Questions about MPC's & Force

Hi all,

First time poster in the forum. I’m hoping you can answer a few questions I have about the MPC One, Live Mk2 and Force.

A bit of background and context:

I got back into music production 2 years ago with renewed focus and discipline and have invested quite a bit of time into learning aspects of music theory; electronic music production/sound engineering; workflow; as well as my chosen production environment, which, after doing some research I decided on Maschine 2.0 and Maschine Mk3. My criteria at the time were immediacy, tactile workflow/integration, and a high-quality sounds library and VST/plugins ecosystem. Maschine ticked all the boxes and has come good in many respects, so I’m a pretty happy NI customer that thinks both the hardware and software are mostly well designed (more on that below). I will say that the software took a bit of time as I was more familiar with Ableton, but like anything, investing time, creating templates, learning shortcuts, etc. all paid dividends.

Here’s my problem…

Fast forward two years and I find myself repeatedly frustrated with the limitations of the Arrange View. It was an oversight on my part not looking into/missing criticism pointed at the Arrange View in Maschine 2.0, because there's a lot of frustration out there. But it still baffles me that NI got so much right up to the point where you want to polish and finish a production. Specifically, adding automation and pattern variations is cumbersome and overly-complicated. I think the Clips feature is an improvement for adding pattern variations, transitions, etc. but it doesn’t address the poor automation capabilities. For these reasons I researched and tested quite a few workarounds, e.g., (i) exporting stems into Ableton; (ii) using Maschine as a VST and routing into Ableton; (iii) recording section changes in Maschine via Live; and (iv) creating unique patterns in Maschine to allow automation across Scenes. They all can do the job, and exporting stems was the least worst option for me and is still how I work. That said, it’s still a faff that disrupts flow. Creating Unique patterns in Maschine should be the fix/workaround but the UI&X (e.g., % vs. actual parameter value change coupled with the automation lane in the piano roll) and issues I’ve experienced when automating across scenes (parameter value snaps to the original value rather than the last automation value) has made it extremely frustrating to work and finish songs in Maschine 2.0 this way. Admittedly, some of this frustration comes from my own expectations around wanting an all-in-one platform.

Some of you might have picked up on the repeated references to Ableton and will ask, “why don’t you just get a Push 2 and use Live?” Valid point and something I have and still do consider. The first reason is I have invested time and money into NI and Maschine (I recognize that’s classic Sunk Cost thinking). Second, I’m reluctant to jump from product to product, DAW to DAW because of the learning curve and lost time creating. Third, I want to resist GAS and product-hopping in favour of focusing on finishing productions, using equipment I’ve invested time to learn. Related to all of this, I find myself wanting a standalone box as the computer is a constant distraction for me.

From my research, the MPC One, Live Mk2, or Force all seem to have better arrangement options. I literally only discovered what the Force is capable of 3 days ago and I’m absolutely blown away.

Below are some questions I have - mostly arranging - about the MPC software and the One, Live Mk2, and Force, but feel free to let me know what your experience has been like with the MPC’s/Force and their software, especially if you’re a former or current Maschine user.

How flexible is Song mode in the One and Live Mk2? Recording track mutes is great, but can other track and/or master automation be recorded, e.g. while listening to all the sequences through?

Is it easy to program pattern variation/overdub sequences?

Are patterns/clips and sequences independent or linked, similar to Maschine?

What are the Akai time stretching/looping algorithms like (for relatively short percussion, drone, pad loops)?

Is it possible to save custom FX presets, project templates?

In Force, can you create song sections jump/navigate to these using the controller?

In Force, do the encoders automap to whichever synth, plugin, etc. is shown on the screen?

With respect to sampling, does the sampler offer much internal modulation and FX?

Anything else you can share about your experience?

Thanks in advance.

The Force is closer to Ableton Live with a push, it works the same way with the session and the arrangement views.

The MPC workflow is oldschool since it's basically the same as the MPC2000+ bells andwhistles. You'd have the same issues as with Maschine.

MPC Live and Force owner here, I'll do my best to answer your questions.

Davin wrote:How flexible is Song mode in the One and Live Mk2? Recording track mutes is great, but can other track and/or master automation be recorded, e.g. while listening to all the sequences through?

My understanding is that Song mode will string together a bunch of sequences for you in the order you specify. You can concatenate these sequences into one new giant sequence. You can then record automation across that sequence. Personally, since this is the end game anyway I just make my MPC tracks as one big-ass sequence from the get-go using TubeDigga's "one sequence workflow." I really dislike this on the MPC, though, since you can only see one track at a time in the grid, unlike the Force where you can see a stack of tracks like on a PC-based DAW.

Davin wrote:Is it easy to program pattern variation/overdub sequences?

On both the MPC and the Force this is pretty easy. On MPC you can just copy a sequence and mess with it.

On Force, I find it the most fun to make individual tracks that are set to play a "master" track that has an instrument assigned to it. You can do this with the MIDI option to have one track play another, I forget what it's called. I use this to break out individual instruments for each drum sound in a kit, for example. You can then play the Force in loops, and use the Clip Launch and Clip Stop buttons to turn different instrument parts on and off. You can also have several Clips per instrument, where each Clip has a variation for that instrument. You can also set up Scenes with the variations that you want. You can then lay that all down into a recording in the Arranger, and the Arranger records the notes from whatever looped Clips are playing. You can then go into the Arranger tracks, and mess with the recorded notes on the tracks directly. It's very flexible. Editing the tracks can get a little fiddly, but using a touchscreen "pen" with a fine point tip helps a lot for detailed edits.

Davin wrote:Are patterns/clips and sequences independent or linked, similar to Maschine?

MPC clips are sample-based. They aren't linked to anything other than the Clip Track that you put them on, IIRC, although the sample that the Clip relies on is in the sample pool, so if you mess with that sample then the changes will apply that Clip (e.g. applying normalization).

On Force, you have both MIDI Clips and Audio Clips. Every time you copy a Clip, it's a new copy of that Clip so any changes you make will apply to just that Clip. The same rule about audio and the sample pool applies from the MPC to the Force, since their audio/sample engines are basically identical, so if a Clip is backed by an audio file or sample and you mess with it, the Clip will reflect those changes. Audio Clips are basically just "windows" or "viewports" of a section of an underlying audio sample, which is why this happens.

Davin wrote:What are the Akai time stretching/looping algorithms like (for relatively short percussion, drone, pad loops)?

YMMV. I have been able to recreate a pretty passable classic 90's jungle timestretch by massively abusing the WARP function, and I've always loved that sound. For "proper" use, my experience with WARP has been pretty poor for anything other than figuring out how much you need to stretch something by using the offline algorithms. Once I figure out that amount with WARP, I then use the offline timestretch option to get a sample where I need it for actual use, and then turn off WARP completely. There are two offline algorithms for timestretching IIRC, and I've been happy with the offline processing results.

Davin wrote:Is it possible to save custom FX presets, project templates?

Yes to both. For FX, you can save entire "racks" of FX on a track in Force. I don't think you can do that yet in MPC. Project templates are easy to make and save, and you can set a default template for new projects.

Davin wrote:In Force, can you create song sections jump/navigate to these using the controller?

Yes, but not necessarily in the way you're describing. In the Arrange view, you can set locate points and jump to them, but I think that would be hard to do with precision when playing live.

What you can do that works really nicely with built-in quantization is set up Scenes. Scenes are just collections of Clips that you want to play together. The Clips can all be different lengths - some loops, some just notes playing along without looping, some one shots - so you could create various Scenes for each song section. Then, to jump to them in a time-aligned manner, you'd just hit the appropriate Scene button with quantization set as you want it, and the Force will automatically cut over to the new Scene you hit the button for at the end of the beat/bar you'd set the quantization to respect.

Davin wrote:In Force, do the encoders automap to whichever synth, plugin, etc. is shown on the screen?

Yes. There are a ton of options for the encoders to control. One of the options is Screen, which will follow whatever is on screen. You can also set up a dual set of custom controls and toggle between them with the KNOBS button, or use the KNOBS button to select the mixdown or other global-style assignments for the knobs, which can be useful for setting levels. The macros for setting up custom assignments are really, really powerful - you can even make one macro tweak several others, each of which is tweaking several destination controls, etc. which is pretty cool.

Davin wrote:With respect to sampling, does the sampler offer much internal modulation and FX?

The sampler itself does not. The sampler is just for editing the raw audio, doing normalization and timestretching and so on. You then do further manipulation of envelopes, mixing, FX, and so on for an assigned sample in a Program. A Program is basically just a "container" for a set of samples. Programs are either Keygroup-style (to be played chromatically) or a Drum Kit-style (which is a bunch of one-shots or loops, they don't have to be drum samples). There are an enormous amount of sample editing options in a Program, including individual FX assignments per pad, randomization options for velocity and pan and levels, and so on. It's a lot of fun. I find this best on Force since you have four times the pads to mess with on any given kit. Note that on Force there is no concept of Program, a Program and a Track are the same thing for sample-based Programs and soft synths. I wish Akai would maintain the separation of Programs in Force, which is how MPC does it, but it's easy enough to reuse a drum kit assigned to a Track in Force by setting up one or more sidecar MIDI tracks as I mentioned earlier.

Davin wrote:Anything else you can share about your experience?

I started with my MPC Live and really love it, even to this day when I have the Force. I mostly got the Force because the Sequence-based workflow on the MPC was not for me. I remain hopeful that Akai will bring MIDI Clips and Arranger to MPC, but even if they did, the control surface on the MPC really isn't designed for an optimal workflow for this way of working. As such, my MPC is now what I use to mess around and get ideas when I'm sitting on the couch or in the passenger seat of a car on a long drive or whatever, and then my Force is what I use as my studio centerpiece when I'm at home. I wish that MPC and Force projects were cross-compatible, but they aren't, so I do have to dick around with exporting and importing stuff between devices or just recreating what I did on one device on the other. I believe generic items like drum kits and samples and so on can be moved back and forth easily, but you can't open a full Force project in an MPC or vice versa due to the slight differences in the workflows and entities.

Another thing to watch out for is that the USB audio interface support is buggy as hell and a total minefield. If you intend to use an external USB audio interface, carefully read the forum threads on here and Reddit about which interfaces work without clicks and pops. There aren't many that are bug-free. However, this is a fantastic feature when it works, and I highly recommend it with an audio interface that is compatible. I just wish my XR18 could record without clicks and pops... USB-based playback for the XR18 however is flawless, and having 18 audio outs from the MPC or Force is a big joy.

Davin wrote:Thanks in advance.

You're welcome!