tomatoattack wrote:This thread confused the hell out of me as it sounds to me that you can somehow stream audio from a single interface which is connected to USB (MPC though) onto the DAW itself:
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=213732
I don't have an MPC so can't check, but they're talking about the Windows/Mac "MPC App" desktop software and its (desktop) VST plugin (the "MPC Plugin") version, and using the MPC in controller mode. If I understood the thread correctly, the MPC Plugin talks with the MPC hardware (that's in controller mode) and lets the host DAW application, inside which the MPC Plugin is running, access the MPC-side things.
No can do with the Force. The relevant part comes at the end:
The Force has a controller mode but no desktop software so you don't have any way to work with your projects in an integrated way with a computer.
There is an "MPC App" desktop software, and a corresponding "MPC Plugin". (don't ask me how exactly they work) But there is no "Force App" desktop software, or a "Force Plugin" either, so whatever PC DAW integration things can be done by using the MPC App and/or Plugin, cannot be done with the Force. (Unless the MPC App+Plugin interoperate with the Force, which they don't, I suppose?)
The Behringer UMC 1820 is pretty cheap, so as some kind of a workaround you might as well buy two of them, connect them together with ADAT I/O and stream 8 channels of digital audio from whatever happens in Force over to a DAW. It wouldn't be as nicely integrated and synced as what the "MPC App" probably is though, but something at least. Maybe you could add some syncing and control facilities with MIDI.
I'll show what happens when the Force is in Computer Mode and connected to a computer.
The Force's audio facilities are visible in Ableton Live as a "sound card": (if you wonder why it's saying "0 out", the outputs seem to be a separate interface that has "0 In, 4 Out")
I can connect more USB audio interfaces to the Force, and they will be visible to Ableton as well. First I connect a Focusrite interface (but DO NOT BUY this particular interface to use with Akai because it does NOT FULLY WORK, until Akai update their Linux drivers. I used this one for this demonstration picture only because it was at hand):
Then I connect a Logitech webcam, which offers its microphone as a USB "sound card":
The Force is only acting as a dumb USB hub here. You can use the devices connected to it as if they were connected to the computer: the Force's audio inputs and outputs, the Force's MIDI inputs and outputs, the buttons and knobs, the internal SSD or other hard drive, the SD card reader, whatever is connected to the Force's USB ports ... But there's one thing you cannot use: the Force itself, because it's in Computer Mode.
The Force's buttons and knobs are available to the computer as USB MIDI devices, but none of that is available to the Force's own standalone software because it has been knocked out, it's now in Computer Mode.