My Force crashed on me on-stage.

Late Saturday night, my Force crashed on me during a show. I'm fairly certain it was faulty power, but nothing else on stage actually shut down. Only the Force. Luckily I had a loop going on the RC505, and I grabbed a record out of someone's bag and mixed into the loop while my Force rebooted.

I will never again travel without a backup power supply unit. This represents another reason why the Force is not an ideal all-in-one solution for live use.

feel your pain there... nothing worse than having a small brownout that impacts a few critical devices...

might be worth seeing what others have been doing with the MPC One and battery power supplies... but that's just more stuff to carry around.

personally I feel like it's hard to plan for every scenario... somebody is going to trip over something, a table leg support is going to go out... you can't plan for everything, but having a quick mind and being able to improvise is *the* most important thing playing live and sounds like even if it was stressful, embarrassing, or whatever... you absolutely did the right thing man!

if the Force was being finicky and crashing a lot I'd say work out a plan C or D... probably worth working out a few more options...

good luck!

Wow it sucks, but as a performer you need to be prepared for that scenario.

This is why I always have a mp3/CD player next to my hardware setup on stage, One never know what can happen with hardware.

It could be anything, a software bug, power supply related or an external factor related to the electric set up at the club.

Ironically I've never had an issue with a laptop on stage, but plenty with modern hardware.

Thanks for sharing this experience! One of the two reasons I got a Force was that I didn't want to have to worry about having a laptop on stage being finicky (crashing, wanting to do updates in the middle of a set, and whatnot). I guess the Force isn't quite as rock solid as I was hoping it to be.

The other reason was that I didn't want to look like I'm doing email on stage, so one way or another I'll look for a non-laptop solution (been exploring Cubasis on the iPad). I just can't stand looking at somebody looking at a laptop on stage, breaks the spell of the artist for me

SnowMetal wrote:Late Saturday night, my Force crashed on me during a show. I'm fairly certain it was faulty power, but nothing else on stage actually shut down. Only the Force. Luckily I had a loop going on the RC505, and I grabbed a record out of someone's bag and mixed into the loop while my Force rebooted.

I will never again travel without a backup power supply unit. This represents another reason why the Force is not an ideal all-in-one solution for live use.

When you rebooted, did you finish your set with the existing power supply unit fine? Are you running all of your gear from a fully charged UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to compensate for buggy electrical at the venue?

I mean, there are a plethora of reasons why Force may not be ideal for an all-in-one solution, but stability and hardware seem to be very lowest risk IMHO.

EnochLight wrote:When you rebooted, did you finish your set with the existing power supply unit fine? Are you running all of your gear from a fully charged UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to compensate for buggy electrical at the venue?

After reboot, show finished fine. There was definitely too many plugs into one outlet. I will travel with a UPS from now on (just another thing I have to take with me, bah).

I've had lots of crashes, but this is the first one during a real performance. I've had two while just browsing effects presets.

Many users in the FB groups have complained about the Force drawing too much power for the included supply, and shutting down, so I know it's an issue. Also, like I said, the Force was the only thing on stage that crashed.

Anyway, a USP is just good practice in general. In 30 years of performing live I've always known I should have one, but never actually had a problem. Which is kind of staggering, when I think of it!

I've always been a bit paranoid about this - it's one reason for preferring small kit that has a battery option. This is one reason for why I like my KORG Kross - stuff it with batteries, and even if the power gets wonky on stage, I keep running. Electribes can do that too.

But I also use a small UPS. Doesn't have to be fancy, just a thing that will carry me for 30 minutes on low current (because I'm not driving thousands of watts of PA).

The MPC Live guys are laughing right now.