Ableton Push 2

Lore & Background

In the mythology of Skrillex's production world, the Push 2 occupies a sacred spot. Where the original Push brought the grid to the party, the second generation sharpened every edge: a brighter, more legible display for reading session states mid-set, a redesigned pad layout with a dedicated transport area, and a more responsive feel under fast, aggressive fingerwork. For a performer whose sets are defined by sudden drops, rapid-fire clip launches, and real-time pitch and filter manipulation, those refinements are not luxuries—they are survival equipment.

Fans who have attended Skrillex live shows describe the visual language of the performance: a wall of light, the producer's hands dancing across a grid of color, the crowd reading the show as much through the controller's glow as through the sound itself. The Push 2's RGB pads become a kind of visual score, each color coding a layer of the arrangement—bass, percussion, FX, vocals—so the audience can almost see the architecture of a drop before it hits.

In studio contexts, the Push 2 shifts roles from performer's instrument to composer's sketchpad. Skrillex's trademark sound—layered, distorted, rhythmically fractured basslines and snappy, processed percussion—benefits enormously from the ability to sequence one-shots in a grid, nudge clip parameters in real time, and record performance takes where the human imperfection becomes part of the texture. The controller turns a software session into something you can feel, and that tactile dimension is where the magic lives.

In Their Own Story

The studio is dark except for the glow. Sixty-four pads breathe in slow amber, then snap to electric blue as a finger taps the grid in a rapid staccato—kick, hat, kick, hat, a snare that cracks like a whip. The 3.5-inch display flickers, showing a clip name scrolling past. A thumb rolls one of the eight encoders and the low-end swells, thickening, the room's walls vibrating in sympathy. Then silence. A held breath. The pads dim to a deep red. One more tap. The drop detonates. The sub-bass hits the floor, the monitor mixers rattle, and somewhere in the back of the room a glass of water ripples in perfect concentric circles. The producer exhales, grins at the grid, and starts again from bar one.

Reader's Guide

The tool here is the Push 2's **clip-launching and real-time parameter manipulation** workflow within Ableton Live.

In plain language: the 8×8 pad grid maps to audio clips, MIDI clips, or live-set scenes. Each pad can fire a one-shot, a loop, or a full arrangement section. Simultaneously, the eight rotary encoders are assignable to any parameter—filter cutoff, distortion drive, reverb mix, pitch, volume—and turning them in real time while a clip plays lets you sculpt the sound as it happens rather than committing to a static automation curve.

Skrillex's production style thrives on this duality. A track like "Bangarang" lives and dies on the contrast between a tight, almost mechanical groove and a sudden, explosive drop. The Push 2 lets him build that tension by layering short percussive clips in the grid, tweaking their transients and pitch on the fly, then launching the full bass-and-kick scene with a single pad hit. The 'why' is sonic: it solves the problem of making a digital arrangement feel human and volatile. A mouse-drawn automation is clean; a hand-rolled encoder twist is messy, urgent, alive. That imperfection is the texture fans hear and love—the slight overshoot on a snare, the way a filter sweep is a millisecond late because a human finger did it. The Push 2 is the instrument that makes that possible at performance speed.

Did You Know?

• The Push 2 was released in 2017 as the successor to the original Push, adding a larger display, a dedicated transport area, and improved pad responsiveness.
• Skrillex has been publicly associated with Ableton Live as his primary DAW, making the Push 2 a natural companion in his production and live-performance setup.
• The Push 2's 64 RGB pads can each display a unique color, allowing producers to visually code different layers of a track—bass, drums, FX, vocals—so the arrangement is readable at a glance during a live set.
• The controller is bus-powered over USB, meaning it requires no external power supply, a small design choice that simplifies stage setup and reduces cable clutter during a performance.