Akai Force Forum: Everything relating to the Akai Force, the new 64 pad, clip-based standalone sampler/groovebox from Akai. While not an MPC, it shares many similar software features to the MPC X/MPC Live including the same underlying code-base.
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By SnowMetal Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:21 am
Here is a 1-hour set, performed entirely in Akai Force. This performance was filmed/recorded in one take, without any prior practice or insight into how the material would interact together. As such, there are some obvious mistakes, and it took me about 10 minutes to really get the feel for how transitions should be accomplished. 8 tracks are used as follows.

Bass1 (rendered MIDI clips of VST basslines, from Live)
Bass2 *same
Synth1 (rendered MIDI clips of VST synths/arps, from Live)
Synth2 *same
Drums1 (rendered Drum Programs, from Live)
Drums2 *same
Remix Clips (stems and/or edited bars of bangers, which I remixed in Live and rendered)
Vox (FX and transition clips, alternate versions of remixed clips)

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By Koekepan Fri Aug 05, 2022 4:50 pm
Definite potential there, in the way that you did this.

Don't know what your support rig is, but for me I'd also add a keyboard (or EWI, or whatever) for soloing, plus a UPS in case of power glitches. Batteries have saved my set in the past.
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By SnowMetal Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:15 pm
Thanks a lot, guys. I appreciate you taking the time to watch and listen.


Timo wrote:Very cool! Are you triggering a bunch of short clips in matrix mode, or are you using arranger mode to play back long stems of pre-rendered tracks?


This is all a collection of short clips. I haven't used the arranger at all, and I'm not sure I ever will.

My writing process for this is to build an Ableton set with 2 bass tracks, 2 synth tracks, 2 drum tracks and 2 remix/FX tracks. As I write new material, I freeze and render clips to audio which will go into the Force.


Koekepan wrote:Don't know what your support rig is, but for me I'd also add a keyboard (or EWI, or whatever) for soloing, plus a UPS in case of power glitches. Batteries have saved my set in the past.


As much as I'd like to use the Force as an all-in-one live solution, instability and crashes make this impossible, at least in its current firmware. I will be playing this weekend with the Force, Boss RC505 looper, Korg ESX and Waldorf Blofeld.
By Timo Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:11 am
Koekepan wrote:Definite potential there, in the way that you did this.

Don't know what your support rig is, but for me I'd also add a keyboard (or EWI, or whatever) for soloing, plus a UPS in case of power glitches. Batteries have saved my set in the past.


That's a fantastic idea! Do you have any recommendations for a light, portable UPS? I'm really just looking for power conditioning, and protection against sags/brownouts, or very short blips of power blackouts, so I don't need much battery capacity at all. If the power goes out for more than a few seconds, there will be bigger problems at the venue anyway :)
Last edited by Timo on Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
By Timo Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:13 am
SnowMetal wrote:Thanks a lot, guys. I appreciate you taking the time to watch and listen.


Timo wrote:Very cool! Are you triggering a bunch of short clips in matrix mode, or are you using arranger mode to play back long stems of pre-rendered tracks?


This is all a collection of short clips. I haven't used the arranger at all, and I'm not sure I ever will.

My writing process for this is to build an Ableton set with 2 bass tracks, 2 synth tracks, 2 drum tracks and 2 remix/FX tracks. As I write new material, I freeze and render clips to audio which will go into the Force.


Koekepan wrote:Don't know what your support rig is, but for me I'd also add a keyboard (or EWI, or whatever) for soloing, plus a UPS in case of power glitches. Batteries have saved my set in the past.


As much as I'd like to use the Force as an all-in-one live solution, instability and crashes make this impossible, at least in its current firmware. I will be playing this weekend with the Force, Boss RC505 looper, Korg ESX and Waldorf Blofeld.


Ugh, you're scaring me with your comments about the crashes/instability! I've encountered my share of Force crashes myself, but that was only while I was creating/editing stuff. If you're just playing things back, I'd be curious to hear from forum members whether I need to worry about the Force crashing!

For context - I'm planning on using the Force as my exclusive playback device. I'll be using the arranger mode to stream various arrangements, which are just long WAV stems, usually less than 8 per arrangement. I'll be lightly manipulating those stems live, mostly just by adjusting their mix/volume.

My music doesn't lend itself to be clip-based, hence I'm using the Force basically as a multitrack playback device, and I was hoping for that to be more robust than a laptop on stage (and it looks way cooler too).
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By Koekepan Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:01 am
UPS:

I have an APC Back-UPS 600. It's pretty small, not too heavy, and will carry a Force for a while. In addition, it acts as a power conditioner on dodgy circuits, so I don't have to worry about weirdness much.

Stability:

I won't say that it's perfect, but crashes are few and far between for me. Given that I use it for composition under tight deadlines, I'm basically OK as long as I remember that the Save button is right there, and I use it. Booting from a fresh start to jam out has never resulted in crashes for me, and that would be the live performance scenario.
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By SnowMetal Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:16 am
Timo wrote:Ugh, you're scaring me with your comments about the crashes/instability! I've encountered my share of Force crashes myself, but that was only while I was creating/editing stuff. If you're just playing things back, I'd be curious to hear from forum members whether I need to worry about the Force crashing!


I haven't yet experienced a crash while playing back material. Only while creating. Mostly, I can see where I stressed the system and knew a crash was possible. The most concerning, though, is three crashes now which have happened while browsing insert FX presets. Like, there literally was no reason to crash, and no warning. I keep an extra device handy during live shows, though, and I can't ever see that changing.

As far as the arranger vs clips, I don't use the arranger at all. But I have heard a lot of crashing horror stories concerning crashes in the arranger, and I have no reason to believe its more stable than clips mode. In fact, from the hubbub I gather that I can absolutely be playing back arrangements while performing and, if I undo/redo too many times, the Force will crash. Maybe you can test this out?
By HouseWithoutMouse Sat Aug 06, 2022 2:27 pm
IIRC, my crashes have been related to loading plugins. Using lots of undo/redo sometimes does funny stuff, like for example the Q-link OLED displays get out of sync with that they should be showing, and I need to go back and forth in the user interface to get them back.

By the way, in your live set, in the first 5-10 minutes or so, there are sometimes slightly too many different melodic ideas happening at the same time. It's an interesting problem when constructing music from audio clips, because an audio clip can contain all aspects of music: rhythm, harmony, timbre, _tuning_ even. I have some rules of thumb I try to follow, and one of the main rules is that I should be able to hum or whistle the main idea of the music at all times. Or express that idea in a man+guitar setting. This naturally puts things in an order - if a new melodic idea is introduced, the previous one must shut up and make space for the new idea, in a conversation sort of way. For harmony the man+guitar simplification model says that there can only be one clearly identifiable backing chord progression. With multiple complex audio clips, every one of them can potentially have its own man with a guitar, so it needs quite some coordination to make them play the same song. :)

My goal or dream is to be able to perform with electronic gear such as the Force in the same way I can with a guitar or keyboard - I grab the instrument and anything is possible, free flow of ideas to sound. With the Force I feel that I always have to start completely from scratch, because otherwise I can't get the same level of control. "What were all the clips and what were all the ideas in there again..." I should basically rehearse playing the whole project to even remember what was in there. It would be nice to be able to have the clip label texts in a LARGER FONT, even 8 characters of text would be excellent if I could read what it says. Currently the text is way too tiny, I don't bother writing anything there because I can't read it anyway.
By Timo Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:25 pm
Koekepan wrote:UPS:

I have an APC Back-UPS 600. It's pretty small, not too heavy, and will carry a Force for a while. In addition, it acts as a power conditioner on dodgy circuits, so I don't have to worry about weirdness much.

Stability:

I won't say that it's perfect, but crashes are few and far between for me. Given that I use it for composition under tight deadlines, I'm basically OK as long as I remember that the Save button is right there, and I use it. Booting from a fresh start to jam out has never resulted in crashes for me, and that would be the live performance scenario.


Thanks, that APC UPS looks just right, I'll get myself one of those!

And glad to hear that you've never experienced a crash when starting out fresh. I think that's the key - do a fresh reboot to start with.
By Timo Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:28 pm
SnowMetal wrote:
Timo wrote:Ugh, you're scaring me with your comments about the crashes/instability! I've encountered my share of Force crashes myself, but that was only while I was creating/editing stuff. If you're just playing things back, I'd be curious to hear from forum members whether I need to worry about the Force crashing!


I haven't yet experienced a crash while playing back material. Only while creating. Mostly, I can see where I stressed the system and knew a crash was possible. The most concerning, though, is three crashes now which have happened while browsing insert FX presets. Like, there literally was no reason to crash, and no warning. I keep an extra device handy during live shows, though, and I can't ever see that changing.

As far as the arranger vs clips, I don't use the arranger at all. But I have heard a lot of crashing horror stories concerning crashes in the arranger, and I have no reason to believe its more stable than clips mode. In fact, from the hubbub I gather that I can absolutely be playing back arrangements while performing and, if I undo/redo too many times, the Force will crash. Maybe you can test this out?


Happy to hear that the playback scenario seems to be generally crash-free, that's my experience as well, even with arranger mode. The key, I think, is to do a fresh reboot, load your project, and don't mess around with things like editing/undo/redo/inserting FX, etc.

Just for insurance, I'm planning on bringing an iPad with Cubasis and load a stereo mix of my tracks onto that, so if the Force crashes and burns, I can just hit play on the iPad. And as a backup to the backup, I'll also be bringing a small MP3 player with my stereo mix, so that no matter what, the show will go on :)
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By SnowMetal Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:57 pm
HouseWithoutMouse wrote:By the way, in your live set, in the first 5-10 minutes or so, there are sometimes slightly too many different melodic ideas happening at the same time.


You're spot on. Not only had I not rehearsed that material, but it took me a minute to recognize how to be proactive within the work and be intentional in "thinning things out". It was an interesting experiment, but not something I will be doing in an actual liveset.

I'm going on tonight at 2am and will be using only 4 audio tracks; bass, synth, drums, FX. There will be no stems or clips from other artists, outside the rare studio vocal. I'll be dropping the acapella of Hungry Like The Wolf, for instance, in one spot. I find that such things are necessary to release tension, and to add a moment of familiarity with my audience.

I will have two plugin tracks and two keygroups, the patches of which I'll be changing in real time. I have the plugin patches (Hype, mostly) I've created saved in one folder, making it easy to find the one I need before the corresponding scene launch.

Lastly, I have one huge drum track with all 128 pads filled with breaks, FX, swooshes, 8-bit noises etc. This track is set to not be affected by scene launch, and I can program these in an out on the fly.

I'm also using my Boss RC-505 looper, so if the Force takes a crap I can still perform while the project reloads.

I'll let everybody know how things turn out. :)
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By Koekepan Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:21 am
Timo: depending on your setup, I recommend getting a tote or case of some sort, and a dolly. If you have to walk three city blocks from parking or bus stop to get to the venue, it can really save aggravation. A dolly can also carry a keyboard stand, a portable PA, a cable bag or whatever your situation requires.

Not that expensive, but big improvement in quality of life.
By Timo Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:55 pm
Koekepan wrote:Timo: depending on your setup, I recommend getting a tote or case of some sort, and a dolly. If you have to walk three city blocks from parking or bus stop to get to the venue, it can really save aggravation. A dolly can also carry a keyboard stand, a portable PA, a cable bag or whatever your situation requires.

Not that expensive, but big improvement in quality of life.


Ah, that's great advice, thanks! And I'm already on it - I've got flight cases for my live setup. FWIW, I can highly recommend Analog Cases, who have a large selection of custom-fit cases for a large variety of gear. Their cases are well made, look great, aren't too heavy, and if you wait for one of their sales, you can usually get them for 20% off.