Where's My Update?

Come on Akai...show us some love.

Would you prefer an unstable buggy release now, or stable bug free release later?

I want them to take their time and get it right. I don't understand how they can be profitable when they have to devote so much time on fixes. You can't get the money back on releasing a new hardware machine. It has built in cost and calculated returns. If you keep releasing unfinished stuff you lose the attention of people who would otherwise be interested. The marketing foolery only works once... you can't lie to people and expect to sell alot of stuff. Apple has even started making that shit make sense, people test and review these systems and will pull your card on the lies and bs.

With so much room for improvement... I must say, the Force is already pretty damn excellent the way it is now. Sure, a lot of things cannot be done, but the area of things that CAN be done is big and nice. When or if the next update comes, I'll be watching the reports for a long time before installing.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:With so much room for improvement... I must say, the Force is already pretty damn excellent the way it is now. Sure, a lot of things cannot be done, but the area of things that CAN be done is big and nice. When or if the next update comes, I'll be watching the reports for a long time before installing.

Word, I got a mpc one and so far I havent seen the need to upgrade my os 2.10 to 2.11.

I just replaced my Force with a Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (i7 16GB RAM) running Bitwig and a Push 2 for full control with screen feedback, better audio routing, better synths, effects and midi controller support (I'm writing my own javascript mapping for my 4 Xone:K2's as we speak). It's so much better, and even cost less than I paid for the Force!

The force can control Bitwig in midi mode but it absolutely sucks. I'm not going to sell the Force yet, but it's going to be collecting dust until the software is finished or 1 year has passed, whichever happens sooner...

Having limitations (Force) was cool for a while, but ultimately having no limitations is way better, especially when I can impose limitations on myself by only using the push 2 for jamming, but being able to arrange in a real DAW on a massive screen with a MOUSE!

I find it strange people claiming the software isn’t finished. Don’t you mean when the software meets my unrealistic demands?

voonta wrote:I just replaced my Force with a Microsoft Surface Pro 7

Pretty much the exact opposite for me.
I want the limitations and I despise the endless noodling that comes with the PC based interface.
That, and that I hate using a laptop live.
There it is.

64hz wrote:I find it strange people claiming the software isn’t finished. Don’t you mean when the software meets my unrealistic demands?

Obviously the software isn't finished, they are still working on it and releasing features LOL.

I would consider it good enough if I could midi map LED feedback. I don't think that's too much to ask when they asked $2100AUD. The rest is just a cherries on top. Bitwig absolutely blows away my expectations in every area though, I find it even better than Ableton.

I'm a programmer, I respect that not every feature makes a release, but considering adding LED feedback would take a bad programmer maybe a full 2 week sprint to implement and the release cycle is 0 times in the last 8 months I don't think there is any reasonable excuse, it's core functionality of midi support, it's part of the midi specification.

MPC-Tutor wrote:stable bug free release later?

Wait, what?! I think I missed the stable, bug-free release so far! link please?

voonta wrote:I just replaced my Force with a Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (i7 16GB RAM) running Bitwig and a Push 2

I've done the same in the past, and did it inside an APC40 mk1, running Ableton with no screen, no mouse, no keyboard. Everything self-contained, inside a redesigned chassis. I think most people don't realize this can be done discreetly, with no "computer" in sight.

64hz wrote:Don’t you mean when the software meets my unrealistic demands?

Hmm.. not really this; sorry. Have you tried warping anything lately?

I don't think it's unrealistic to expect, from a box that's clearly made to be a standalone Ableton Live

- that the so-called "arranger" would have clips you can move around and copy, in order to arrange things
- that audio tracks would have cross-fades between cl... regions, so you could do seamless punch-ins and, well, arrange
- that you could audio-quantize with warp markers
- time signatures
- that class-compliant audio interfaces would work, when class-compliant audio interfaces are advertised to work
- that you could record audio when the device is set to slave mode
- that you could kind of actually do something live with the looper
- that a "vocal plugin suite" would include a de-esser
- that you could operate a box that's FULL of buttons and knobs, without fiddling with the damn touch screen

These are not _unrealistic_ things. Some of it like slicing audio like it was the 90s and nothing else had been invented yet, I can kind of understand how it may feel OK for an MPC user. It was good enough for MPC so it's good enough for me.

About the "midi map LED feedback" thing ... what? You need to turn the lights on and off from an external controller or what? Or have the launch clip and play/rec/stop light status be sent to an external launch pad? I wouldn't place that in the realistic expectations department really. But yeah why not, it would be nice to be able to adapt Ableton's Python controller scripts for the Force, and use the APC mini etc.

I notice a pattern here:

team software: Features! All of them! Now! I want it to massage the audio, AI the whatsit, rectify the whatchamacallit, and make me some goddamn coffee!

team hardware: You can get there from here, the tool isn't meant to be all things to all people, but we actually make music with it.

Maybe team software should get their iPads, or Surfaces, or whatever, and load 'em up with Bitwig, or Renoise, or KORG Gadget, or whatever, and spend their money on plugins instead of hardware?

Crazy talk on a forum about hardware, I know ...

It's also okay to recognize that in general, all this music gear is made for a target market, and not necessarily a specific user. We don't have to like every piece of gear that comes out, and although it is nice when we gel with a piece of gear, there's stuff out there that just isn't for us due to price, experience, timing, sound, quality, or whatever other factor you through in there.

The things I listed are not unrealistic, they're well within the scope of things that new users can reasonably be expected to try and find.

And this forum being "hardware" something, everybody knows it's not a box like hardware used to be in the 80s. The Force was originally released in a SEVERELY UNFINISHED state, and people started gaining some trust in the product only after Akai showed, with a series of updates, that they're fixing missing things one by one. It is now much LESS UNFINISHED, but it is still NOT FINISHED. It is a matter of fact anyone can see that people expect the fixing to continue, and that is not an unrealistic expectation.

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:About the "midi map LED feedback" thing ...

It's literally just sending a midi note on/off message to a controller so it can turn its LED on in reaction to the active state of the control you mapped in the software.