Could the Force and MPC Merge at some point?

Hey guys, long time MPC user and current MPC Live user. I also just got the Force and am learning how it compares to the MPC line.

It seems both are very similar...wouldn't it be possible that the MPC (and MPC software) get all the functionality of the Force (clip launching, arranger mode, etc.) and the Force getting all the functionality of the MPC (if it hasn't already) eventually?

If they make both the Force and MPC have the same exact functionality, couldn't the Force also be used to control MPC software? The MPC and Force would then essentially be running the same exact OS/Software, just using different hardware to control them.

And lastly, if this is possible, would it make business sense for AKAI to do, and do you think they will eventually do this and merge the 2 products?

I personally love the extra functionality of the Force, but I also wish I could open Force projects in the MPC software so I could use it as a plugin in my DAW.

To me the force, at this point just got it a few days, feels like what the MPC should have evolved in to. Shoulda called it MPC 64 and called it day lol.

Never say never, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

What differentiates the two platforms isn't features in general, but really the workflow which is quite different between the two. It's masked by a lot of the internal behaviour being the same, but when you actually look at how you go about structuring a track, you see that they aren't the same animals at all.

Not going to happen IMO, the Force is the Force, the MPC is the MPC. Some individual 'features' will continue to be shared, but the fundamental structure is very different and lends itself to completely different workflows. I really can't see how they can ever have the Force use the MPC Software as the project structure is completely different (i.e. not 'sequence' based).

Happy for the Force to keep on its own unique path TBH. But I do agree that in many ways,the Force is really what the MPC should now be. Lots of very nice little features and tweaks in the Force that make the MPC seem a little dated. Perhaps the 'legacy MPC' baggage is holding back the MPC.

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thanks for the replies. I understand the project structure of the Force is different from the MPC, but they still are essentially the same just with different workflows, which would make the merging of the 2 simpler than it seems, right?

I haven't completely thought out how this would work, and maybe I don't have a full understanding of the Force yet. But the way I understand things is, on the Force, each pad is a track (clip), each column of pads is a program (audio track, keygroup, drum track, etc.), and each row of pads is a sequence (scene).

In other words,

Clips = Tracks
Scenes = Sequences
Tracks = Programs

With the MPC, you add tracks to your sequence and assign whatever program to each track.
With the Force, you add programs to your sequence and build tracks for whatever program you selected.

So couldn't you take an MPC project (.seq and .pgm files) and take all of the .seq data and lay them out as a scene in the matrix view (rows of pads). Then take the .pgm data and lay them out as tracks in the matrix view (columns of pads).
And vice versa, you could take a Force project and convert it to the MPC layout, since they both use the same building blocks just arranged and organized in a different manner.

Maybe the MPC software and Force OS can offer both workflows...the MPC workflow of adding tracks (with programs) to sequences AND the Force workflow of adding programs (with tracks) to sequences.

Does this make sense? Would this be possible or am I totally off base? Just wishful thinking, but I think it would be cool if they could make this happen. I also think simplifying the ecosystem may be a good business decision too. What do you guys think?

I agree with MPC-Tutor's point that the project structures are pretty different, and this is of course why they offer different workflows.

For this reason, among others, I think that it's not true to say that they're the same; they have basically different approaches based in different conceptual models. For example, in Force a column stays the same thing, regardless of row changes. Tubesynth in the first row? Tubesynth all the way down. That's just not true in the MPC world (for example).

I actually think that Akaipro is being smart about this, because it means that different producers with different approaches have different tools to match their workflows. I don't think that the ecosystem needs simplification, at this point.

aes-one wrote:In other words,

Clips = Tracks
Scenes = Sequences
Tracks = Programs

Yes, if you were to create a snapshot of an MPC project you could translate it that way in the Force (with plenty of YMMV's). It's what you can do with it afterwards that really highlights the differences, the way you can dynamically play clips (tracks) from different scenes (sequences), which is not possible in an MPC where a sequence structure is fixed the moment you press play - in an MPC you can't trigger track 5 from sequence 2 while sequence 9 is playing, but you can effectively do this in the Force.

But yes it is possible to 'translate' the basic project structures, but I can't see how merging them into a single machine would be viable (from a workflow perspective) or in Akai's interests from a business perspective

pretty sure dan said on gearslutz at some point that they will get closer to each other but talk is cheap

yeah that was years ago... and Dan is as far as I know, no longer with the company :/

Just my $0.02, but I really don't think it would be that hard to merge the two OSes. I'd do it like so.

1. Introduce the concept of Programs in Force. When legacy Force projects are imported, they'd be up-converted to the new project structure by automatically creating a unique Program for each Track. Easy peasy.

2. Put a Sequence concept into Force as one of the menu widgets. The 64 pads would work like they do in Force NOTES mode, just like on MPC's 16 pads. You could still use the arrow pads and Track Select buttons to navigate between Tracks and have the pads respond accordingly just like they do on MPC, so these extra buttons would just become shortcuts. All the really changes in MPC-style Sequences versus Force-style Clips is that you can't have each Track be a different bar length. Everything else is pretty much the same, so all you'd be doing here is restricting things the Force can already do in excess of the MPC in order to honor the Sequence workflow.

3. Introduce MIDI Clips to MPC. This would work just like it does on Force, and akin to how Clip Programs work in MPC. Each pad fires off a MIDI clip. Each vertical column of pads on MPC becomes like a Track in Force. You'd have to use software buttons on the screen of the MPC to expose the missing Force hardware buttons on MPC, but Akai already deals with these kinds of deltas in the software.

4. Add the Arrange view to MPC. Since Arrange is all done on the screen, there's nothing stopping this from happening as far as I can see.

I think this approach would require you to decide if you wanted your Project to be Sequence- or Matrix-based when you create the Project, but I don't see that being a major usability issue. People seem to want to work one way or the other.

Merging the feature sets as I described would allow MPC users who would prefer an Arrange- and Clip-based workflow to have it if they want it, allow MPC users who like Sequences to keep them, and provide unity between OS versions in terms of how they deal with Programs, which I think is a no-brainer anyway and should already have been done in Force in the first place. On my Force I should be able to have multiple Tracks share the same Program if I want to, just like I can do on MPC.

Is anybody seeing anything I'm missing or scenarios where what I've proposed wouldn't work?

MPC-Tutor wrote:Not going to happen IMO, the Force is the Force, the MPC is the MPC. Some individual 'features' will continue to be shared, but the fundamental structure is very different and lends itself to completely different workflows. I really can't see how they can ever have the Force use the MPC Software as the project structure is completely different (i.e. not 'sequence' based).

Happy for the Force to keep on its own unique path TBH. But I do agree that in many ways,the Force is really what the MPC should now be. Lots of very nice little features and tweaks in the Force that make the MPC seem a little dated. Perhaps the 'legacy MPC' baggage is holding back the MPC.

As the owner of both an original MPC Live and a Force, I think all that's really missing from MPC is the following.

1. MIDI Clips
2. Arrange view
3. The Clip Matrix screen
4. Features that made it into Force 3.1 like streaming, a bad ass macro editor, and so on - all of which can go into MPC with the associated limitations in hardware controls available to assign based on MPC hardware model.

Between that, and introducing a Program and Sequence concept to Force, all the features would be merged. As far as I can see from using both devices, Sequences are really just the Arrange view without cross-track visibility like you get on the Force: a Sequence is a bunch of Tracks in a fixed length piano roll window, but you can only view one Track at a time in the Grid editor, unlike Force where you can see the tracks stacked on each other in Arrange view.

It’s finally happening!!

Here's my understanding of how the Force user interface might map to things from the MPC world, even actually behind the scenes. I can't know of course, but if I was tasked with taking the MPC "engine" and building the current Force user interface by utilizing those underlying facilities, this is how it could be done.

https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?p=1847858#p1847858

By that I mean, I suspect that's how it's actually built.

if you are really bored, a french coding os force for mpc live/one/x.
on the other hand, it is absolutely not ergonomic....

https://github.com/TheKikGen/MPC-LiveXplore