pretty surprised that it only comes with the intro version of ableton. not even with the standard version! imagine buying this great piece of hardware for 1900€ and then you still dont have the "best" live version in it. if you want live suite its another 600€
this is weirdly positioned but I think it's still something you'd buy if you already own live or are a live user on a computer. The standalone version still gives you zero ability to work in arranger mode and finish a song so you basically have to have live on a computer somewhere to use it fully. If you want some kind of standalone dawless sequencer maybe that's not it.
@@valdir7426 that's all true but many people are interested in it because of standalone and some of them don't even know anything about Live or Live versions.
ableton live is a full featured daw that allows you to edit precisely your song or your piece with the arranger. you can't do that with the push in standalone. maybe they'll implement a few things down the line but you need a computer at some point to use live, or you only have a crippled version of it that doesn't allow you to finish your track; like maybe some other sequencers do.
Seriously, I make it 1 minute in, and I'm already cracking up laughing from the sheer audacity - "a very powerful processor" - try a 3 years old, bottom of the line, dual core i3. You can build an entire mini computer with the same specs for less than 400€, but you wouldn't because it's already obsolete, and they charge 1000€ for the board alone. And less than a minute further before the next wet rag: The majority of Ableton plugins are disabled, if you don't own/pay extra for Ableton Live suite, on a 2000€ piece of hardware. So for any1 new to the show, that's upwards of 600€, just to unlock the functions of your new 2000€ piece of hardware. Are you serious? "We want this to be something that lasts long" how exactly does that resonate with selling it packing already obsolete hardware? This whole things smells badly of them having a nasty laugh at their customers. Now I get why the base unit is more expensive than the Push 2, there's some tasty useful upgrades there. But Push 2 was already overpriced; Ableton milking that monopoly. Close to a 50% mark up on the base controller, from an already overpriced unit, is too much. Paying 1000€ extra for
The product demo should have been demo'd with only what comes in the box.. the basic 8 track install version. it';s misleading to have a product demo that requires an additional £529.00 AFTER you open the box.
I have mixed feelings here. The ADAT expander is amazing, CV and Gate out is nice, upgradeability is a huge pleasant surprise…bundling intro software is lame, but as somebody who purchased Suite, I guess I’m glad I don’t “have to buy it again” so to speak. But that arrangement view hurdle…that’s where loops go to become songs. This just seems like there’s a real risk of getting stuck in loop land forever.
If it has follow actions, you can arrange the clips and scenes into a vertical timeline. It requires a thinking-readjustment, but think all functions of the timeline is reproducible in clips with follow actions.
I don’t understand why people want laptop behavior in a standalone instrument. Use a laptop if you want laptop functionality. There is a design reason nobody makes a standalone instrument that works as well as a laptop for arrangement view. Because hardware isn’t the best way to do that. The best way to do that is a nice big screen and a mouse or track ball.
Idk, no arrangement view, no automation view (?), no internal VSTs, only i3 at the moment... for me it's pretty limited on a daw producer perspective. E: okay it totally changes alot with your username in mind 😂
This might come down to philosophical questions: If your hardware is a full DAW just with fixed controls and connections, is it still dawless? If you'd glue a MIDI controller and interface to your laptop, would that make your DAW dawless then? And most importantly: Is it still cool to be dawless when there is sequencerless around? Or does it need to be no input mixer feedback to be musictechnologically pure?
I'm curious about what they mean when they say you can upgrade the processor as technology improves. If it's using an 11th gen i3, the LGA 1200 socket is already out of date for 12th and 13th gen intel chips. Or are they using some kind of custom socket?
From what I understand, it's basically got a socket on the bottom that you jam a whole Intel NUC into. CPU, MB, RAM and battery in a self contained cartidge for lack of a better term. Don't quote me though, skimmed an article at 3am last night. Pretty sure that's the gist however
I think it is interesting but the pricing seems way off. They are quoting around 1k dollars for the computer part alone. And there is no way that 2c/4t SoC with 8GB of RAM is worth that much in a retail space. There has to be a very very massive markup on the costs. Anyone can go to a retailer that sells Mini PCs and see those little computers go for about a fourth of the price offered here with double RAM and a bigger NVME drive. I can only imagine Ableton is receiving a very tidy profit off of each unit sold for both the standalone as well as non-standalone.
Can Live’s various sampler instruments play round-robins? in other words, play back different samples for each hit, as often found in Kontakt libraries ?
Do the pads have to be so darn white. The illumination of the pad itself looks washed out not clear. Like someone hit me on the head and told me look at the push and my eyes are hazy - this is how the pads look. What are the chances I would use any mpe ? Slim to none !
With 1-127 velocity position low med high on a grid square this would change the way finger drumming champions play. Finger drumming champions would argue these pads are too small to have positional velocity. Back to the harder you press the louder the sound. Why fix something that is not broke. Presumably this can be turned off. I agree its use for osmose style expression for melodic instruments, but since when as osmose expression mpe information ever been applied to drum samples?!
Not samples, but there are many percussive patches on the Osmose/EaganMatrix that are surprisingly useful thanks to their dynamic mpe nature. Also, often people forget that not every aspect of expression must be consciously controlled, very often they are also just part of the playing mechanics of an acoustic instrument.
The price point for the stand alone is ridiculous and quite frankly insanely greedy, and so is the standard P3. Considering it is not completely stand alone or have full features for it is terrible. Buy an MPC X instead that gives you full features and so much more.
The next news about Ableton which annoys me. After the useless crippled down Version of Ableton called "Note", this is the next thing i don't need. I really hope the developers will work on Ableton itself, it is absolutely necessary... I wish all Push-Fans all the best, but imho Ableton should stick to implementing feature requests from 10+ years ago, then move to the feature requests which are 9+ years old, and so on, and so on, until they finally actually reach 2023.
Its too bad they are still using the rubber coated case, living in extremely humid and warm climate will degrade the rubber.. at a $1900 price you would expect it to last a bit.
Referring to the Push 1? Ableton hired them to make it and they didn't do a very good job. Referring to the Force? It's a great bit of kit but not even close in terms of integration with Live.
Ok...not a fan of slow trickle. If I am paying 2k.... I need to know when I can get an i9 with 64gig of ram with 1tb.......yea imma be that guy this morning g
Native instruments better get their shit together and hurry up with a Maschine MKIV or they are in trouble. Im already planning on switching. The only downside is screen size for me. Pissed they didnt make a bigger screen at this price point.
The fact that a $2000 piece of hardware is bundled with intro software is absolutely ridiculous. This should be bundled with AT LEAST standard if not Suite. You’re paying 2 grand for an instrument that isn’t even fully unlocked unless you dish out or have dished out $750 for suite or $450 for standard. Otherwise, this has a lot of things going for it.
Bruh they expect everyone to make money with it. They also know enough people will buy it. I have never ever used anything other than Audacity and all sound is from hardware. Looking at MPC range now this...as a sefl taught knuckle head contemplating the step into the world I will say it's hard to splice hairs. Was thinking about a combo of the mpcXse with the force to do cool things....this with the Xse seems alot cooler....idk...with hardware hitting new levels of power.... The need to just take ps5 build a standalone behemoth. Turn Audacity into a DAW after trapping it in a ps3 or 4 like a Pokémon lol..ain't the os for ps3 pr 4 Linux based or open source...lol tommuch talking cheers a To another new tool for our works.
No matter what product is released there will always be poor people in the comments complaining about the price. Sorry your cracked Ableton is finally coming around to screw you! Ableton (nor any other company) is not responsible for your poor life choices! Get over it.
What about the TPE coating. Does it have the soft touch coating or not? The last push2 has this TPE coating that degraded into a sticky glue. They say it only happened in heat and sunlight…. I live in BC and mine was perfectly taken care of… if they have the TPE coating then its another pile of poop. They should have done a full on recall but instead they blamed the consumers.
It's still up to ableton to provide you with new ram and a new CPU you wont just be able to throw any cpu or ram in it that you feel like. So it really remains to be seen how they go with that. They wont be just like normal CPU's and normal ram it will be branded ableton upgrade cpu and ableton upgrade ram whenever they choose to release that
I love Ableton but don't think it's enough to upgrade justify going from Push 2 to 3. The MPE features, the built in audio interface and the jogwheel are great. However I wish they'd addressed using Push in arrangement mode and improve other software/hardware intergrations. Just my thoughts
The vision of Push has always been Session View. That's where you sketch, jam, perform, and make a basic song structure (scenes), which is enough functionality really for a standalone Push. And then you bring your track to the full Ableton DAW to mix, arrange, master, and finish your song. Because this is the workflow where using mouse, keyboard and a big arrangement screen shines. Full song arrangement is by design not ideal to do with a hardware controller that has limited screen estate. So at best, you should expect a limited Arrangement View on the Push series in the future.
This is basically a Push 2 with a few changes at a hefty cost. As a owner of Push 2, standalone mode and audio interface isn't enough of a reason to upgrade for me. In addition I have a maxforlive plugin that adds arrangement view functionality to Push. Would it be that hard for the guys at Ableton to look at and impliment or design some arrangement view functionality. Again just my thoughts the "live capture" was more exciting news than this. I just feel like there's this urge over at Ableton to do what the other guy is doing (aka Maschine mk3) instead of focusing on what they're really good at. Their software, algorithms, etc is top notch. If you look at the changes Maschine mk2 to mk3 there is more of a compelling reason to swipe my credit card. I say all this because I love Ableton as a company, I've paid for every upgrade etc. This could've been better is all I'm saying
@@valdir7426 I'm not all that excited about standalone mode. My focus is purely Push as a controller so yeah tighter software integration and some arrangemeant view functionality would be cool. Maschine mk2 to mk3 was a bigger leap than this in my opinion. Push 3 feels more like "catching up to Maschine mk3" rather than innovating
On further thinking, to unlock the standalone mode you must have to do it through Ableton , because adding cpu and hardrive isn’t going to cost you another thousand , it will be interesting to see what ‘upgrading’ actually means. Hmmm
Looks like the kit comes with a board with the CPU on it, a heatsink and battery. I think when they say upgrade the CPU at a later time, they mean, Ableton will sell you an upgrade kit with a newer faster cpu board.
I just tried the new warping mode and it's as good as it is claimed to be. It's honestly a game changer for tempo-syncing really difficult disco/boogie/funk tracks that were ripped from vinyl. Once Push 3 isn't totally sold out everywhere i'm selling off everything (Octatrack, audio interface, midi interface, etc) except my Minifreak and getting it. It's expensive but worth it (for me).
Regarding 3rd party VST's, that may be wishful thinking but I heard not possible "for now" and "not an impossibility". The guest didn't correct you so I hope it will be possible at some point!! Thanks for this review!
people wanted third party vst integration for push 2 since it came out 2015. It never happened. Now 8 years later a new push and still nothing, so dont hold your breath for this one, might take another 8 years
@@karlosmartos4646 I like this expression, don't hold your breath, I might get one anyway and breath in and out all the potential... Add my beloved Vital & co later on in the process, or multu-sample my patches...
A very interesting step forward for the Push. I just hope they got rid of the rubberized surfaces. Those always become a sticky mess after a couple of weeks. I strongly prefer bare metal, varnish or even rough plastic over rubberized metal. The nicest is always eloxation, but maybe too expensive.
@@ZETONEproductions works for me when i play live, dont need much more, im sure this is a great piece of kit. The ableton project integration stuff saved me so much time to prep sets
None of the push 3 reviewers have mentioned the surface finish. Is it the same TPE rubberized surface used on the Push 1 and Push 2? If it is, this surface deteriorates to a sicky gummy mess. Researching this on the net, only to find its the same for other owners. The surface breaks down over time in normal ligh. There is no known solution, short of removing the gummy rubberized surface. ;0(
They have yet to address it. The push2 should have been recalled. Took 3 hours of me with googone to peel the whole TPE coating off the push2. my bet is that these are just as bad. They just blame the consumer
Well I guess the Akai Force team are going to have to revisit their plans for MK2 hardware - if they had any. This is double the amount of RAM in the latest generation of MPCs and 4x the amount in the Force. I like my Force but if I met someone considering buying one today, I would have to recommend that they wait until they see one of these in person.
It's a very odd and disjointed value proposition for me. Buy a standalone for €2000 but unless I already have Ableton suite I don't have the full benefit of the unit so I need to spend another substantial amount buying the suite. If you buy non-standalone the above still stands but also it doesn't do much more than the push 2 beyond the MPE. Is this a product of listening to customer feedback or watching what competitors like Akai, NI etc are doing? I don't see it selling if I'm honest. It's another thing to worry about upgrading when Ableton rolls out updates and it becomes sluggish down the line. It's never going to replace a computer as you'll still need a computer to finish any music you start on this. It's a nice to have, not need to have.
Nice. But standalone option is pricey - the standard one plus a £400 laptop would be more powerful, more storage and run vsts, all max for live stuff and arrangement view.
I totally see your point. But this would be one of the rare occasions where I’d actually pay more to have less so to speak. If I could afford it 😅 I have a Digitakt, and compared to any DAW it’s extremely limited. But I just LOVE making music away from the computer screen.
@@defcreator187 it's all in the mind; the practical difference is you have to plug a computer; click the little "ableton live" icon on it; and then you can use your push 3 non-standalone and never look at the screen again exactly like you would with the standalone, and with vsts on top. also you can actually finish your track with the arranger mode on the computer once you're done noodling. it's really a first world issue. I can see it useful for live performance where removing the computer removes a point of failure but other than that it's a minuscule quality of life difference.
@@blackcoffeenow1733 10th gen i3 windows laptops with 8gb ram 256 SSD start at about £330. i5 and i7 can be bought for £400-£500 from Asus, hp, dell, etc.
Almost wait a few years for them to open things up to justify that asking price. Not including Suite is lame and since the guts are upgradeable I can wait until better internal packages come out along with feature updates.
@@TheCALMInstitute earlier units had the same coating Moog used on the sub phatty , arturia used on the minibrute knobs, novation used on their products etc. it degrades over time and gets sticky. Pretty much all companies no longer use that stuff (Ableton included)
How can you say they look nice. They look tooooo white overly white. When the color of the pad itself shines through it it’s blurry and hazy not clear. So what exactly do you mean when you say it looks nice ? Yea it functions ok for some. For me it’s mid ! But looks …. Nah it looks tooooo washed out. The pads themselves keep me from buying this. If the pads looks the same as the push 2 in terms of brightness and illumination and the clarity of this was the same, I would have bought this already
Gosh when he was playing the drums and the pads were orange- that color was so faint and almost dim as if it was not even lit !!!! They think this is good? My eye hurt every time I look at these pads
This is incredible, but one of the big reasons I have unfortunately shelved the Push 2 is because I can’t edit with it in Arrangement view, and while the fader controls are few steps away, I just end up using a mouse, trackpad or another control surface in general. Am I in the minority on this? ✌️😮
Not in the minority. I still have the Push 1. I tend to use the Push as a scene launcher and for the focus feature and 8 encoders. I was hoping for a Push 3 that had more encoders or maybe 8 encoders and 8 small faders... but that's not going to happen.
Thanks for the great review and update .. Is this another Force killer at double the price? Do you think its better for the extra money you'd spend? ok nvrm.. I need it ...for 2k bananas I'll have to go hungry
In a year ill come back to it.. looks grate but also comes across as needing more attention .. hope firmware updates can fix it . For now its a nice idea
2k USD without Suite 11 just so that you can hold yourself back with a tiny screen, no VSTs, no mouse and an overall cramped and diminished workspace. These guys are smoking better gear than Teenage Engineering!
I hope they will address arrangement view and 3rd party plug-ins in future updates. I think it's possible and they have a track record of adding features to Push after launch. I'm a suite user but feel it does seem silly for someone to dish out $2k and only get Ableton intro, I'd expect Ableton Standard at a minimum. Guess they aren't looking for new users who want to switch from another platform. Seems a missed opportunity. I ordered one anyways. Love the upgradability aspect as well as the MPE.
If you want arrangement view and plugins, use a laptop, yeah? I never understand why people say ‘i would never use a DAW but i want arrangement and song modes in my hardware.’ Pick one. Seems like people want to claim they don’t use a DAW but… … still wanna use a DAW. Get over it. Stop trying to seem cool and make music.
Got it, sounds great but i dont think its truly standaone... Well not if you cannot exprort at least a .wav of your master to a usb flash drive... Maybe even the individual stems as well...i think that would make it truly standaone.
