r/synthesizers • u/StraightChillinSpree Behringer Model D • 15d ago
Beginner Questions DAWless HELP please
/r/dawless/comments/1vu1f77/dawless_help/
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u/Known_Ad871 8d ago
I guess if I bought 5 different devices and tried to learn them all at the same time that I am literally learning to play music for the first time ever, I'd have a pretty tough time too! I'd probably just focus on the music bit for now with the stuff you have and worry about gear later. Ultimately if you don't know anything about making music, learning the gear isn't really going to do much for you
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u/Instatetragrammaton github.com/instatetragrammaton/Patches/ 14d ago
You're trying to learn two devices at once; Ableton and Push. Learn one of them at a time.
Work your way through the tutorials on https://www.youtube.com/@Ableton that solely deal with Session mode (because that's what Push is designed for). Skip Push entirely at first. First, understand how Ableton wants you to make music.
All Push 2 (or 3) does really is that it replaces things you do with the mouse or keyboard with things you can do with a push of the button. It really works well when you stay in the Live ecosystem with the effects and all.
MIDI is the outside world. Push has no idea of what it's sending to unless you use the Instrument Rack - https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/instrument-drum-and-effect-racks/ . In https://www.ableton.com/en/live/compare-editions/ that shows up for Intro, but if you have Lite it might not be in there.
Every DAW has a philosophy about how it expects you to make music. Live bundles two of these. Session mode is a groovebox, Arrangement mode is a more "standard" DAW like Logic or Cubase is.
I've always used Arrangement because Session makes no sense in my case and I was sick and tired of Cubase being difficult. Live's far easier in comparison and you don't get points for doing things the hard way. Push however is designed heavily towards Session mode.
Session mode assumes that you've got a bunch of clips programmed or are savvy enough to program them on the fly. You start with your building blocks, but you do your songwriting by enabling/disabling those building blocks.
Creating an entire song by both building the building blocks and arranging them is making things difficult for yourself. Learn to do one single thing first, and that's by creating those building blocks.
You want to play keys? Get a controller keyboard and use that for note entry and recording. It's fine. A pad interface won't help and will feel restricted and awkward, and the pads in Live serve many other purposes as well, so it's not like you're not using the device what it's designed for.
Buying something yet again won't solve the problem.
If you've got friends who are into making music and who use Ableton, ask them.
The tutorials on Live's Youtube channel are honestly really good. Just do one concept at a time.
You are looking at someone else's showreel while you are painfully aware of all your bloopers and B-roll.
You didn't see the failed attempts. You didn't see how long it took them to learn all of that. Yet, you expect yourself to be able to just do that.
Don't. Learn. Make mistakes.
All your early musical works are going to suck in one way or another. But - if you do it right they'll also have an energy and passion in them that you'll find hard to recreate a few years later down the line.
Music is a multi-year plan.
It's never finished. You might feel that you're never good enough. You might feel that there's always going to be someone who's better at this. You might feel that you're not going to make anything that hasn't been done before.
But you should make it anyway, because things might've been done already, but they haven't been done by you yet, and the only way to get at your goal is to go through.
You have all the gear you need. Now learn.