Atlas and the Ableton Push can be connected to improve the workflow within your Ableton Live sessions. Here we will explain how to set them up together and also provide a few workflow tips.
Plug your Push into your computer and start Ableton Live. Make sure the Push has connected to Live properly and can trigger clips in the session view.
Load Atlas onto a MIDI channel.
Make sure the Ableton channel with Atlas loaded has been armed for receiving MIDI from the Push. In most cases this will be activated automatically when you load Atlas onto a new channel.
In Atlas, set the layout to ‘8×8’ and the root note to ‘C1’. This means each slot in Atlas will be triggered chromatically from the bottom left slot to the top right starting at the MIDI keyboard note ‘C1’
Press New Kit in Atlas to generate a kit of samples. We recommend you have New Kit set to Default so that the sample types that are chosen for the slots will line up with the MIDI clips we provide in Atlas.
Set your Push to Note mode. By default the layout will be Chromatic and you can use this to trigger and record patterns for each of the 64 samples loaded.
Change the layouts to try some of the sequencer modes, such as Melodic Sequencer.
Load a MIDI clip from Atlas onto the same channel in Ableton Live. These are found in the Midi Clips tab at the top of Atlas. You might need to move Atlas to the side of your screen to reveal the channel.
Play the clip in Ableton. This will start the Ableton project and will begin triggering samples in Atlas. Provided you had New Kit set to Default, the MIDI notes in our clips should line up nicely with the samples Atlas has chosen and you should now be hearing your drum loop.
Play along! Trigger other samples to add to the beat, or practice your finger-drumming skills.
Because of the tight integration of Push 2 with Ableton Live, the push sequencer has an additional sequencer layout designed for the Drum Rack. It is more advanced but offers a great workflow, particularly for drums, and with a little setup you can take advantage of those benefits combined with Atlas.
Add a Drum Rack to a new channel in Ableton.
Add Atlas to the drum slot ‘C1’ in Drum Rack by dragging onto the cell, or where it says ‘Drop an Instrument or Sample Here’.
Click to enable the Show Chain List button, and then the Show Input/Output Section. These can be found as little yellow icons on the left side of drum rack.
Now select All Notes in the dropdown list under the Receive heading, which is under the Chain list (it’s right at the top, above note ‘G8’).
Now any slot/note that is triggered on Drum Rack will also be sent to Atlas. You can now use the normal drum rack sequencer with Push 2.