Ableton announce Live 9 and Push

Ableton has always focused heavily on the live performance aspect of music and as a result there are already some really cool dedicated controllers out there; I’m talking about the Akai APC series and the Novation Launch Pad. Although these controllers are designed to work directly with the Ableton Live software, they don’t really take full advantage of everything that Ableton can do.

Along with the recent announcement of Live 9, Ableton revealed their latest venture into the hardware controller market. Push is a dedicated controller that integrates directly with the Ableton Live software. This hardware/software hybrid approach reminds me of the highly acclaimed Maschine controllers from Native instruments.

The only downside that I can see is that Push is huge; I can’t really see it sitting comfortably next to my laptop like my humble MaschineMikro does at the moment. However, even with its large size I would still like to get my hands on one and see what it’s capable of.

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Akai Pro show of their new MPC softwear

As some of you know Akai (who are responsible for the legendary MPC samplers) earlier this year announced a handful of new products. Among these was the very interesting looking MPC fly (an iOS app developed by Retronyms), the MPC Renaissance and the MPC Studio. The Renaissance and Studio are both midi controllers designed to be used in conjunction with Akai's new MPC software (Sort of like Native Instruments Machine).

Until now we were somewhat kept in the dark about this software but Akai have just released a video overview of the MPC software and I have to say, it looks pretty impressive.

One thing that isn't quite clear though is whether you need the controllers to use the soft wear or whether you could use the soft wear on it's own with another controller. If this is possible then this could be a very affordable solution for beginners to music making and live performances. Coupling the MPC software with a dirt cheap pad controller (say the Korg NanoPad) could be a very convenient compromise for some people. Even though this would be a pretty cool feature I'm not going to be holding my breath.

Anyway, here's the video from Akai.

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