Akai Force Forum: Everything relating to the Akai Force, the new 64 pad, clip-based standalone sampler/groovebox from Akai. While not an MPC, it shares many similar software features to the MPC X/MPC Live including the same underlying code-base.
Bymember04959388 Wed Jan 09, 2019 2:08 pm
Cclong wrote:When I see people asking for 16gb ram it makes me really sad. The iPad Air 2 has 2gb of RAM and can run multiple instances of very complex software just fine. Also Richie was lying, cool, gotta love liars :vomit:

My friend, did you ask yourself why Mpc still has no stereo reverb?
With 2gb you cannot have a good stereo reverb, it will eat all your memory.
We are not talking about a ipad, we are talking about a professional musical instrument.
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By Bezo Wed Jan 09, 2019 2:39 pm
Danoc wrote:Give us :

1. PDC
2. 124 AUDIO TRACKS
3. 16GB RAM OPTIONAL 64GB RAMS
For more detailed autosampled instruments, better stand alone plugins and more audio tracks, yeah, 16GB minimum. I'd want one, but I'd have a philosophical issue with purchasing it unless there's way more to a version 2 than more RAM. With RAM being relatively inexpensive, I can only imagine the 2GB was part of the long play for a version 2. What I'd really want is the option to send them my unit to add more RAM.

And PDC is a must for the software to be worth its weight.

Eyalc wrote:...but I have to say... I’d be slightly annoyed to have invested in an MPC Live, then have to buy an “mkII” model for more ram. I know - it’s how this hardware game works. But in general, like you said Danoc - don’t just give me 16gb ram, give me the ability to put as much as I want (up to a certain amount of course).
Exactly!
By CharlesRandolph Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:25 pm
Ableton users will love this.

1. Bigger Screen
2. The placement of the encoders (Your arm does not block the screen.)
3. Single Unit with an Audio Interface.


Putting my Devils Advocate Hat on.
Some say it's just another MPC, if so why is it not branded as MPC? The MPC Live is $1200 US and MPC X is $2200 US. Making the APC LIVE around $1700. This would eat into the MPC LIVE sales and MPC X sales.


Also Looking at the rear it does not look like an MPC.

APC LIVE: 4 CV outs, 4 Audio OUTS, 1 MIDI in, Midi out and Midi Thru, No phono input, 2 INPUTS.

MPC LIVE: No CV outs, 6 Audio Outs, 2 MIDI IN, 2 MIDI OUTS, Phono Input, 2 INPUTS

MPC X: 8 CV OUTS, 8 AUDIO OUTS, 2 MIDI IN, 4 MIDI OUTS, 4 INPUTS


What MPC only has 1 midi in and 1 midi out? MPC 500. :lol: :lol: :lol:

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By Eyalc Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:13 pm
Frisbi wrote:@eyalc

Yes I think with this 2gb limitation Akai has to struggle to implement new features or improve existing ones.
If I understood correctly, more features means heavier OS and less Ram and we already have a quite small Ram to load samples.
So the only solution to develop the Os is to put more gb.
I think we are getting to the limit update per update, which was obvious from the beginning.
I don't think that 4gb or 8gb chips are so expensive nowadays.
So a Live2 should be around the corner but this APC move surprises me


Yes, I agree with all of this.
Bymember04959388 Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:25 pm
CharlesRandolph wrote:Ableton users will love this.

1. Bigger Screen
2. The placement of the encoders (Your arm does not block the screen.)
3. Single Unit with an Audio Interface.


Putting my Devils Advocate Hat on.
Some say it's just another MPC, if so why is it not branded as MPC? The MPC Live is $1200 US and MPC X is $2200 US. Making the APC LIVE around $1700. This would eat into the MPC LIVE sales and MPC X sales.


Also Looking at the rear it does not look like an MPC.

APC LIVE: 4 CV outs, 4 Audio OUTS, 1 MIDI in, Midi out and Midi Thru, No phono input, 2 INPUTS.

MPC LIVE: No CV outs, 6 Audio Outs, 2 MIDI IN, 2 MIDI OUTS, Phono Input, 2 INPUTS

MPC X: 8 CV OUTS, 8 AUDIO OUTS, 2 MIDI IN, 4 MIDI OUTS, 4 INPUTS


What MPC only has 1 midi in and 1 midi out? MPC 500. :lol: :lol: :lol:

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So what is your suggestion?
If its not an Mpc variation, what is it for?
And do you think it will replace Mpc in the future?
By machinesworking Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:09 pm
We had stereo reverbs when computers were holding 2GB and less of RAM.
Altiverb was released and used on Power Mac G4's with a whopping total of 128MB of RAM.
It's processor calculations that determine how complex of a reverb can be generated even with an impulse response based reverb like Altiverb. Altiverb got it's name from the Altivec processing that the G4 chips could do, they were crazy slow in most respects but Altivec helped a lot.

The main thing IMO holding back the MPC Live and X as it stands in terms of track count is audio tracks not streaming from disc, this changes and a lot of things open up without the need to get a new MPC with 16GB of RAM etc. More RAM is cool, but any modern computer or surface/ipad which the MPC essentially is can use disc space to swap out virtual RAM, so again, streaming ability is more important.

Faster chips are really the main thing these days, I've only run out of RAM a few times on my 09 Mac Pro with 24GB, and that was using massive amounts of orchestral sample libraries, pretty much to see how much it took to crunch it.
Bymember04959388 Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:28 pm
machinesworking wrote:We had stereo reverbs when computers were holding 2GB and less of RAM.
Altiverb was released and used on Power Mac G4's with a whopping total of 128MB of RAM.
It's processor calculations that determine how complex of a reverb can be generated even with an impulse response based reverb like Altiverb. Altiverb got it's name from the Altivec processing that the G4 chips could do, they were crazy slow in most respects but Altivec helped a lot.

The main thing IMO holding back the MPC Live and X as it stands in terms of track count is audio tracks not streaming from disc, this changes and a lot of things open up without the need to get a new MPC with 16GB of RAM etc. More RAM is cool, but any modern computer or surface/ipad which the MPC essentially is can use disc space to swap out virtual RAM, so again, streaming ability is more important.

Faster chips are really the main thing these days, I've only run out of RAM a few times on my 09 Mac Pro with 24GB, and that was using massive amounts of orchestral sample libraries, pretty much to see how much it took to crunch it.

Well I never liked plugin reverbs so much.
If I remember correctly, Altiverb was cpu hungry but Valhalla reverbs were very light and not bad sounding.
But a hardware reverb is always another level for me.
But even if I am ok using external reverbs, a more powerful chip would open many possibilities in Mpc effects, some more complicated ones for sound design, multiband compressor or a multiband limiter or whatever
By CharlesRandolph Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:59 pm
Frisbi wrote:If its not an Mpc variation, what is it for?

The lack of MIDI in's and out, No Phono in, even the PAD setup does not lend it way toward
a MPC workflow. It looks to be an Ableton focused device.


Frisbi wrote:And do you think it will replace Mpc in the future?


The 16 PAD MPC has a strong legacy and one of the selling point of the MPC Live and X, is
the ability to move older MPC files and continue to work. Step sequencing and clip/loop launching
has never been the power house of the MPC line.
By machinesworking Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:12 pm
CharlesRandolph wrote:The lack of MIDI in's and out, No Phono in, even the PAD setup does not lend it way toward
a MPC workflow. It looks to be an Ableton focused device.

The 16 PAD MPC has a strong legacy and one of the selling point of the MPC Live and X, is
the ability to move older MPC files and continue to work. Step sequencing and clip/loop launching
has never been the power house of the MPC line.

IMO It's definitely running the MPC 2.4 whatever software.
This is basically IMO a dedicated Clip launching version of the next generation of the MPC software. I think as you pointed out they made a few mistakes with the design like the lack of phono in, and really with clips it would make more sense than CV outs, but that's been counters for you.

A couple things can be surmised from it, MPC will get scene launching like Live and Bitwig, and Clips will be greatly improved upon, which representatives over at Gearslutz have already stated.
Last edited by machinesworking on Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By machinesworking Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:20 pm
Frisbi wrote:Well I never liked plugin reverbs so much.
If I remember correctly, Altiverb was cpu hungry but Valhalla reverbs were very light and not bad sounding.
But a hardware reverb is always another level for me.
But even if I am ok using external reverbs, a more powerful chip would open many possibilities in Mpc effects, some more complicated ones for sound design, multiband compressor or a multiband limiter or whatever

I can't stress how wrong I think you are about plugin reverbs, but I own Altiverb, Lexicon and Eventide plug ins, there are some great Reaktor reverbs as well.

It's impossible to judge the power of the stand alone MPC Live VS other DAWs but a quick test against it's software version would be a thing to do to determine how the lowly chip performs compared to my computer. It's going to be ugly though, the computer is running two 6 core 3.3Ghz Xeon chips, and the MPC software did remoarkably good when compared to other looping DAWs like Live and Bitwig.
Bymember04959388 Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:39 pm
machinesworking wrote:
Frisbi wrote:Well I never liked plugin reverbs so much.
If I remember correctly, Altiverb was cpu hungry but Valhalla reverbs were very light and not bad sounding.
But a hardware reverb is always another level for me.
But even if I am ok using external reverbs, a more powerful chip would open many possibilities in Mpc effects, some more complicated ones for sound design, multiband compressor or a multiband limiter or whatever

I can't stress how wrong I think you are about plugin reverbs, but I own Altiverb, Lexicon and Eventide plug ins, there are some great Reaktor reverbs as well.

It's impossible to judge the power of the stand alone MPC Live VS other DAWs but a quick test against it's software version would be a thing to do to determine how the lowly chip performs compared to my computer. It's going to be ugly though, the computer is running two 6 core 3.3Ghz Xeon chips, and the MPC software did remoarkably good when compared to other looping DAWs like Live and Bitwig.

No man there is no depth in plugin reverbs, some of them can sound really good and pleasant but no depth.
But that's another topic and it's very personal.
Do you think Akai could make a decent stereo reverb without going into cpu problems?
I didn't like so much the reverbs inside standalone Air plugins, so I mean a better one.
By CharlesRandolph Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:41 pm
machinesworking wrote:
CharlesRandolph wrote:The lack of MIDI in's and out, No Phono in, even the PAD setup does not lend it way toward
a MPC workflow. It looks to be an Ableton focused device.

The 16 PAD MPC has a strong legacy and one of the selling point of the MPC Live and X, is
the ability to move older MPC files and continue to work. Step sequencing and clip/loop launching
has never been the power house of the MPC line.

It's definitely running the MPC 2.4 whatever software. The Getting Started PDF is downloadable online.
This is basically IMO a dedicated Clip launching version of the next generation of the MPC software. I think as you pointed out they made a few mistakes with the design like the lack of phono in, and really with clips it would make more sense than CV outs, but that's been counters for you.

A couple things can be surmised from it, MPC will get scene launching like Live and Bitwig, and Clips will be greatly improved upon, which representatives over at Gearslutz have already stated.



That is a possibility. However, this design lends itself to Ableton and request that PUSH and PUSH 2 user have been asking for. Larger screen, relocations knob locations, built in Audio Interface, etc etc.

Akai software 2.4 must be a hell of an update. Because the MPC Software and Ableton LIVE workflows are miles apart.
By CharlesRandolph Thu Jan 10, 2019 1:59 am
catfingers wrote:never laugh at the MPC500! :)


You can buy a GOLD MPC 500 on E-Ebay for only $1200. It's vintage, classic, and every compositions you create will come out perfect. You don't have have to press any button, just think of the music and it will transfer to the machine.

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