In software development, it’s almost inevitable that there comes a point where adding more features leads to rapidly diminishing marginal returns. In the case of DAWs, how many of us can truly say we use all of the functionality of our software? We demand programs which can do absolutely everything and then quibble about missing features, but chances are very few of us are really pushing our music software anywhere near the limits of its potential.
Since the great DAW revolution which occurred some time around the turn of the millennium, most music software has been far more powerful than many big budget hardware studios. The challenge now lies not in pushing the limitations of the software itself, but in finding more efficient ways to get the most out of ourselves.
The most obvious solution is to use a hardware controller to provide easier access to options which may be hidden, complex or otherwise unintuitive in the software itself. The proliferation of hardware controllers is nothing new; from mixer-style control surfaces to pad controllers and knob-laden MIDI keyboards, there are now hundreds of options available. Push addresses the issue head on: designed from the ground up for use with Ableton Live 9, this is bespoke hardware designed specifically for seamless integration with the DAW.
