Ableton Push 2

5owners with an opinion

40%of verdicts positive

0/1positive/negative since 2024

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for ease of use; criticized for value and performance.

What people wrote

Doesn’t like itOwned 1 year

I owned a Push 2 and sold it after a year. Never got into it because the pads weren't very good. Soft touches sometimes triggered notes at max velocity which drove me nuts. The Push 3 has more sophisticated pads with MPE and I'm very skeptical Ableton could pull that off with good QA. The other thing that I find ridiculous is they sell you a barebones computer for $1,000 with an i3, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. A computer which you cannot use for anything else and you're dependent on Ableton to fix/replace. For that kind of money you could buy an M2 iPad Pro with more performance and a lot more battery time than 2.5 hours. An iPad can be bought and repaired on any country. If you're touring you can travel with a backup iPad or even buy one pretty much in any big city on Earth.

Doesn’t like it

Not just vintage devices - MIDI controllers I've bought in the last 10 years from Ableton (Push 2) and Keith McMillen have that wretched rubber that starts sticky, gets goopier, and attracts every mote of dust & hair from the surrounding air. Disgusting and makes them harder to sell 2nd hand IMO. I was hoping the linked article would provide meaningful solutions, "storing in open air or a bag with holes" - that's what I already do - and "don't clean it, that just makes it worse" are pretty useless coming from 'experts'...

Doesn’t like it

Personally, I don't really like the Push platform, having previously owned a Push 2. I can understand the value of it if you're performing live, however the hard reality is that it's a really inefficient way to create electronic music. The mouse and keyboard are simply a lot faster to use. With that said, maybe that's for you. But if you're trying to make advanced productions as quickly as possible, then I really see no value in the Push. You could of course use it as a MIDI controller, but it's a damn expensive one if your sole purpose is to use it as a MIDI controller.

Likes it

Cool stuff! I used Push 2 for a long time and I really enjoyed the workflow with it. I decided to sell it since most of my music work shifted to using Logic so didn't have much use for it anymore. Until quite recently, I had this scratching itch to rebuy Push 2 and start playing around with it, just to notice that it's sold out everywhere. I had a feeling that they will release Push 3 quite soon, so great to see it out finally. Maybe I need to start using Ableton again!

Likes it

I bought a Pioneer DJM-750MK2 (a 4-channel mixer). I'm super happy with it. Also bought a second 27-inch monitor to have a 3-monitor setup (macbook + 2x 27' monitors), which is fantastic, especially when using Ableton Live on two screens. COVID made me spend less in general, so I invested in music. Made lockdown more bearable. Quality music gear usually doesn't lose it's value. Other recent purchases I'm very happy with: - Roland TR-8S - Ableton Push 2 - Tascam 16x8 multitrack interface - Jomox T-Resonator MK2 and Jomox M-Resonator - Quality cables - New earpads for my AIAIAI TMA-2 headphone Music and programming is a good lockdown strategy for me.

Likes itDoesn’t say they own it

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.

Likes itDoesn’t say they own it

I think my ideal setup is still the Push 2. You’ve got your mouse and keyboard for more tedious workflows and VST usage, and then the Push as an expressive platform to jam with and explore ideas on. Best of both worlds. It seems like the Push standalone was designed for performers in mind? Would be pretty sweet to not have to bring a laptop up on stage with you, I’d imagine, especially if your setup is modular and otherwise DAW-less.