Ableton live enthusiast here. I went all in on ableton after finding a push 2 second hand for cheap enough that I was willing to switch from Logic Pro. That was in 2018 and haven’t looked back.
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.
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.