10 Stupidly Fun Toys Every Musician Needs

4. Ableton Push

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTu195xu0WY For all you samplers out there, Ableton Live will no doubt have been your software of choice for a long time. For those who don't know, Ableton Live is a system that allows you to trigger loops in a live environment, adding them with live playing and live effects so you can create full tracks and live jams with samples and loops. Everyone who is everyone in the electronic world either uses, or has used Ableton at some point in their life. A lot of people make use of control pads to control Ableton and trigger certain samples or effects and now Ableton have released their own; The Push. While to look at it, it seems like a mess of buttons, the device has been cleverly designed by Ableton to be less a control surface, but more a full blown instrument in it's own right. There are so many functions it's nearly impossible to list them all, but it features step sequences, live sample triggering, pressure-sensitive triggers and full connection to the Ableton Live 9 software, allowing you to control almost every function from this one device. There have been quite a few Ableton focused control surfaces in the past (a few that Ableton have even endorsed), but this is the first time that Ableton have taken it on themselves to build hardware and software in concert and the results are proving to be spectacularly popular among the live electronica and dance scenes, as well as for those musicians who make use of samples to build on the sound of other instruments. While it's quite expensive, it's a very impressive piece of kit and worth a look for anyone who has any interest in Ableton Live