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Been making electronic music for well over a decade, but always in the classic DAW arrangement view, at most using MIDI keyboards in terms of haptic input devic

Been making electronic music for well over a decade, but always in the classic DAW arrangement view, at most using MIDI keyboards in terms of haptic input devices but relying on mouse and keyboard 95% of the time. I look at devices like Push or Maschine and my immediate thought is how tedious it seems to get anything done with them. I find the different approaches to manifesting musical ideas endlessly fascinating.

jacquesm 3y ago
It's a 'barrier to entry' thing. To get the kind of skills that you need for good keyboard work is a lifetime of dedication, but once you've got it it is very quick and easy compared to something like the Ableton Push and other such devices. But that initial barrier is such that a beginner will be able to get much more mileage out of such a device. They might never even run into the limitations though it may limit the musical space that they can work in on some dimensions. In the end what matters is the result, not so much how it was reached.
- laratied 3y ago
  I think it is also a huge issue that there is no methodology or virtuoso pieces to aim at in order to spend hours a day practicing on the Push. I grew up playing classical guitar and use to own a Ztar and this was the issue I had with it. My guitar chops transferred to it pretty nicely but it is still its own instrument. Own instrument with no music or practice material, no transcriptions of anything other than what you come up with yourself. How far would anyone get learning piano if they had to also come up with the music and practice material outside of drilling scales concurrently with learning the instrument itself? It would just be a nearly useless gimmicky instrument.
  - adriand 3y ago
    It's a fair point, but it's not a completely barren landscape. Melodics (https://melodics.com/ https://melodics.com/) is one platform aimed at developing pad controller skills. For a much more rigorous and far less marketing-driven approach, I really recommend Quest for Groove (https://questforgroove.com/ https://questforgroove.com/) which develops a lot more than just the physical dexterity required to drum on one of these things. As with anything, it does just take practice, and these instruments are so much easier to play than something like a guitar that just noodling around will also get you places.
cageface 3y ago
I find grid based systems like Ableton great for getting short loops together but making the jump to a finished track is a lot harder. I have folders full of sketches I've built up in years of using it but very few things I'd call finished.
- siquick 3y ago
  What I do to get over this - as soon as I have an 8+ bar loop i like i paste it into Arrangement view so it fills up a 5 minute song, and then I start taking parts out. Gives me a basic “song” to start fleshing out.
  - jcpst 3y ago
    I do something similar to this too- sometimes making 2-4 scenes and pasting some basic form in the arrangement. From there, I see it the way a sculptor might see a slab of rock, and start “carving out” the song.
- bodge5000 3y ago
  Funny enough I always found the opposite, I find Renoise great for making short loops but putting them together into a full track to be a pain, and then visa-versa with Ableton and software like it. The OP-1 is where I've found this to be especially the case, incredibly easy to make a loop on but never managed to make a full song on it, aside from using mutes/effects on a single loop to stretch it out into a full track
  - cageface 3y ago
    I found the OP 1 especially difficult for this. I never got used to the tape recording workflow. It's a pity because I really liked it otherwise.
capableweb 3y ago
As someone in a similar position as yourself, but who been using hardware instead of software like DAWs, I find myself having a similar feeling to people who use keyboard/mouse to make music like that, seems really tedious compared to the workflow I have outside of the computer. But most importantly, I agree with your very last sentence, we're all different and what's optimal differs a lot from person to person.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Coming up with a riff/melody is much faster on an actual instrument (if you know how to use it). Turning that melody into a piece of good music is much faster in a DAW (if you know how to use it). If you lack skill in DAW usage or you're not making "finished" music, being instrument only is a legit approach, but learning and integrating a DAW would help you make better music.
bandrami 3y ago
When I'm doing sample-based sequencing I find the Push 2 nearly perfect, but when I'm composing with midi I find it nearly intolerable. It kind of has a "What kind of EDM would you like to make today?" view of the world. But in the workflows it's designed for the Push series is brilliant.
ablation 3y ago
A heavy Push 2 user here. Completely redefined my music creation workflow in Ableton. For me, it's a genuinely enjoyable way of turning ideas into music and has made the process incredibly more 'open' for me.
sschueller 3y ago
It's a trade off. I prefer to be DAWless when I am in "discovery mode" or just want to jam around like with a regular instrument. However when I am ready to assembly everything into a song I prefer to use a DAW.
junon 3y ago
Agreed. I have a few similar boards here at home and rarely use them. They're a pain to set up, you spend more time configuring channels and whatnot, and half the time, the DAW has problems even seeing them given the abysmal state of MIDI driver management on e.g. Windows.
sublinear 3y ago
I'm just an amateur of a similar amount of time, but I think it comes down to what inspires someone to create whether it's a physical interface or a graphical one. A little inspiration can overcome a lot of inefficiency. I prefer a tracker, but still want something like a DAW. Sunvox is pretty great for quickly roughing out an idea. I use my MIDI keyboard for building patterns. I'll record the notes for a pattern and then play it back in a loop to adjust the rest of the parameters. I use the other mapped controls live until I have what I want. I prefer having tons of physical controls ready to go for this part. I have a few project files I always start from and their corresponding templates are saved into the keyboard. Then I go into audacity and record my guitar, voice, or whatever else to a click and import them into the timeline. I think it's more important to have your workflow down than be distracted by new shiny toys.
notjustanymike 3y ago
Do you have any thoughts on the ROLI?
nkozyra 3y ago
I don't love working with them all the time (I use the original MPC Live for, well, live shows), but you can create whatever you want on a computer, in a DAW / whatever and then work on it separately when you want to be untethered from your computer.
yieldcrv 3y ago
Hm after formal education from producers and audio engineers for some EDM artists I respect, I think the Push 2 is the best re-build of music sequencing since the 1600s, comparing it directly to invention of sheet music and an improvement over that, with the addition of being able to input and execute the sounds in a very efficient way. But with its own learning curve. But one of the main things that saves time is how loud or soft each note is. Doing this in a DAW is far more tedious, neglected completely for just repetitive electronic music, or requires scripting to provide random-ish entropy to each note. Whereas with a Push its based on how hard you press. To add some objectivity to this, I would say its more about the learning curve, I couldn't expect someone to pick up a Push and get anywhere fast with it. But I think people familiar with a keyboard and mouse would benefit from a Push and accelerate their work.

jacquesm 3y ago

It's a 'barrier to entry' thing. To get the kind of skills that you need for good keyboard work is a lifetime of dedication, but once you've got it it is very quick and easy compared to something like the Ableton Push and other such devices. But that initial barrier is such that a beginner will be able to get much more mileage out of such a device. They might never even run into the limitations though it may limit the musical space that they can work in on some dimensions. In the end what matters is the result, not so much how it was reached.

laratied 3y ago
I think it is also a huge issue that there is no methodology or virtuoso pieces to aim at in order to spend hours a day practicing on the Push. I grew up playing classical guitar and use to own a Ztar and this was the issue I had with it. My guitar chops transferred to it pretty nicely but it is still its own instrument. Own instrument with no music or practice material, no transcriptions of anything other than what you come up with yourself. How far would anyone get learning piano if they had to also come up with the music and practice material outside of drilling scales concurrently with learning the instrument itself? It would just be a nearly useless gimmicky instrument.
- adriand 3y ago
  It's a fair point, but it's not a completely barren landscape. Melodics (https://melodics.com/ https://melodics.com/) is one platform aimed at developing pad controller skills. For a much more rigorous and far less marketing-driven approach, I really recommend Quest for Groove (https://questforgroove.com/ https://questforgroove.com/) which develops a lot more than just the physical dexterity required to drum on one of these things. As with anything, it does just take practice, and these instruments are so much easier to play than something like a guitar that just noodling around will also get you places.

cageface 3y ago

I find grid based systems like Ableton great for getting short loops together but making the jump to a finished track is a lot harder. I have folders full of sketches I've built up in years of using it but very few things I'd call finished.

siquick 3y ago
What I do to get over this - as soon as I have an 8+ bar loop i like i paste it into Arrangement view so it fills up a 5 minute song, and then I start taking parts out. Gives me a basic “song” to start fleshing out.
- jcpst 3y ago
  I do something similar to this too- sometimes making 2-4 scenes and pasting some basic form in the arrangement. From there, I see it the way a sculptor might see a slab of rock, and start “carving out” the song.
bodge5000 3y ago
Funny enough I always found the opposite, I find Renoise great for making short loops but putting them together into a full track to be a pain, and then visa-versa with Ableton and software like it. The OP-1 is where I've found this to be especially the case, incredibly easy to make a loop on but never managed to make a full song on it, aside from using mutes/effects on a single loop to stretch it out into a full track
- cageface 3y ago
  I found the OP 1 especially difficult for this. I never got used to the tape recording workflow. It's a pity because I really liked it otherwise.

capableweb 3y ago

As someone in a similar position as yourself, but who been using hardware instead of software like DAWs, I find myself having a similar feeling to people who use keyboard/mouse to make music like that, seems really tedious compared to the workflow I have outside of the computer. But most importantly, I agree with your very last sentence, we're all different and what's optimal differs a lot from person to person.

CuriouslyC 3y ago
Coming up with a riff/melody is much faster on an actual instrument (if you know how to use it). Turning that melody into a piece of good music is much faster in a DAW (if you know how to use it). If you lack skill in DAW usage or you're not making "finished" music, being instrument only is a legit approach, but learning and integrating a DAW would help you make better music.

bandrami 3y ago

When I'm doing sample-based sequencing I find the Push 2 nearly perfect, but when I'm composing with midi I find it nearly intolerable. It kind of has a "What kind of EDM would you like to make today?" view of the world. But in the workflows it's designed for the Push series is brilliant.

ablation 3y ago

A heavy Push 2 user here. Completely redefined my music creation workflow in Ableton. For me, it's a genuinely enjoyable way of turning ideas into music and has made the process incredibly more 'open' for me.

sschueller 3y ago

It's a trade off. I prefer to be DAWless when I am in "discovery mode" or just want to jam around like with a regular instrument. However when I am ready to assembly everything into a song I prefer to use a DAW.

junon 3y ago

Agreed. I have a few similar boards here at home and rarely use them. They're a pain to set up, you spend more time configuring channels and whatnot, and half the time, the DAW has problems even seeing them given the abysmal state of MIDI driver management on e.g. Windows.

sublinear 3y ago

I'm just an amateur of a similar amount of time, but I think it comes down to what inspires someone to create whether it's a physical interface or a graphical one. A little inspiration can overcome a lot of inefficiency. I prefer a tracker, but still want something like a DAW. Sunvox is pretty great for quickly roughing out an idea. I use my MIDI keyboard for building patterns. I'll record the notes for a pattern and then play it back in a loop to adjust the rest of the parameters. I use the other mapped controls live until I have what I want. I prefer having tons of physical controls ready to go for this part. I have a few project files I always start from and their corresponding templates are saved into the keyboard. Then I go into audacity and record my guitar, voice, or whatever else to a click and import them into the timeline. I think it's more important to have your workflow down than be distracted by new shiny toys.

notjustanymike 3y ago

Do you have any thoughts on the ROLI?

nkozyra 3y ago

I don't love working with them all the time (I use the original MPC Live for, well, live shows), but you can create whatever you want on a computer, in a DAW / whatever and then work on it separately when you want to be untethered from your computer.

yieldcrv 3y ago

Hm after formal education from producers and audio engineers for some EDM artists I respect, I think the Push 2 is the best re-build of music sequencing since the 1600s, comparing it directly to invention of sheet music and an improvement over that, with the addition of being able to input and execute the sounds in a very efficient way. But with its own learning curve. But one of the main things that saves time is how loud or soft each note is. Doing this in a DAW is far more tedious, neglected completely for just repetitive electronic music, or requires scripting to provide random-ish entropy to each note. Whereas with a Push its based on how hard you press. To add some objectivity to this, I would say its more about the learning curve, I couldn't expect someone to pick up a Push and get anywhere fast with it. But I think people familiar with a keyboard and mouse would benefit from a Push and accelerate their work.