Don’t settle. These Max for Live creations can open up tons of extra ways of working with Ableton Live, including the deep Push customization you’ve always wanted.
Push Hacker 2
First up, for Push 2 and Push 1 owners, there’s the incredible Push Hacker 2. It’s really the advanced Push editor Ableton forgot.
Built by M4L device maker Soundmanufacturer in collaboration with French audio tutorial platform Fastlane, Push Hacker 2 is a wonder.
First, there are a ton of mapping/selection features that you’ve been missing. (And yes, that includes the main thing that has always stumped me using Push live, which is dealing with selecting tracks and instruments.)
So you get the ability to:
- Move the clip grid
- Select individual tracks
- Solo tracks
- Record and play clips
It gets deeper from there, because you can choose any function and assign it it to a pad, encoder, or the touchstrip on Push. Those features are normally locked.
You can also assign up to eight parameters onto individual pads, with range and invert.
And you can draw curves and map up to four individual parameters on both encoders and pads.
The upshot of all this – you can fast-trigger with pads, or dial in settings on encoders, with endless, obsessive customization for how everything behaves and how macros are assigned. Some of that is probably overkill for a lot of people, but just the ability to have an option when you run up against Push’s limits is already great.
They’ve sent along some great tutorials, too – these are in English, though Francophones will find native stuff on the Fastlane site, too.
12€ / US$16 plus VAT where applicable.
https://www.soundmanufacture.net/pushhacker.html
By the way, if you know your Max for Live stuff and the phrase “hacking Push” and clip behavior made you think of ClyphX Pro – you can combine them, as Belibat does in this set:
For those who don’t know, Isotonik publish M4L Devices that let you hack just about anything. ClyphX Pro isn’t quite Live 11 ready yet, but it is basically the scripting language we always wished Live had – with tons of abilities to customize Actions, restore/recall of settings, and more:
I do hope Ableton are watching, because just as it’s great to mod Live however you like, it’d be great to see some of the smartest features here make their way into Live and Push natively.
But while we’re modding, I couldn’t resist:
LoadeR for plug-ins and Devices
Also in my inbox today is a new device called LoadR. The idea: load any native Ableton Device or third-party plug-in on demand without digging into the Browser. So, got a favorite reverb? Give it a shortcut. Searching for something? Give it a shortcut.
You can use both keyboard shortcuts and (via Cycling ’74’s Mira app) touchscreens.
I love this stuff, as it’s just the sort of hacking that could get you jamming and free up some workflows.
3€ or pay what you will, and there’s a free lite version, too:
Thanks, Valiumdupeuple!