6055 ableton live-web-a rev 7.5 x 9.25 ins · 6055 ableton live-web-a rev_7.5 x 9.25 ins 04/12/2013...

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Push

Push is a hardware controller designed by Ableton and Akai to drive Live’s SessionView. Simply connect the Push unit using the provided USB cable to your computerand off you go. No need for setting up Live’s MIDI preferences; this is all handledautomatically. Like the APC, Push minimizes the need for using a mouse or computerkeyboard to create, produce, and perform with the Session View. In many ways,you don’t even need to see Live on your computer screen. This means that youcan access all of Live’s mixer parameters, the Session Grid (clips and Scenes), theBrowser, Devices, Device parameters, and Transport controls using Push. It is acreative and efficient hardware device that can access track parameters, mixerdetails, devices, transport controls, clips, Scenes, tempos, as well as MIDI input,record features, and many useful editing commands, to name a few. That beingsaid, Push is more than a controller for launching clips, Scenes, and navigating theSession View; it’s a musical instrument for playing and performing leads, pads,

Figure A4.1 Push.

6055 ABLETON LIVE-WEB-A rev_7.5 x 9.25 ins 04/12/2013 11:47 Page 39

synths, keys, drums, and more. Simply put, it’s a unique alternative to a traditionalMIDI keyboard controller. Push incorporates pretty much everything you will needto create, produce, and perform with the Session View. The best way to familiarizeyourself with all of these features is to just start exploring, but here are a few ofthe key design features to help you get started.

LayoutThe Push interface is centered around 64 velocity-sensitive multi-color backlit pads.At any one given time, these pads can represent the Session Grid, MIDI notes,Drum Rack Pads, clip loop lengths, or a step sequencer. This all depends upon themode you are working in: Session Mode or Note Mode. Choose a mode by pressingthe Note or Session button on the right side of the Push interface identified bytheir illuminated white name label. At the very top of the 64 main pads are tworows of smaller pads/buttons. The top row is the Selection Control and the bottomrow is the State Control. More on these in a moment.

Above the pad section is the Display/Encoder section, which includes an LCD screenthat displays various Live parameters and details related to devices, tracks, clips,and other content found in the Live Browser. Here you will access a number ofuseful menus for Live and its devices. Just above the LCD are nine encoders (knobs)for navigating the LCD menus and for fine-tuning parameters. You will also usethe Selection and State Control buttons for choosing and selecting parameterswithin the LCD screen. To access specific features, press the buttons in the upperright corner of the Push interface, such as Volume, Pan and Send, Track, Clip, Device,and Browse. Once one of these features/modes has been selected, their associatedparameters and options will be displayed in the LCD and can be acted upon usingthe encoders and/or the Selection/State buttons. Some of the more convenientfunctions of the Selection and State buttons is activating/deactivating tracks/devicesand arming tracks for Session recording.

Surrounding the rest of the Push interface are a number of buttons for executingcommon commands, including playback/recording controls (transport), launchingclips, launching Scenes, quantizing, adjusting the grid resolutions, and evenadding/inserting tracks and effects.

Working with PushUsing Push can be quite a liberating experience. Mouse-less control of Live is veryinspiring, especially with the ability to program beats, play instruments, and perform

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musical ideas on-the-fly using only the hardware interface. That’s not to mentionthe glow of the pad section when your clips are playing back in Session mode oryour MIDI sequences are playing back in Note mode. It’s a lot of fun to buryyourself in its illuminated interface. In many ways, Push streamlines Live’s workflow,simplifying how you make music with the software. By design, certain functionsand processes have been reduced to one-step operations. Although the entireSession View is replicated on Push, you will still find many reasons to use yourcomputer screen for, if nothing else, viewing the Live user interface. You willdefinitely want to keep an eye on the mixer volume unit (VU) meters, access variousclip envelope automations, see global recording in action, and, of course, you’lluse your computer screen to work in the Arrangement View.

When working with Push, Live will display a yellow 8 × 8 box (border) that showswhere Push’s pad section is focusing in the Session Grid. There will also be a similaryellow box around the corresponding eight Scenes on the Master track. Usingthese boxes as the focus, Push’s pad section mirrors the Session Grid, clips, tracks,and Scenes. From there, the concept is very literal. The pads will light up the samecolor as the clips are in Live. They will also light up and/or flash in accordance witha clip’s status (when it’s launched or paused) or when MIDI notes are being played.You’ll see later that they even light up as part of a step sequencer. In the sameway, Clip Slots will light up depending upon their status as well—empty or armedfor recording, etc.

Figure A4.2 The yellow 8 × 8 box outlines clips slots and tracks in the Session View that are currently being controlled by Push.

Since the pad section is only an 8 × 8 grid, you will use the arrow keys in theFocus/Navigation section at the bottom right of Push to adjust the focus of theyellow box—up, down, left, right—by tracks and Scenes in Live. The Focus/Navigation section also includes a Shift button that, when pressed + held, allowsyou to jump the focus up or down by eight Scenes at a time or left or right byeight tracks at a time, as opposed to one at a time when Shift is not pressed. Also,

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when Shift is pressed + held, specific pads will light up red for quickly refocusingto different Scenes or tracks. An orange pad in this situation indicates the currentfocus in the Session Grid.

Next to the Shift button you will find the Select button. If you are working inSession mode, you can press + hold this button, then press a clip to select it withoutlaunching it.

On the left side of the interface you will find the Touch Strip (touch sensitive) usedfor adjusting an instrument’s pitch bend or for selecting Drum Rack pads/banks.When you’re playing an instrument that has pitch bend functionality, try playinga note or launch the instrument’s clip and then manipulate pitch bend in real-timeusing the Touch Strip. It is very well calibrated and you can even create trills byquickly tapping it repeatedly during a sustained note.

To the left of the Touch Strip at the top of the interface is the Tempo Sectioncontaining two knobs and two buttons. You will instantly notice that these knobsare extremely touch sensitive. Use one to adjust the tempo and the other to adjustthe global swing amount of your Set. Use the Tap button to tap tempos with yourfinger into Live to alter the playback speed. Use the other button to activate themetronome.

Below the Tempo section is the Edit Section for quick access to some of the morecommon and frequently used editing commands. This includes the all-importantUndo button. One particularly interesting feature here is the Double button. Whenworking with notes within a MIDI clip, press this button to double the notes (repeatthem), thus effectively doubling the length of the MIDI clip. The Edit Section alsoincludes a Quantize button, which, as expected, will quantize MIDI notes, movingthem to the nearest grid line. Simple, but efficient! To access specific quantizesettings, press + hold the Quantize button.

Below the Edit Section is the Transport Section. Here you will initiate recordingand playback. You will also find buttons to duplicate Scenes, prepare new Scenesfor recording, and arm automation, just as you would in Live’s user interface.

ModesBeyond the standard parameter adjustments, mixer manipulations, variouscommands, and physical control, there are two modes for interfacing with Liveusing Push’s pads that you will use most often: Session Mode and Note Mode. Inaddition, as part of Note mode, there is step-sequencing functionality that worksexclusively with Drum Racks. We’ll get to that in a moment; for now, let’s take acloser look at how the Session and Note mode function.

Figure A4.3 Use the PushFocus/Navigationsection to navigatethe 8 × 8 gridwithin Live.

6055 ABLETON LIVE-WEB-A rev_7.5 x 9.25 ins 04/12/2013 11:47 2

Session ModeSession mode is, for the most part, self-explanatory. It is for launching clips andScenes just like you would do in the Session View with your keyboard and mouse.Each pad represents Clip slots and your clips. They can be launched one at a timeor multiples at a time by pressing as many pads as can physically trigger or bylaunching Scenes. Navigate the Session Grid using the arrows keys to access clipsand tracks that are out of view/focus. Use the transport controls to manage playback,all as you would normally do in Live.

Note ModeNote mode is designed for programming and playing instruments—for workingwith MIDI notes. Here, Push’s pads function as MIDI keys for triggering softwareinstruments such as drums or keyboards, but with a unique key/pad layout. Thekey layout is like nothing you’ve probably ever used. Starting from the bottomleft—using the default scale layout—the first blue pad is the root note. By defaultthis is a C and the scale is a major scale, unless changed via the Scales menu. Toplay up and down a musical scale, follow the pads from left–right starting at theroot (blue pad). Counting the root as the first key, play the first three pads andthen move up to the next row of pads. Play the next three left to right and thenup to the next row until you reach the next blue pad. That completes one octaveof notes for this particular scale type. Each blue pad represents the next octaveabove the previous root—C, in this case. Feel free to experiment with the widevariety of over 20 scale/modes that can be loaded for playback. With each differentscale, the pad layout and colors will shift to represent the new loaded scale madeup of various whole and half step patterns. This is great for locking yourself intoa particular key or mode forcing everything you play to fit into the selected scaleor key. This is especially useful for playing in minor, pentatonic, or blues styles.Feel free to change the root note to accommodate the key you are working in.For any scale selected, white pads are notes that are part of the scale, but are notthe root. Green pads represent notes that are currently being played, includingpads that are equivalents (exact same note) on another pad. Keep in mind thatthere are multiple duplicate notes repeated on other pads, which is why at timesthere is more than one pad lighting up green when you play.

By design, Push’s pads are very sensitive to velocity input, allowing for quickand/or repeated note performances. There is no need to hit them too hard. Playinglightly will allow you to trigger a pad with ease. You can also play one or multiplepads at once for playing chords—harmonic or polyphonic playing styles. All of

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Live’s instruments are played in this manner except for Drum Racks. They havetheir own special layout and performance features with Push.

Drum Racks and Step SequencingWhen a Drum Rack is loaded and selected, Push’s pad section divides itself intothree distinct sections: Drum Rack Pads, Loop Length Controls/Pattern Selection,and Step Sequencer Controls. The bottom left corner of Push’s pad section isassigned to Drum Rack pads for triggering samples and performing beats. You willsee a 4 × 4 section (16 pads) light up yellow. Each pad mirrors and triggers a specificDrum Rack pad as loaded in Live and seen in Device View. There are differentcolors to differentiate pads that contain samples and those that don’t. They willalso light up based on their playback status. Keep in mind that the Touch Strip isused to navigate through the other Drum Rack pads, as seen in Device View.

The bottom right corner of Push’s pads section (4 × 4/16 pads) is dedicated to aDrum Rack’s current clip loop length. Each pad itself represents one bar out of apossible 16 bars total—16-bar clip loop length. Here there are some very uniquefunctions that can be used in inventive ways; but, first, let’s look at the generallayout.

The upper left pad of the Loop Length Control section represents bar 1 of theselected clip (looped) and the subsequent pads, going left to right, represent thenext 15 bars in consecutive order. When a pad is pressed/selected it will light upblue. This selected pad will light up green when the clip is playing back and whenit is paused. Each pad is used to select a specific bar within the clip for playback,recording, and is used to link and loop a specific selection of bars of the clip intoa multi-bar loop. Effectively, you can create a possible 16 unique “sequence-able”one-bar looped patterns, or link any consecutive selection of multi-bar patternsto create up to 16 total bars that loop as a single pattern/clip.

The general workflow is to select one of the pads/bars, then set how many totalbars you desire to loop (selection), and then record or sequence a pattern intothem. Once you’ve pressed a pad and recorded your pattern, click another pad andyou will be able to record or sequence a new pattern as a one-bar loop locatedat the corresponding bar within the clip via the pad that is selected. If you wantto adjust the length of the loop or include a larger selection, press + hold on theinitial pad/bar to be sequenced, then with another finger press the next pad orany pad further away from the first going left or right to achieve the desired numberof bars (length). See in the example how there are four bars in view. Each bar canbe selected as a one-bar loop or as a multi-bar loop. Select one pad with MIDI

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events to play back a single section of a loop or select multiple pads for multi-barloops.

Up to this point we’ve been looking at creating beats by loop recording with Pushusing the Drum Rack Pads for MIDI input. This can also be accomplished using theStep Sequencer section directly. This section uses the remaining 32 pads (8 × 4section) above the two sections we’ve just been discussing. The step sequencerworks in tandem with Push’s Scene/Grid section that runs vertical to the pad sectionon the right side of Push’s interface. You will see there that each Scene/Grid buttonnow has a grid resolution illuminated (i.e., 1/4, 1/8, etc.). Use this to control theresolution of the step sequencer.

When a Drum Rack clip is in playback, the step sequencer pads will light up greenin succession, running from left to right in sync with the tempo of your Set. Thegreen lights will flash at a pace based on the selected grid resolution. For example,when 1/4 is selected, only four pads will flash in order from left to right and theywill flash at a quarter note tempo (four times per bar). When 1/8 is selected, eightpads will light in succession and they will flash and sync at the eight note. Therest of the resolutions follow suit; with the higher the resolution, the more padswill light up to represent the subdivisions. You will also notice that certain padsin the Step Sequencer section will be blue—as long as you have MIDI notesprogrammed—representing the programmed pattern of the Drum Pad currentlyselected on the Drum Rack. To view other programmed notes, press + hold theSelect button, then press the Drum Rack pad on Push that you wish to work with.In the same way, you can sequence patterns by adding notes in the Step Sequencersection by pressing pads rather them by recording them as MIDI notes via theDrum Pad Section. Simply select the pad you want to input a pattern on using the

Figure A4.4 Multi-bar loop.

Push


Select button, as mentioned, then press the pad in the Step Sequencer sectionthat you wish to be triggered during playback based on the beat/grid.

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Figure A4.5 Push rear panel.

There are many more useful features and ways to use Push to create, produce,and perform with Live’s Session View—these are just a few. This Scene has laidout a basic foundation for you to get started; now it’s up to you to dive in and seewhat you can come up with.


6055 ableton live-web-a rev 7.5 x 9.25 ins · 6055 ableton live-web-a rev_7.5 x 9.25 ins 04/12/2013...

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