Looper bug?

While my sequences are playing, if I open the looper and record a performance, if I press MATRIX while the loop is playing it will immediately stop. After exiting the looper, though, if I start the sequencer again, the looper begins playing the loops in the background. Am I missing something? I can't find anything about this in the User Guide.

Thanks in advance.

Does anyone have a workaround for this? Am I just missing something? It's difficult to believe the Force looper is less usable than the already-crippled MPC looper. In fact, does anyone here use the Force for live looping? How do you use it?

Thank you!

Sorry, I didn't answer because I don't use the looper. Force livelooping isn't a major deal for me, because I use it as a studio master.

However, I do sometimes use a looping strategy while working on it. For that I just use the regular matrix, select clips enter stuff into them (often using the step sequencer), advance clips, copy, stop, etc. etc. etc.

I just compose without stopping the process.

It helps that I'm used to livelooping in front of an audience with my Social Entropy Engine.

Koekepan wrote:I just use the regular matrix, select clips enter stuff into them (often using the step sequencer), advance clips, copy, stop, etc. etc. etc..

I get it, but single audio loops, on the fly, do not really cut it for live looping. Overdubbing is crucial for the workflow. Right now I use the Boss RC-505. To be perfectly honest, this "looper" should not even be on the Force, at least until it is useable in any capacity, on stage or in the studio.

Koekepan wrote:It helps that I'm used to livelooping in front of an audience with my Social Entropy Engine.

The Engine was pretty exciting when it was released. It still reminds me of the Yamaha RM1x sequencer. But it doesn't do audio looping; only MIDI and CV/Gate.

Yeah, I'm a MIDI kind of a guy more than audio - well, MIDI and samples, sometimes. But I can see how that's not what you're talking about.

For my needs, the Force actually does a rather nice job of looping, recording into clips while running, switching up clips, and generally fooling around.

I think the Force's possibilities to be used for live audio looping are largely unexplored. For example, how about moving to a fresh track for every "overdub" cycle, with a foot pedal? That way you'd have each overdub round separately accessible and you could even remove or mute one of them from the middle of the overdub stack. Or, why not create a pre-assigned set of tracks with one of them having an octaver for playing a bass line on a guitar, and some of the tracks being panned slightly left/right? You could press the "next track" pedal and get the pre-assigned effects instantly without having to activate them separately. Maybe that could be hacked with some sort of external MIDI control. Or how about auto-slicing and quantizing each recorded clip?

There are no problems, as long as you're this guy:


No need to quantize audio, or have foot-pedals, he even prefers to use the touch screen for activating clips, and not the combined launch/notes mode. Incredibly fast, error-free, precise hand movements. That's the way you do it, just stop making mistakes and all your problems are solved.

One thing I'd like for this kind of looping, but that I think is currently missing altogether, is a "pre-record" feature where I could record to a new clip and have it record BEFORE the exact bar boundary, like a pickup bar or "anacrusis". And that would be placed so that the beat 1 is still aligned properly. This is missing for audio and MIDI recording alike. Some of the playback part of it can be done with pre-recorded clips with the "legato" clip launch mode, but recording those live would require a "record during pre-roll" feature, as far as I can see.

For starters, the Force only gives me 8 tracks of audio. I purchased the unit specifically to translate Ableton Live clips to hardware for live shows, and 8 tracks is already not enough. I'm certainly not willing to give up multiple audio tracks to perform live looping, when the unit is advertised as having a built-in looper, just because Akai can't iron out the bugs before releasing a product.

I may sound cynical, but I'm really not. I'm just trying to ascertain what the Force is and what it isn't. Also, I own so many synths that I have to rent space outside my home to house them, and they're literally stacked in rows against the walls, on top of one another. I got the Force to add to the collection, and I'm not going to get rid of it. Still, I was hoping it would fill in for some hardware I use live, as space is always limited and I usually have to set up in minutes, in the dark, in the same amount of space a DJ gets to set up in. Live looping is crucial to my setup, and I'll just have to keep using my Boss RC505.

I can sympathize, the audio track features are half-baked at best. What comes to the original suspected bug, I confirm, that's what actually happens. When you press MATRIX, the looper stops, and when you press PLAY, the looper starts playing like it was a hidden clip on a hidden track. If you already had playback going when entering the looper, the same thing happens - pressing MATRIX silences the looper. And to hear the looper again requires either pressing PLAY or going into the looper. This makes very little sense to me. I suspect that practically nobody uses the looper, and so it hasn't been tested much. I tried the looper on the MPC and decided that it was useless, so that's why I hadn't even tried it on the Force.

In my opinion, the looper would be much more useful if a matrix clip could be assigned as a target for the looper to work on, like "do the Looper thing on THIS clip". Without even having to go to the looper screen. Instead of the looper clip being an invisible clip on an invisible track. Then you could do live looping as an integral part of the ... "session" or whatever the matrix stuff should be called.

I tried MIDI syncing a Boss RC-5 looper pedal with the Force. Not good.

Sync from Force to RC-5
The RC-5 was a slave and Force was the master. Tempo was in sync... BUT the RC-5 made gargling noises. Most probably Force's MIDI Clock fluctuates too much. Disconnect the MIDI cable and behold, the gargling effect immediately vanishes. It wasn't completely bad though, maybe one gargle per beat or so.

I've previously synced the RC-5 with an RC-10R, and that pair worked nicely without gargling. Either the Force's MIDI clock fluctuates more, OR the Boss loopers have a hidden conspiracy feature that deliberately spoils the sound if they cannot detect some magical Boss signal.

Sync from RC-5 to Force
RC-5 being the tempo master and Force a slave. Now the RC-5 plays without gargling, and Force's MIDI clips can be used. BUT. As soon as I try to record an audio clip on the Force:

UNSUPPORTED TEMPO CHANGE!
Recording has been stopped due to tempo change.


Maybe in the future Akai develops the Force more towards live looping. Maybe not. I won't be holding my breath, but I liked my idea of being able to select a clip for the Looper to operate on, and without going to the looper screen. MIDI clips can be overdub-looped like that in the matrix view already, so why not audio.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:In my opinion, the looper would be much more useful if a matrix clip could be assigned as a target for the looper to work on, like "do the Looper thing on THIS clip".

This is how the Octatrack works.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:RC-5 being the tempo master and Force a slave. Now the RC-5 plays without gargling, and Force's MIDI clips can be used. BUT. As soon as I try to record an audio clip on the Force:

UNSUPPORTED TEMPO CHANGE!
Recording has been stopped due to tempo change.

The RC-505 must be the master, and any other clock must be the slave, or there will be issues. This has been the case with my other Boss loopers as well, RC-202 and RC-300. This is probably how I'll use mine, since I have no use for recording audio into the Force if it's not for looping. I'll probably get another RC-202 instead of the 505, though, to save table space.

I have never tried the looper until today, but I exported the loop directly into and audio track and then launched it with a bar left on the loop, timing a stop on the looper as best I could. It worked well, even included the bug I always get when Force decides my clips have been recorded at 0.75x the actual tempo. I consistently have several tracks dedicated to playback, as I often resample using hardware FX.

Maybe this will help