Ableton Live 13 treats Push 2 users like second-class citizens

Ableton has rolled out version 13 of its flagship Live software, but the new features paint a stark picture of hardware fragmentation. The headline announcement is a suite of upgrades for the Push 3 controller: Custom Layouts that combine multiple views, a new dedicated Step Sequencer layout, and enhanced Device Mode with jog wheel support. Push 2, however, only gets a subset of these features—it supports the Step Sequencer and some Device Mode tweaks, but is locked out of Custom Layouts, the new Performance Mixer, and Expressive Step Editing.

For the music production community, this creates a two-tiered ecosystem. Push 3 owners get a significantly more integrated and powerful hardware workflow, while Push 2 users—who invested in what was, until recently, Ableton's premier controller—are left with a gimped experience. This move pressures users into a costly hardware upgrade cycle for software features, undermining the long-term value of their initial investment. The takeaway is clear: in Ableton's world, your workflow is only as good as your generation of hardware.