Take a look at the Lego prototype of Ableton Push: “It was playful and not permanent, that’s what allowed us to go through many iterations”Ableton’s Head of Hardware, Jesse Terry, has shared how the early prototypes for its Push music making system were made out of Lego.
According to Terry, these prototypes allowed for early experimentation, and meant Push underwent several different iterations before he figured out the right way he wanted to put it together, including aspects like ergonomics and tactility.

READ MORE: Claude can now be plugged into Ableton to assist with your music projects

Terry discusses the prototypes in a new video with Powerhouse Museum in Australia, which is home to one of just two of these early Lego versions of Push, both designed and built by Terry. He shares how he learned about Ableton Live when writing for a music magazine, and became fascinated with the ways you could “stretch audio and move it around like a rubber band”.
“The prototype of Push is like the way I work with samples; I chopped up a bunch of other products and sampled the parts of them that I wanted,” he goes on to explain. “Push was reconciling those worlds of using my hands, playing rhythmically, playing with nuance and swing, and the world of the computer, which can process audio in such cool ways.
“The Lego prototype went through many, many phases of moving buttons around, trying to figure out what was the right ergonomics for it, figuring out where and what buttons we wanted to have to do the different functions. It was playful and not permanent, and that’s what allowed us to go through so many iterations to get the right thing.”
He adds, “The tactility is important because you get nuances of rhythm and pitch with your fingers that you can’t get using a mouse or a computer keyboard. There’s these variations that are off the grid that I think is what makes human music have soul. We wanted something that could let beginners play it without years of training, but also something that would reward practice and let you become a virtuoso.”
Watch the full video below:

Ableton launched its Live 12.4 update earlier this month, bringing a number of new creative and workflow improvements, as well as new features for Ableton’s Push, Move and Note. The update is completely free for existing Live 12 users.
Find out more about Push via the Ableton website. 
The post Take a look at the Lego prototype of Ableton Push: “It was playful and not permanent, that’s what allowed us to go through many iterations” appeared first on MusicTech.