I am on the verge of buying a Push 1. Mainly cos they can be picked up fairly cheap compared to the Push 2, which is out of budget.

I make electro house and I make orchestral film score type music. I have an 88 key MIDI keyboard for using with Kontakt but looking for something to programme in beats and parts for more sequenced bits for the house music.

How is the Push for writing melodies, chords etc? I am convinced about it being a great beat designer but just looking for some thoughts on the tonal and melodic parts of music before I pull the trigger on it.

 

I'm sure you will compose differently with the Push, and get some ideas and riffs you wouldn't have gotten playing a conventional keyboard.
It's certainly worth a try, if only for the different approach to control and chord playing.
Finally, however, I went back to my 88-key master keyboard.
Why?
I found that I can play drum parts much more precisely when it comes to velocity levels, and playing chords on a real keyboard is still the most immediate experience for me.
I'd rather see Push as a great h/w controller for use with Ableton Live.

 

It's a really great way to have a more in the box experience for sure. As for being able to do melodies and chords and such it's a whole different ball game I usually prefer to write melodic parts on the keyboard but it might be for you it really all just depends what you would feel most comfortable with.

 

I say go for it though since the price drop makes it more than worth it in my opinion and the 9.5 update gives it a lot more things to work with. =)

 

im thinking about selling my push. where are you located?

 

Im selling my push1. I live in the UK.

 

In answer to you question. Its really good. but you still need a keyboard. I think it takes things on in another way, you will get different results. I would sometimes play chords on push with the scale, & then also play chords on keyboard with my right hand. For some reason i would get nice chord progressions like this.

 

In the UK. You?

 

I am in UK too. Feel free to PM me about it!

 

I am primarily a guitarist, bassist and drummer, though play some basic self taught piano chords. It is the scale locking thing on the Push I am liking the look of as it could potentially make writing melodies easier for me, personally.

 

good question.. I like your approach rosko. I was wondering the same about an akai apc40. more for the different layout though. and with no intention of using the diatonics in the push, does ableton handle well the focusing on two types of controllers? I mean the trigger pad push and the keyboard style are both active under your fingers?

edit, to better clarify my question when you have keyboard and trigger pad (push or other), will ableton focus both controllers to the same item?

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2016

Don't expect too much of the push-scale thingy. If you set it to a scale, you can only play the 8 root notes in that scale. No diminished 7th or all the fun stuff like that. That's pretty boring. You can switch push to chromatic mode but if you have a regular old keyboard at hand there's no use for that chromatic mode because the layout is confusing as hell.
I use my push for the drums and to turn the knobs.

 

Something I've said a lot, and may as well repeat, is the Push is good for people who aren't good at keyboard. Particularly people like myself, who play guitar but not keyboard. The layout of Push's chromatic mode is almost exactly like a guitar if you treat rows like strings and columns like frets. So for me it's the ideal tool for writing melodies. If you're competent with a keyboard, there's probably not much point to using the Push for melodies unless you want to put it in in-key mode and play chords with ridiculous ease.

IMO the Push's greatest quality is workflow. Picking out plugins and devices without having to use your mouse to navigate away from where you are, tweaking parameters without having to map anything (for the most part), parameter locking with the step sequencer, brainstorming riffs in session mode just by pressing the "New" button to copy all of a scene minus your selected track... etc etc etc. To me it's practically indispensible