Push 2 vs. Elektron gear

The Lounge Other Gear
163

[quote=“” Callofthevoid""]
One of these companies really needs to make a unit that nails both sides and can do standalone as well as it does daw integration and easily switch between the two. Everyone would be happy then and they’d sell a ton. Possibly something like the new Microsoft surface books. So when it’s attached to ableton/daw it uses the extra computer CPU. But then there’s also CPU inside the hardware that allows for you to use it standalone. Maybe some kind of one-click ‘freeze as necessary for standalone’ save option for projects. So all soft synths and audio fx tracks were frozen to reduce CPU requirements and enable the project to be played standalone at shows or for sofa jamming etc. Would take some fine tuning and a lot of planning but it seems like no company is going to put full laptop power inside hardware due to the cost/limiting target market. Maybe there’s a compromise somewhere that would work…
[/quote]

Mark my words: there will be an Ableton Touch by 2017. I figure by that point there will be enough power and appeal to develop something for the iPad Pro 2/Surface that maybe won’t be as full featured as Live, but flexible enough to act as an intermediary device.

It’s probably not going to come from Elektron-there’s just too much for them in designing purpose-driven devices over the everyman utility of a DAW, but maybe as consumers we can help guide them towards developing tools for better integration with such ideas in future products. Ableton Link is a good one to start with-how killer would it be to have the next Elektron device be able to sync with your DAW or iOS device over wifi? And while I’m not suggesting any kind of merger between the companies, I could see great things coming from thinking about bridging the gap if both companies were to collaborate.

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Ableton is kinda of already moving in that direction. Ableton now allows you to sync to wifi or bluetooth devices. Not sure how its done but theres an example on the ableton website. It’s called link.

165

[quote=““AdamJay””]

Certainly! And I’ll be updating them with bank names once the Isotonik controller editor is updated for Push 2.[/quote]
Adam, you have both Reaktor 6 and Monark.
What are the differences between Monark blocks and full Monark version?

166

Certainly! And I’ll be updating them with bank names once the Isotonik controller editor is updated for Push 2.[/quote]
Adam, you have both Reaktor 6 and Monark.
What are the differences between Monark blocks and full Monark version? [/quote]
Monark is a full Minimoog Model D emulation.
Monarch Blocks in R6 gives you each component as a piece-part so that you can use it with other modules.

Perhaps you just like the tone of the Monark Oscillator but want to use a wild comb filter with it instead. Or perhaps you like that Minimoog ladder filter and want to strap it onto a wavetable oscillator. Blocks makes this possible.
Also, aside from signal flow, Blocks gives you more modulation possibilities.

And, if you have enough CPU to play it, you can build a polyphonic Monark with Blocks.

167

Well, I’m one of these people using ancient samplers and I don’t feel stuck in the ravages of time. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m sure you meant that as an offhand remark, but a sampler, for me, is about sound. Nothing else. This includes the artifacts created when pitch shifting.

I can’t replicate the sound of a vocal at 20 Khz on an Emax, for example, I just can’t. And it fits into my music perfectly.

I treat hardware samplers as color boxes, and magical outcome boxes. The OT, too, has a color, and I’ve grown to like it.

Having said that, I’m pretty interested in a new laptop + Push 2 set up. I’m not lacking color at the moment, I’m lacking DAW ergonomic ease.[/quote]
It’s just my opinion and experience, i do a lot of foley & field recording and use that for my sample library and i don’t want color from a sampler. If i wan’t color it would be from outboard processing so i have control over it. Also the workflow is very important for editing a lot of samples!

How about your workflow on samples with those ancient samplers and Octatrack?

168

Ah man you’re lucky to have a job like that :slight_smile:

But you missed my point where I said that a hardware sampler for me is ALL about color. They aren’t recording devices or hard drives that play audio triggered by a MIDI sequencer.

So, I have a lot of boutique outboard, more than most, but my outboard FX, pres, comps, desks etc… don’t give me, yet again, the effect of a pitch shifted vocal at 20 Khz on an Emax, for example.

I know that color. I know when I want it because I hear how it will perfectly fit into a mix. So I get it.

Sometimes I’ll start a song on a sampler. I’ll be looking for accidental happenings created through spontaneous sampling. I’ll be looking for a musical sound created, usually, through the tonal dynamics of low bit rate, pitch shifted, aliasing dynamic audio.

Then I’ll clean that in DAW just as I would a synth or a vocal. It doesn’t go back to the sampler, it’s been treated by the sampler, it’s done. Now it gets arranged and edited in my laptop. Simple stuff…

Samplers are outboard for me. Things get routed to them. I think you think about samplers as recording devices. For me, they’re not. They are color and vibe units. Essentially, they are outboard audio processing units for specific effects.

As for work flow, I push record, I hit a key, I print the audio in DAW. It’s pretty simple…

For me, samplers are hardly ever used as playback devices to be sequenced by an OT, for example. They are audio processing units for color and vibe, and texture, using input, bit and sample rate reduction, AD/DA conversion, interpolation, and output amplifier stages in a unique way that my software will not successfully emulate.

Hope that helps broaden your mind.

169

Hey Kotare - would love to hear your opinion on TAL Sampler - I too am a big hardware sampler fan - but for on the go with the lappie I’m loving TAL - routed into SoundToys Rack (Black Friday bargain of the year IMO) it just blows my mind - download the demo. Maybe this should be a new thread :slight_smile:

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I’ll be happy to give it a go!

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I would also love to hear Kotare’s opinion on TAL Sampler. I bought it and have been using it on dub techno chord duties. To my ears it sounds wonderful and lush, especially when messing with the DAC modeling, filters, and mod matrix.
.

.

I’m no old-school sampler veteran. I don’t know an Akai from an Emu, but I know my ears like that warm crunchy vibe that the TAL Sampler gets me for $45 (bought on sale - it’s now $60) and the convenience of having it right inside my DAW. Also came with a huge Hollowsun sample library of vintage gear.

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:+1:

Will do so boss!

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I don’t understand some of the critic here guys, as far as the computer goes. The “black hole of options” doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me. know what you are going for before you start. Having options has never been a problem for me.

Getting away from a 27 inch monitor to look at a 2.5 inch A4 screen is a bad idea for me.So I am grateful for the OB editor, i can see what is going on in my A4. With a Push 2 and 10 analog synths, I am very happy with my setup.

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Agreed. Options rule. It’s down to the user what they do with em. And I don’t think anyone would ever complain if OT shipped with larger memory cards for more samples to choose from, had more tracks, polyphony, a larger screen or if it had more effects etc. It’s kind of a weird stance that people seem to bust out just to win arguments sometimes. Saying that, owning OT for a few months has definately helped reprogram my brain as far as focus goes. But it’s a transferable thing. My daw work has benefited from it a lot. Mixes and sound design are way better all of a sudden. Daw is like a wonderland of options now where as before I was in kind of a slump with it. I was productive but kind of hesitant about screwing stuff up and unhappy with the sound of things and not finishing stuff. All good now :slight_smile:

175

That’s truly great. I envy you, I really do. But my brain works differently.

See the following for some studies of this sort of thing…
.

.

Having too many options can seem stressful or overwhelming to some people.
In the end, I’m going with a hybrid approach.

On days when I have less time/energy/focus I’ll switch on a small hardware setup and jam or work on sound design. On days when I have more time/energy/focus I’ll boot up the computer and dive into Live/Push 2/plug-ins.

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perhaps the ‘Vs. Elektron’ title was likely to cause a defensive reaction.
I personally, can see Elektron gear working along side Push2/Live very nicely, and can also understand why some would like to keep it all hardware.

anyway, this and the similar AR thread, have thrown up some very interesting points, in particular its been fascinating to read, how some are creating an ‘Elektron like’ setup with Live/Push2…

perhaps this would be an interesting topic to explore (separately from the whole ‘Vs.’ debate) how can you set up Live/Push2 to get a hardware like environment for jamming? what VSts etc do you use?
I know Ive some ideas, and things I could share in this area if there is interest.

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thetechnobear,
I plan to start a thread on how to setup Push 2 for a Monomachine like synthesis experience with VSTs after the isotonik controller editor is updated for Push 2.

So far I’ve set up Monark and Discovery Pro with maps that keep common parameters in the same positions in common banks, and it only took a few days to develop the muscle memory I had with Monomachine.
I’ll look to remap Operator for FM purposes, and also some of the Plogue chip tune plugins for SID and vowel flavor.

178

i keep checking isotoniks site for an update on when this thing will be ready. my templates are really not very intuitive, and they all differ, which as you implied in a previous post, kinda defeats the purpose. i have diva, massive, and sem v mapped out but i still find myself mousing about. operator, however, is rad. hardly ever look up at the computer screen.

179

I think this is fantastic idea and I would subscribe immediately. I’m very interested in this, obviously. I admit, I spend way too much time trying to find the perfect combo of gear. I guess I don’t have much loyalty to a particular brand. I am after a certain sound, a smooth fun workflow, and productivity gains. They are all just tools to me. If something comes along and “beats” something in my current setup, I have no problem replacing it.
I guess it just happens we are on a particular manufacturer’s user site. You’re right - no surprise if feathers get a bit ruffled when questioning the value of one approach vs. another, or one set of tools vs. another.

180

[quote=“” Bwax""]
That’s truly great. I envy you, I really do. But my brain works differently.

See the following for some studies of this sort of thing…

[/quote]

I’ve been aware of that research on simplicity for some time, but when I entered the electronic music instruments world, and inevitably encountered the notion of “workflow,” a term totally foreign to the acoustic instrument domain I had lived in before, I found myself wrestling with the findings of that research more than ever before.

In my intense love for Teenage Engineering’s OP-1, I find piercing truth in that research, extolling the virtue of simplicity and thoughtful, intentional limitation. But in Push 2, I see something I may actually love even more. It has partly to do with a fluid (or convenient) workflow, partly to do with unlimited access to sounds and effects, and other things as well. But that is all contradictory to why I love the OP-1, and the very illuminating research on how our brains function.

I’ve been trying to figure out if it is the simple contradiction that it seems to be or if there is a finer nuance—why I can love something that is low on options and another that promises the world, why some people actually prefer infinite options and power and if the two can co-exist within the same person.

In the TED link, there is a commenter who says something I think may make sense of this:

"This is an interesting problem but the speaker completely missed the mark! No, it is not about expectations.

What is the relationship between choice and happiness then? Simply: If the difference in value between one choice and another is greater than the time we spend to discover it, choices increase happiness. If it is less, then it decreases happiness."

I am willing to put up with the oppressive options—15 filters, 30 effects, 30 waveforms—offered in the software instruments world that I don’t like, because I’ve decided that I love the advantages it brings even more. And so it is desirable to me still. There is value there for me.

Important to note though. Many, or maybe all, of Ableton Live’s instruments are not born of the same thoughtless design of its peers, offering infinite options. Their instruments, including the 3 new synths in 9.5, have few parameters and the same simple, clean UI, absent of any skeuomorphism. I look forward to really learning their instruments before I decide I need to use 3rd party instruments, which usually do assault you with unlimited options. And a hideous UI. Wondrously, with Push 2, it doesn’t matter how poorly designed the UI is as you can just submerge yourself in the Push’s gorgeous screen and its gorgeous typography.

That is the wisest path. There are brands I have great affection for, but I have no brand loyalty. It’s not a feeling to be wasted on products; I reserve it for people, good people.

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After spending the majority of the weekend with the Push 2, I can honestly say it has exceeded my expectations and swapping a Push 2 setup for the OT was a smart decision, based on my work habits.

I was totally content to spend the weekend just fiddling around and learning the new controller. But that isn’t what happened. I wrote the foundation for a track over a day or so. I was able to lay down a lot of ideas very quickly inside the session mode. I absolutely love the sample editing capabilities of the new simpler. Instead of burning out with over tweaking a sample, I just would jump to a session track and lay down alternations. The step sequencer is fun to use, slice mode is also awesome. The thing is a great sketchpad. I think the productivity was also in part because I didn’t look at the computer screen more than a few times in a four hour period, which was a big allure of the Elektron boxes for me.

However, once I recorded all my tracks into the arrange view I realized how much I still dislike the arrangement view in Ableton. I batch exported all my tracks into Cubase. Phew, much better. I am now well into the song, and I quite like the shape it is taking.

I never did quite click with previous versions of Ableton, but that was because I think I was a traditional Logic/Cubase user that liked to arrange tracks linearly. Push 2 has sort of presented workflow techniques in Ableton that I never really did fully explore, but now I am really enjoying, enhanced by a tactile experience that doesn’t fully distract with gmail, facebook, and everything else your computer does.

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Good to hear as I am just about to sell my Octatrack and buy a Push 2

Not that impressed with the resale value of the Octatrack to be honest.

Bought it about 8 months ago, looks like I am going to lose about $550 AUD on it.

I really wanted to make the Octatrack work, and I actually had it on eBay once before and removed it. In the end it was not immediate enough and I started to feel that its real strengths were in live performance.
Great machine though.