My primary DAW, since about version 5, has been Ableton. I own an Ableton Push 2 and love the workflow of it.

However, I have intermittently dabbled with Cubase, which was actually the first DAW I used back in the late 1990s. I am now looking to fully migrate over to using Cubase as my primary DAW, having developed the knowledge from my dabbling to a level where I now feel comfortable within Cubase. My main reason for the migration is to utilise the better MIDI editing in Cubase, the better mixing and mastering experience with MixConsole, as well as the musical notation integration, as I want to begin to move to writing music using notation.

However, I do find the Push an excellent, quick method to get ideas into the system and will likely miss this. The couple of questions I have are:

1. is there an easy way to link up Ableton and Cubase to still use the Push to generate quick ideas?​

2. If not, is there anything similar to the Push that does a similar job with Cubase? I am presuming closest thing is Novation's Launchpad Pro perhaps?!​

Alternatively, if anyone is more clued up than me on linking DAWs and so on, feel free to throw your tuppence into the ring

 

I believe you already know about this :

 

Cheers for this. I actually hadn't seen this! Seems good for a lot of the bits, but some elements seem to rely on ReWire though. Wasn't that dropped by latest incarnations of major DAWs after Propellerhead became Reason Studios and dropped development of ReWire (as it was Propellerhead tech, I believe)?

 

Weird that they (I'm guessing) don't have push as MIDI remote yet; would've thought it recog'd it, user script must be out there? Maybe try it w/ shove?

Spoiler

(Prolly in that vid, but cba to watch)

 

Cubase used to have a link feature, I think it was called 'System Link'. That might be able to rewire in. I'd imagine it would capture the MIDI as well historically. That link thing might have been called 'rewire'. Its probably in the Setup page where you set up audio and MIDI hardware... Have a look in the Inputs in Cubase to see if you can rewire from Ableton, which I imagine you'd setup Push to go into Ableton's Inputs, then the Output to Cubase possibly

 

Isn't the Push primarily for launching clips in the Session view? Cubase doesn't have anything remotely like Ableton's workflow in that sense. I suppose Groove Agent would be the best bet, but you would have to chop up your kits into a GA instrument, then make patterns in Groove Agent and then trigger those patterns like you would with a Push. You might want to try asking at Steinberg's actual forums, Im sure there will be a few users that have tried out/are using the Push with it. There seems to be a lot of folks using the two as the thread screaming for a clip launcher is huge nowadays (and lots of folks are still complaining about the lack of Ableton Link as well)

Disclaimer- Im an Ableton user but my main DAW is Cubase 12 Pro, and never used the Push. I don't use the Session view (except as a mixer) and spend all of my time in the Arranger when Im in Ableton and treat it like I would Logic/Cubase only with a really killer ability to individually stretch/warp/manipulate/edit my little blocks of audio/midi directly in the timeline.

 

This Shove definitely sounds interesting, and seems (on the face otf it at least) a bit cleaner than the method in the video!

 

No. The Push2 has scales, drum pads, mixer, step sequencer, sample manipulation (i.e. edit sound length, pitch etc), as well as navigation, remote play, record etc. Clip launcher/sequencer is the least important thing for me as I rarely use clip view.

 

I use PXT general which is only for the Push 1 i believe, but i mainly use it for the scale option anyway.
I mapped a lot of Cubase commands, navigation controls, shortcuts and quick controls to the rest of the push encoders and buttons with the new midi remote mapping that came with Cubase 12. That added a lot of functionality to my push when used with Cubase. I would def look into that...

 

I used to have push2 and shove. It's basically just for GA and nothing fancy, though if you're into finger drumming that's about it.

 

Doesn't it have the scale and chromatic modes as well for playing tonal instruments, as well as the drum pads mode?

 

I can be wrong, but what I remember no, it was basically drum pad mode. It's been over 5 years, so I could remember wrong, also things might be updated, at least Cubendo now has really nice midi implementation. If only my desktop would be up and running I could give you mine Shove. I can try to get it for you later tonight, when I have time. Just need to pull hard drives out for docking.


Edit: I was wrong, there´s been some updates

New in Version 1.3:

• Linear Mode
  
• Control most Shove functionality with buttons on the Push 2

New in Version 1.2:

• Rotary encoders send MIDI CC data, basically the knobs work now.
  
• New drum pad mode that splits the pads into 4 groups of 16 pads each. Perfect for beat production.

New in Version 1.1:

• Octave Up/Down buttons
  
• Use Play and Record buttons if your DAW support MIDI machine control
• Convert Aftertouch to common CC messages
• Choose an alternate MIDI channel for Shove

Features:

• Use In Key or Chromatic mode (in 4ths)
• Play all of the scales included with Push 2
• Switch the touchstrip between pitch bend and modwheel using the Shove GUI or the “Fixed Length” button on the Push 2.
• Change the touchstrip in modwheel mode to send CC1, CC2, CC5, CC7, or CC11
• Select different colors for root notes and the LED buttons
• Control the overall brightness of the pads and buttons

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2022

Huge thanks for the info @Legotron! Super helpful!