Ableton workflow for audio clip record / stop / play on pads

I really love the simplicity of the audio loop workflow on Live / Push / Force / Blackbox, where you have a grid of slots, and you can push a pad to start quantised recording in a pad, then push the pad again to stop quantised recording and start quantised playback in a loop, then push again to stop playback.

As far as I can tell there is no way to do that simply on MPC Live2? I can see how I'd do it with a lot of palaver (go to recording page, record some audio, assign to a pad, set that up as a loop, etc).

Am I wrong? Is there a way to set up MPC Live so that it does this (computationally simple and popular) thing smoothly?

It's the closest workaround
Still all loops must have the same length . At least Akai could implement explode takes to clip program
But for what you ask Force is the way

I sold my Force, it's adequate for what it does but stupidly huge, the screen is miles away from where you're sitting (and yet bafflingly horizontal), entirely non portable. It's also overkill for me, tho I'd buy a physically smaller one at the same price.

Ableton "clips in a grid" is one of the most popular workflows in the history of music production, supported by an ecosystem of hardware controllers, it's mystifying that there's no small simple box that does it standalone, to capture all the great loops you make in all your various toys, and play them back. Blackbox is the closes but meh to touchscreen, might as well use an ipad.

heygorilla wrote:I sold my Force, it's adequate for what it does but stupidly huge, the screen is miles away from where you're sitting (and yet bafflingly horizontal), entirely non portable. It's also overkill for me, tho I'd buy a physically smaller one at the same price.

Ableton "clips in a grid" is one of the most popular workflows in the history of music production, supported by an ecosystem of hardware controllers, it's mystifying that there's no small simple box that does it standalone, to capture all the great loops you make in all your various toys, and play them back. Blackbox is the closes but meh to touchscreen, might as well use an ipad.

If you have an ipad definitely try ZenBeats . And check for Loopy Pro (it has support for different controllers, bidirectional) ,when it gets midi sequencer .
As for Force, you either have to stand in front of it , or if you sit , Force has to be placed much lower . Still haven't found a relaxing spot . I plan buying a stand , hopefully it will help

heygorilla wrote:I sold my Force, it's adequate for what it does but stupidly huge,

Deceptively massive unit. I hated the ergonomics of it too, and returned it pretty quickly.

Try using audio tracks. They automatically record and then go into play mode when they loop. And there are 8 of them.

If that’s not enough tracks, then setup a clip program and drop those audio files into the clip program which works very similar to ableton. In fact, you can set the clip program up without stopping playback. You can then launch or stop them as you see fit.

Hope that helps.