Since I also use Live sometimes I of course watched all “reviews” that were released on launch day. Problem was all reviews showed exactly the same (we’ll come to that). So I had to get one myself to really see what it is capable of. Especially since my main use case is with my midi devices and no review showed more than the basics. Which is: connecting one device at a time or a max of two.
It’s a well built device with some real weight to it. And it seems they didn’t cover it in the rubber you will stick to in a couple of years. I love the replaceable hardware (like I’ve said already) and wish inMusic would take that route as well. In controller mode things work as expected. Except for the main volume knob which didn’t do anything. Weird. But I was solely interested in standalone mode.
And now I come to the part why all reviews show the same … it’s really all the Push can do in standalone at the moment.
Okay it recognizes midi interfaces but that’s about it. No renaming, no sending of program change or CC messages without using a separate M4L device. Which you either have to find or build. I mean you can build it in the first place which is a bonus. But PC and CC feels like an MVP feature tbh.
But this is also not as easy as it should be. If your m4l device is not mapped for a push, then you don’t have any controls. Grouping the device so you can assign macros is also not that simple since the group does not contain the devices itself but only absolute path references to the grouped devices. And that paths stay the same when you copy the group to the Push. So the Push won’t find your devices. What works better is to edit the device and add a “live.banks” object and map the controls to banks. That works really well. But you have to edit the m4l device itself and if there is a new version of that device you have to do that again. I also have pre-made groups and device configs (midi channel, audio in, etc) for all of my external gear. So I copied those devices and groups over to the Push. Didn’t work at all. And why would it since audio/midi config is not shared across Live and the Push standalone.
What’s also not working yet is naming anything. You can enter the password for your wifi. But this it. You cannot name clips, tracks, projects, anything. Projects have auto naming and everything else gets the name of the device or patch. So if you have a midi interface attached where every channel is called “awesome midi interface 1”, “awesome midi interface 2”, aso, then your clips will all be named “awesome mid” (because there’s not enough room to show the full name) and you have to remember where you put things.
Switching between Standalone and Controller mode is kinda slow. I didn’t time it but it takes a while. Like a minute? So if you need to switch a couple of times because you debug a m4l device or just need to copy things over you might be there for a while.
I am not able to use my Blofeld with it because the Push creates some kind of midi loop that crashes the Blo and also the Push. It also does not work with Audio interfaces (yet?).
And my personal opinion: MPE is pretty nice but not as groundbreaking as they tell you. At least not with the small pads. Maybe a Roli is the better option here?
After switching the Push on for the first time I tried to upgrade and it took me 14 tries until it successfully upgraded. In general it’s pretty buggy still. It crashes a lot for no reason or external devices won’t work until you re-plug them several times.
What I really love though is how well note editing works with the jog and the buttons. inMusic should steel that. It’s so much nicer than using the touchscreen.
My personal verdict: It’s a nice device with a good build quality and the replaceable hardware open up a world of 3rd party mods we cannot imagine just yet. But the feature set is so rudimentary in standalone that it feels more like a PoC or a toy feature wise at the moment than even a beta. It’s not like “arranger” is missing and I could just be creative in standalone and arrange in the box. It doesn’t even deliver the basics (for me) in standalone yet so I can get to that “let’s arrange in the box” in the first place.
The Push is currently one thing imho: a whole lot of potential that once matured might be the killer.
Currently it’s yet another of those prematurely released products. In Germany we have a saying for things like this “banana products” … because it ripens at the customer’s.
We customers might feel that the company cares for us because they release so many updates. When all they do is play catch-up for the first couple of years.
I am sending it back and wait for another 1 or 2 years and see if it has matured enough. At the moment I would only recommend the controller version and then only to the people where Live is the main driver and that do not already own a Push 2 or “need” MPE. But as I’ve said. A Roli might be the better option for MPE
If you need a Live-like standalone with a full feature set you might as well just get the Force. And save you 1.5k at least for now.
Edit: added some things I forgot to mention.