Push 2 control

Drive the clip player from an Ableton Push 2. The 8×8 pads give you the clip performance surface — clip launch, the note editor, audio recording, scenes, automation arms and the KEYS keyboard — and because the Push pads are velocity-sensitive, how hard you hit a pad is recorded into the clip and played through the keyboard. On top of that, every module has a push card: the 8 buttons above the display pick a lane, the 960×160 screen shows one module’s card at a time, and the 8 display encoders turn its controls. START/STOP lives on the dedicated Play button.

This guide covers the Push’s physical implementation. Read Clip Player for the full note, audio, automation and song workflows. Launchpad has its own single-device and paired guide.

Connect the module and display

1. Add Push 2 control and Clip Player. The control module has no sound ports; follow Clip Player’s wiring guide.
2. Connect Push 2 by USB, press Connect Push 2 on the module, and allow Web MIDI. The adapter uses its LIVE port in Live mode.
3. Check the bound Clip Player on the module. Binding uses the first available player; Bind to clip-player / Unbind clip-player controls that connection.
4. Press Connect display and allow WebUSB for the physical screen. This is a separate permission. The browser module preview shows the same display content when USB display access is unavailable.

The shared Push/Launchpad engine has one active control surface at a time. A Launchpad pair counts as one surface; adding more control modules does not create independent sessions.

Physical controls

Use physical Play for START/STOP, the permanent-controls row below the display to change views, and the right column for the current page’s actions. The physical Record button is unbound; audio recording is on CONTROL → AUDIO.

Control	MIDI	Action
8×8 pads	36–99	Clip launch, note editor, KEYS and AUDIO. Hit velocity is recorded for note entry and used for live KEYS playback
Play	CC 85	START / STOP the transport (moved here from the grid)
Permanent-controls row ×8	CC 20–27	The 8 buttons BELOW the display: transport, GRID, CLIP, ARRANGER, CONTROL, UNDO, REDO, SHIFT. These remain available while the grid changes modes
Scene launch ×8	CC 36–43	The 8 buttons RIGHT of the grid → the scene column (launch / editor functions / KEYS scale). TOP button = 43 … BOTTOM = 36
Undo	CC 119	Undo
SHIFT (permanent row, above channel 8)	CC 27	SHIFT modifier — editor ×8 window, encoder fine-nudge, arm gestures, the LEGEND shift layer. NOT the button labelled “Shift”: that one is CC 49

Pad modes — a reference on the Push itself

Choose a mode below to inspect its button map. The labels come from the same routing model as the hardware LEGEND. Pad colors illustrate each page; the mode-specific instructions explain the gestures.

GridClipKeys / arpControlAudioLengthArranger Show SHIFT layer

Below display · left to right

1. PLAY/STOP CC 20
2. GRID CC 21
3. CLIP CC 22
4. ARRANGER CC 23
5. CONTROL CC 24
6. UNDO CC 25
7. REDO CC 26
8. SHIFT CC 27

Right column · top to bottom

1. SCENE 1 CC 43
2. SCENE 2 CC 42
3. SCENE 3 CC 41
4. SCENE 4 CC 40
5. SCENE 5 CC 39
6. SCENE 6 CC 38
7. SCENE 7 CC 37
8. SCENE 8 CC 36

Launch, inspect, copy and repeat

Columns are lanes; rows are slots. Tap to launch or stop the playing clip. Hold GRID + tap to inspect without changing playback. A note clip still opens CLIP when it has an attached audio take; use CONTROL → AUDIO for its recording and source controls. Legacy standalone audio clips open AUDIO. Double-tap also opens the clip, but the first tap is a launch gesture before its prior intent is restored.

Hold SHIFT for the right-column tools shown above. COPY and PASTE stay armed when SHIFT is released; select their clip target afterward. Whole-clip copies carry notes, automation and attached audio together. For scene copy/paste, release SHIFT and use a scene button. Clipboard types must match. CLIP-DIV and LENGTH require SHIFT to remain held while targeting a clip. SCROLL UP/DOWN reaches later scene slots; swing buttons adjust the selected lane.

Scene repeats: hold GRID and the desired scene button together, then choose a pad in the orange count grid. Pads count 1–63 from the upper-left across rows; pad 64 means infinity. Release either held button to exit. See scene behavior.

LEGEND documents the two button rows, including their SHIFT layers. It does not label the pad matrix, encoder assignments, probability pages, copy/paste targets or GRID-held repeat selector; those gestures are documented above.

Parameter cards and encoders

Every module has a push card: up to eight controls, each drawn as a name, a bar graph and a readout, one per display encoder. Pick a lane with a button above the screen and you get the card for the module you last looked at in that lane, or — if you have never opened it — the module most recently added to it. The card-scroll encoder (CC 15) flips through the other modules in that lane, one card at a time. Its physical position remains unconfirmed on hardware.

Which eight controls a module shows is a text file you can edit: packages/web/src/lib/control/push2/push-card-config.ts. Modules with no entry fall back to their curated faceplate ranking, and un-faced modules to the order they declare their params in. The selected lane and the module card you left open are remembered locally for this rack; they do not change another collaborator’s selection.

Control	MIDI	Action
Above-display ×8	CC 102–109	Select LANE 1–8 — the screen shows that lane’s PUSH CARD (Push-local, never synced)
Display encoders 1–8	CC 71–78	Turn the 8 controls of the current push card (SHIFT = fine)
Tempo encoder	CC 14	Unbound; use CONTROL tempo pads or TIMELORDE
Swing encoder	CC 15	Flip through the push cards of the modules in the selected lane
Master encoder	CC 79	MixMasters master volume
D-Pad ↑ / ↓	CC 46 / 47	CLIP-view pitch window ±1 (SHIFT = ×8)
D-Pad ← / →	CC 44 / 45	CLIP-view step window ±1 (SHIFT = ×8)
LEGEND (hold)	CC 48	Hold to turn the display into on-device documentation of the current view. Momentary + display-only
“Shift” button (lower right)	CC 49	ELECTRA CONTROL MODE — press to toggle. The button lights while the mode is on

ElectraControl mode

Press the button labelled Shift in the lower right (CC 49) and the Push becomes an ELECTRA CONTROL surface — one row at a time. The six leftmost display encoders drive the six controls of the selected row of the rack's ElectraControl 6×6 grid, and each strip shows the same name and readout you see on that slot's knob on the card and on the Electra One itself. The space above encoders 7 and 8 becomes a ROW readout, and the scroll encoder steps it through rows 1–6. Press the button again to leave. It is a latched mode and the button lights while it is on.

This is the control part only: it does not reproduce the Electra's touchscreen functions, its MixMaster page or its Control page. Every other button on the Push keeps doing exactly what it does outside the mode, so entering it can never strand a transport or a clip launch. The mode itself is not remembered across a reload — a latched mode you cannot see without the hardware in front of you should not come back on its own — but the row you left off on is.

Control	MIDI	Action
Display encoders 1–6	CC 71–76	The 6 controls of the selected ELECTRA CONTROL row — same name + readout as the card and the Electra One (SHIFT = fine)
Display encoders 7–8	CC 77–78	INERT — deliberately unassigned in this mode; the space above them shows the row number instead
Scroll encoder	CC 15	Scroll the ROW 1–6 (wraps at both ends)
Master encoder	CC 79	MixMasters master volume — unchanged in this mode
Everything else	—	Pads, scene column, permanent row, D-Pad, lane select, Play, Undo all route EXACTLY as outside the mode

Hold LEGEND for the current button map

Hold LEGEND (CC 48) to replace the display with the current view’s button labels. The bottom display row follows the eight function buttons left to right; the top display row describes the scene column from top to bottom. Hold the permanent-row SHIFT as well to see its alternate layer. Release LEGEND to return; it never changes what a button does.

Display priority is LEGEND, then ElectraControl, then AUDIO status, then the selected module’s parameter card. AUDIO leaves parameter encoders working normally. A display page is not a second set of clip playback states.

Two different buttons are both called “shift”. The SHIFT modifier — the editor's ×8 window, the encoder fine-nudge, the arm gestures and the LEGEND shift layer — is the permanent-row button above channel 8 (CC 27), which is the one that maps to the Launchpad's own shift. The button physically labelled “Shift” in the lower right (CC 49) is the ElectraControl mode toggle.

Compatibility and troubleshooting

The Push binds its LIVE port and stays in the device's default Live mode — both the pad presses and the pad-LED Note-Ons flow there with no per-frame SysEx (the reliable standalone-browser path; the User port only carries pads/LEDs once switched to User mode, the finicky out-of-Ableton path, and is a possible future toggle). The pad colours use the stock Push palette (an approximate mapping refined on hardware later). The 960×160 display runs over WebUSB, a separate one-time permission from MIDI: if it is unavailable or you decline it, the pads and encoders keep working and the card shows the same push card in the browser. Two mappings are still unconfirmed on hardware: which permanent-row button maps to which view, and where the scroll encoder (CC 15) physically sits. That knob is identified by its FUNCTION — the one that scrolls through the instruments of a lane, and now through ElectraControl rows — not by a position anyone has verified by turning it.

If pads do nothing, check MIDI connection and the bound Clip Player. If the screen is blank but pads work, check the separate display connection. If a recorded take is silent, check routing and media availability. MIDI simulation validates the mappings; it does not establish every physical-device position or color.