Ableton Push’s white LEDs are infamous for being inconsistent in brightness. Recently Mark Triant shared his own seapunk colour scheme. If the colour combinations are a tad too candy store for you, you can easily create your own. Here’s how…
Make a backup from the original:
- On Mac OS X right-click your Ableton Live 9 application and select “Show Package Contents”, and navigate to: Contents/App-Resources/MIDI Remote Scripts/
- On Windows XP and Vista navigate to C:Program Files/Ableton/Live 9/xxx/Resources/MIDI Remote Scripts/ or on Windows 7 (and 8) to: C:Program/Data/Ableton/Live 9/xxx/Resources/MIDI Remote Scripts/pushbase
- Find the “pushbase” folder and make a copy of it to store in a safe place on your computer for backup. This way, you can replace your modified Push folder with your saved copy to restore Push to its default behaviour at any time.
Create your own colour scheme (for Live 9.5 and up ONLY!!!)
- Create a new file in your text editor and copy and paste the whole code from this file.
- Change the colours to your liking. All available colours are listed below.
- Save it as “skin_default.py” (without quotation marks).
- Copy it to the “pushbase” folder.
- Restart Ableton Live if it’s already running.
These colours are available:
BLACK = RgbColor(0)
DARK_GREY = RgbColor(1)
GREY = RgbColor(2)
WHITE = RgbColor(3)
RED = RgbColor(5)
AMBER = RgbColor(9)
YELLOW = RgbColor(13)
LIME = RgbColor(17)
GREEN = RgbColor(21)
SPRING = RgbColor(25)
TURQUOISE = RgbColor(29)
CYAN = RgbColor(33)
SKY = RgbColor(37)
OCEAN = RgbColor(41)
BLUE = RgbColor(45)
ORCHID = RgbColor(49)
MAGENTA = RgbColor(53)
PINK = RgbColor(57)
You can also use .highlight() to make the colour brighter or .shade() to make them dimmer, both without any numbers in parentheses, e.g.:
PadSoloedSelected = Rgb.OCEAN.highlight()
RecordButton = Rgb.RED.shade(2)
Pretty cool, huh? So what colour scheme are you going for?
More on Ableton Push.
31 responses
Thanks for the tip !!!
Always wanted to change those colors 😉
infamous for being inconsistent brightness?
you do know that the brightness of the cell has information, right? the default is that it tells you the velocity for that sound… so if you’re recording and you hit it lightly the brightness will be light…
…that’s why the less bright ones only show up in the sequencer when you’ve played live. if you sequence by hand they will be the same brightness. (typically max velocity and thus max brightness).
i’m not positive about this but i think you customize what parameter the brightness is associated with if you want…
I’m fully aware that the brightness differs according to the velocity in the sequencer. That’s not the case for the In Key mode though. Lots of people have complained about that, because the brightness IS inconsistent there due to slightly varying calibrations that you can do nothing about. The pads in the Drum Layout aren’t even WHITE.
Next time, please read carefully before you write a condescending comment again.
I’m not sure there is any condescension – if you try and imagine posting what he said yourself it comes out the same, he isn’t talking down toy you is he? If he misread your post, its just a mistake, not condescending.
Yes, there is. Definition of condescension: an attitude of patronising superiority. He was lecturing me about something that doesn’t even apply in Note Mode. Loads of people complained about the uneven colours which were not present in other MIDI controllers with RGB LEDs. Why does this even matter to you that you feel compelled to add your comment years later?
Thanks, pretty cool to be able to choose your own colors! With Live 9.1 beta Ableton has released a beta version of a RGB Tool, which can handle the problem with the inconsistent colors. You can calibrate each pad by setting its color relation. Since Push has no separate white LEDs, white is created by color mixing, so you will always get a diffuse white with little green and/or magenta shades.
Thanks for mentioning this, as I haven’t tried that yet. Although I’ll probably stick with changing the colours.
I hope one day it will be possible to calibrate the left/right buttons too, the lights are very faded and the brightness a little inconsistent when you work sitting at desk… have you noticed this issue too or you don’t mind about it?
True, they could be brighter as well.
Hallo Madeleine, danke für die tolle Anleitung und deine wunderschönen custom Farbschemas! Mit dem Update auf Live 9.1 hat es die bisherigen Skins leider teilweise zerschossen. Ich nehme an weil ja paar neues Features wie Step Sequencing für Instrument Tracks etc. hinzugekommen sind. Hast du schon Infos zum Anpassen der Farben für ab der neuen Live-Version?
Ja, es stimmt leider, dass die Farbschemas nicht mehr funktionieren wegen dem neuen Melodic Step Sequencer für Push. Ich bin noch nicht dazu gekommen, wollte aber demnächst mal sehen, dass ich ein Update für Live 9.1 mache.
Das wäre fantastisch! Vielen Dank!
Ich habe das dekompilierte Skript, was bei Live 9.1 funktioniert, im betreffenden Schritt als Link eingefügt. Alles andere gilt weiterhin. Die Farbschemata sind auf Live 9.1 geupdatet. 🙂
Wow, das ging schneller als gedacht! 🙂 Vielen Dank!
in 9.2 I have been experiencing loss of use with Push. I have tried using the backup folder for the skins to restore use but it does not want to recognize push anymore. The only way I have been able to get it back was to reinstall ableton. Has anyone else had this problem?
Funny thing is that when I had initially changed skins on 9.1 and updated to 9.2 I had not come across this problem at all until today. I had spend countless hours using ableton since then with my custom skin. Im wondering if through auto-update they patched it somehow.
Live was recently updated to 9.1.2 if you have automatic updates turned on. It seems Push as well as other controllers have stopped working for quite a few people from what I can see on forums. Push stopped working for me as well. It appears that the previous scripts were only partially overwritten with the update (instead of the whole folders) and this causes issues for some, but not all users. And yes, reinstalling Live seems the only possible fix.
Ah just as I suspected. It’s really unfortunate as I liked my custom colors much better than the factory colors. Hopefully this isn’t an ongoing thing that has to be decoded to gain control of customization.
It seems like they might be making changes over and over. I’ll try to decompile the new scripts soonish, depending on why I find the time. I want my own colours back, too.
I actually sent you a msg earlier about this before I came across these comments. I hope you get a chance to decompile the scripts soon … I want your colours back too, they’re so much cooler than the default ones!
I’ll see what I can do. 🙂
Cheers for the info – cool article.
I’m just getting started in the world of python programming, and since the article sort of deals with the topic, I was wondering if you had any idea what framework, or module would be responbile for sending data back to the pads in order to create a sort of VU Meter ala PXT-Plus .
Sorry, no. I can only modify Python scripts. Haven’t had the time to actually get into the programming.
Hello,
Thanks for the reply & fair enough 🙂 –
However, I’ve been trying to do this and everytime I modify something, and open ableton with push plugged in, push is not detected. Any thoughts on why?
It means something in the script is wrong. Could be something minor, but hard to spot as a space. Sometimes it’s best to start from scratch and rewrite your code. If you want to introduce bigger changes, it’s a good idea to create your own file and have it called in the respective “parent” file. Hope this helps.
Don;t worry actually – I figured out what I was doing wrong. Turns out I was combining functons together that don’t work together.
hi, me again:D this time here, not on YT, about color of playing clip on push
sorry but i didn’t get it with your tipp about “class session” changing 🙁
“(Die Änderung würdest Du im SkinDefault.py vornehmen müssen, was im oben genannten Tutorial verlinkt ist. Unter “class Session” die Befehle, die “Pulse” bzw. “Blink” drin haben und dann ebenfalls die korrespondierenden Scripte. Aber erst Backup machen, bevor Du es probierst. :)” ©
do you mean i should change this one :
SceneTriggered = BiLed.GREEN_BLINK_FAST
to:
SceneTriggered = BiLed.BASIC_BLINK_FAST ??
and everywhere where GREEN is to BASIC?
i mean, to become the color of “in DAW” clip, same with clip color on Push while playing, instead of THESEEE default green
manny thanks and sorry for disturbing again)
I honestly can’t tell you if this will work. It most likely spans more than one script.
Was ich auch befürchtet habe)
Vielen dank nochmal
This is mind blowing, thanks for sharing
This doesn’t work anymore, since the MIDI remote scripts for Push have been constantly updated for new updates and upgrades of Ableton Live.
thanks for sharing, this is mind blowing.