Ableton's new Push 3 has revolutionized the way we make music. And that's not even the most interesting part.
PUSH 3: What it CAN do…What it CAN'T do. Music equipment news.
The Push 3, essentially a slightly fancier version of the Push 2, is a controller for the Ableton Live music software. The big gimmick is that the Push 3 has an optional little PC inside to run Live, so you can use it completely standalone. The twist is that Ableton has made that PC modular, so you can swap parts out for repair or upgrade in the future. And Ableton will even sell you the PC parts in kit form so you can upgrade your non-standalone Push 3 to the fancier version. All music gear should be made like this.
"I have to say the biggest thing about this for me is the replaceable components. It's long gone the days where companies allowed you to keep what you paid for, which seems like a very positive step in that direction. I know a lot of people kept their Push 1s and they're pretty old now. So buying a device that allows for upgrades seems like a machine that you're going to judge decades from now, not years from now," electronic musician Holonology said in an Elektronauts forum thread that Lifewire participated in.
Ableton’s original Push was a basic controller designed to be used with Ableton’s Live DAW (digital audio workstation) software. The idea was that you could control many essential software functions with dedicated knobs and buttons, use a grid of pads to play your instruments, and get visual feedback on a small screen. Push 2 improved on this, but still required you to have Ableton Live running on a connected computer. Push 3 puts the computer in the box, so it now runs standalone.
