Hi and welcome to this tutorial for Fastlane
digital audio school down in Montpellier france an ableton certified training center. Today i'm
really proud to introduce to you the Push Hacker 2. This max for live device is the result of
the collaboration between soundmanufacture and Fastlane. Push hacker 2 has been recoded from
the ground up to make it more powerful and more flexible than ever. Push hacker 2 enables you to
assign or reassign any feature on the Push whilst in note or session mode so you will be able to
customize your Push whilst retaining that strong integration we find in note or session mode.
To use Push Hacker 2 you need a MIDI track so i'm going to now create a MIDI track here
and drop the push hacker directly onto it. You can rename that track if
you need i'm going to do that 'push hacker' of course here we go that way.
So
the interface of push hacker opens immediately and recognizes if you've attached push one or
push two to the computer but if you unplug your push and the push hacker loses the connection you
can always click on this button here rescan push to re-enable the communication. So the virtual
push interface here on the left hand side of push hacker 2 enables you to choose which controls,
which features you'd like to hack. All the hacks you'll do will work in note or session mode
and they will be kept across these two modes. So as you probably know in session mode you
can launch clips and launch scenes here on the right handside and you may want to hack for
example the two top rows here on the matrix so i'm gonna choose the top left pad here, look it
turned yellow, and i'm now gonna choose within the seven functions here on the right hand side to
hack that feature.
So we're gonna look at most of the functions here in this tutorial but i'll
keep the clip function for the next tutorial. So the first function we're going to talk about
is the map function. So first of all at the top there you'll notice that the pad you chose on the
virtual push is now listed here you can assign up to eight different parameters using these map
buttons so to start with i'm going to choose and click one of the send dials so now when i trigger
the pad on push that send is going up and down. I can choose the minimum and maximum value
for each of these mappings and i can invert their values using this i button here. Let's go
and assign another parameter for example this volume fader here and i can now control both
these parameters using one pad on my push i can determine the color of the pad when the
function is on and its color when the function is off. You see now the color on the pad has
changed each of the functions you use on the push hacker 2 will let you send a message
on the push screen this actually could be quite convenient to remember what you actually
assigned to each of the features of your push so now when i use the pad you'll see
a message appears on push's screen let's now go and choose another feature on push
for example that button below the screen here and i'll demonstrate another function the 'clip grid'.
the pad matrix at the center of your push as you may know appears in live as a square around your
clips in the session view so basically that square which is red in this instance will show you which
zone of your clips push can actually control. It's quite common to make that red square move
during a performance using that top cursor here but when you need to move that square far away
from its actual position it's quite unconvenient to press that cursor many times and also not very
precise.
So using this function we'll be able to send that square to a very specific location we
have predetermined so i'm now going to select one of the locations in live for example
at the top left corner here and then press the learn button. Let's now choose another feature
of push and assign the clip grid function to it as well and choose a different location in the
session view in live so when i now use both these buttons in turn you can see the red square jumps
to the locations i previously chose this is well convenient so we don't have to press many times
that cursor to move from one tune to another in a live set and it's also way more precise you see
the square jumps exactly where we want it to go. So whilst in the same clip grid function i can
choose up to four different locations so now if i choose a different location in live and i press
the learn button you'll see the red square jumps in turn to the different locations i chose so
this feature obviously maximizes the space on your push but it also quite convenient to jump to
different sections of the same tune for example. Let's now choose one of the dials
at the top of the virtual push here these features can only be assigned to one type
of function the 'curve' function so once again you'll be able to assign up to four parameters in
live.
These could be in the mixing section or even on your effects so for example let's first assign
the frequency on that auto-filter. Using the graph here i can now determine the movement of that
parameter over time so for example the filter will go up rapidly first and then lower back down to
go back up again towards the end of the dial i'm now going to assign a different parameter to the
second map button i'm now going to select its curve using these buttons here and let's program
this so it only goes up towards the very end of the dial i can also adjust its minimum and maximum
value now when i turn the dial you'll see these parameters behave exactly like i programmed them
on the graph and these behaviors apply upwards and downwards of course.
