.

But what more stuff?

Additional controls on the Push, portability, Live running on a standalone device, built-in audio interface, cv/gate, ADAT, MPE control surface

I don't care about the competition because they don't run Live, my DAW of choice, nor can they control it (let alone host it). So comparisons are kind of moot anyway.

DAW and midi controllers, ipads etc.. no?

Not sure what you mean but I'm not personally interested in using iPads for music and no other controller competes with either Push 2 or 3 for integration with Live. As for other DAWs I also use Logic but that's for linear/song/band stuff, not electronic or pattern based music

and also

ffs, what i waste of time, i think it's great and i don't actually give a toss what anybody thinks about it

[Mitchk1989]

I would love this if they had used the room for the computer to instead give me more I/O on the non-standalone version.

EDIT: Honestly hoping we get something more generic/less ableton specific soon in this form factor of MPE grid (for less money than this) with or without an audio interface baked in (I like the idea of a small one with basic I/O included to pair with a laptop as a two piece studio rig)

[Koekepan]

I guess what I'm learning here is that I'm a bit of a bottom feeder, because my funds are limited and to me, bang per buck is key. The moment I see four figures on a price tag, I step back.

Must be nice to have Oberheim money.

But seriously, the concept of "opportunity cost" plays a role here. Spent two and a half grand on something? That's two and a half grand you don't have for other things. There are times when the big outlays are justified, and for people for whom it's chump change - well, bless your dear hearts, but that isn't me.

If someone came up to me and suggested that I spend that kind of money on a Push 3 plus Live, I'd find myself bound to ask why I shouldn't buy a laptop and controller instead, and spend the rest on - well, really, anything else.

I'm not saying, please note, that anybody else should not spend what they have on what they want. If a $50K Wersi is your idea of personal nirvana, have at it. I'm just pointing out that, dollar for dollar, the Push 3 looks like a flat-out bad deal to me, and anybody else in similarly tight financial circumstances might, at a minimum, consider some other things on the market. If money were no object, I'd still think that the Push 3 were light on I/O, but otherwise maybe kind of nice. Money is always an object, and therefore I'm inclined to think that, as far as the bottom of the market is concerned at least, Ableton have lost the plot.

I reckon I'm just not their target market.

[Back Down the Path]

Everyone is right; Push 3 is both really great and a pretty insulting addition to the world of electronic music equipment.

[Scatre]

BREAKING NEWS

Music gear that is expensive exists. Outrage on a modular synth forum ensues.

[stripou]

Breaking news

People on a forum about music gear actually care to take a look at newly released flagship instrument from one of the biggest DAWs instead of simply congratulate every new buyer, therefore horrendously spoiling the fun induced by buying shiny new things :(

[soundular]

Put this energy into making music.

[dubonaire]

I guess a lot depends if you are an Ableton Live user or not. I am, I have Live Suite, and this is going to be totally liberating for me (although Ableton doesn't ship to my country so I will need to work something out). There are so many times I've wanted to work on something away from the studio, not on a complicated laptop plus controller plus interface setup.

I've heard that Ableton has sold over a million copies of Live. I have no idea how many people use it as their main DAW, but I can see them selling a lot of these to their user base. I think that is who they are primarily aiming at, but also making it useable for people who don't use Ableton Live as well. For me it's not a comparison between this and Akai or whatever. The simplicity of transferring sets between the DAW and Push 3, and knowing how the devices and instruments work, are no brainers for me.

I can also envisage people wanting to use it with a small modular setup in a live setting and it is totally set up for that.

Other people's MMV.

[Back Down the Path]

For me it's not a comparison between this and Akai or whatever. The simplicity of transferring sets between the DAW and Push 3, and knowing how the devices and instruments work, are no brainers for me.

This 100%. The fact that its a standalone device that will have me using the same devices and instruments and being able to transfer project to and from Ableton is the #1 killer feature of the device for me. I tried an MPC One and things like setting up a send effect in the mixer page were so frustrating and counter-intuitive to me that it just made me want to use Ableton. It all making sense from day 1 is everything.

[Mitchk1989]

I think the normal push 3 actually looks pretty killer, the standalone version is enough of a price bump that you could just buy a laptop to go with the normal version though.

[Dark Barn]

They finally onboarded me with the Push 3, I think it was the MPE implementation that sent me over the edge, I love MPE and both the smart scaling pitch bend system they have implemented and the integration of MPE with their Autowarping algorithm/Simpler device are both pretty killer!

[dubonaire]

I think the normal push 3 actually looks pretty killer, the standalone version is enough of a price bump that you could just buy a laptop to go with the normal version though.

You could do that, but as I mentioned earlier, the beauty of this is you don’t have (at least) three things connected with wires everywhere.

[ObsoleteModular]

Of course it’s not within everybody’s budget. There is nothing that can be done about that, sadly. It tends to be one in one out for me these days.

Putting aside the sequencer for a moment and looking at it as a standalone instrument with multiple synthesis engines integrated into an MPE control surface and large colour screen and it starts to compete very competitively with some of the flagship desktop synths out there.

With a full Live licence it does virtual analog, FM, wavetable, sampling, physical modelling, drum synthesis and granular.

Anybody want to buy a desktop Iridium?