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.
By xpro333 Sat Aug 27, 2022 6:29 am
Hi ..
when connecting a external class compliant audio interface .. I am aware that you have an option for 32 Input/output channels routing in the FORCE.
so if I route my 32 input mixer to the FORCE .. I have basically 16 stereo channels to the FORCE ..
BUT I only have 8 Audio tracks available for clips in the FORCE ... ??!!!!

if I route my synths to the input channels of the FORCE .. then I will be using up the 8 audio channels to route the signal from my Synths to the FORCE .. to mix the signals using Force plugins ..
but then I WILL NOT be able to use those 8 tracks to play clips ??!! ,..because I am using it for my Synths ..

can someone please explain .. where the input channels are routed into the FORCE mixer ??

thanks
User avatar
By Koekepan Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:16 pm
when connecting a external class compliant audio interface .. I am aware that you have an option for 32 Input/output channels routing in the FORCE.
so if I route my 32 input mixer to the FORCE .. I have basically 16 stereo channels to the FORCE ..


OK, I'll admit that I slept on these questions, but mostly because I had a hell of a time making sense of them all. I've had my coffee and I'll try to get through it as well as possible. Let me know if I'm missing any tricks here.

Yes, you can plug in 16 stereo channels, or 32 mono channel equivalents, to the Force. This is correct.

BUT I only have 8 Audio tracks available for clips in the FORCE ... ??!!!!


This is also correct.

if I route my synths to the input channels of the FORCE .. then I will be using up the 8 audio channels to route the signal from my Synths to the FORCE .. to mix the signals using Force plugins ..


Assuming you aren't using any submixers or anything like that, then yes.

but then I WILL NOT be able to use those 8 tracks to play clips ??!! ,..because I am using it for my Synths ..


Well, hold on a minute. If you're using them strictly as audio channels, this is correct. However, if it's purely static audio why wouldn't you use a workaround such as using your clips as samples? That works. I know it works because I have done it. In fact, you can render a clip through effects and use the result as a sample as well (re-sampling, in other words). You can stream that from disc, and you can have 128 samples loaded in a single set on a single channel without using it as an audio channel. In fact, each sample can have its own effects settings.

can someone please explain .. where the input channels are routed into the FORCE mixer ??


I'm not sure what you want people to explain here. If you go to the mixer interface, and you hit the touchscreen option button at the bottom of the screen marked I/O then you get an interface that lets you decide which channels are used for input and output on all your tracks. In fact, you can use MIDI tracks to drive your synths on MIDI channels, then use audio channels to pull the audio back in. What's more, you can selectively mute channels to let you render particular clips and then treat them as samples afterwards. The sky is kind of the limit.

Now that I think about it, while the coffee kicks in, you can drive a crazy number of outboard synths, aggregate them with submixers into your Force through your interface, and then treat the Force as the sort of final mixing board. If you have appropriate MIDI CC controls set up on the Force, you can even control the submixes before they hit the audio channels. It's not about not getting where you want to go; it's just how you use the tools to get there.

OK, so you don't have 16 stereo audio channels. Maybe that's a bummer - I don't know, it's never limited me. But I get where you're coming from, if I correctly interpreted your post.
By allreddv Sun Sep 04, 2022 5:44 pm
While I agree with most of your answers as workarounds and it is what I do also, I can also relate to the OP's issue of only 8 audio channels, but not because I think the Force should be able to do more than 8 audio channels, my point is that it already can, but Akai still limits it, probably because it wasn't much of an issue until the newest update allowing USB interface support.

I use a scarlet 18i8 with Octopre so 16 channels into the Force having 8 stereo audio tracks in the force with a different synth going to each one. Even with all 8 going at once with effects, also separate midi tracks for each synth, and a couple of drum racks, I am usually only pushing 20-25% CPU usage.

So the limit is arbitrary as I am not even close to pushing CPU limits, I wish Akai would remove the limit and let me worry about overloading and needing to cut back on tracks if I am having issues.

I also currently do what you recommended to the poster, I load audio clips into one of the audio tracks that is not currently playing for that scene. I will also have merge audio on tracks so I can have a synth play live and an audio clip at the same time. I will also load audio clips I want into drum tracks and play them that way.

However, all the above are what I do as a work around to what I really would like to do, which is to load more audio tracks. There are reasons why I would prefer this over the workarounds I use as each workaround has its own side effect that would not be present if I could just add more audio tracks.

To be clear, I am not saying that the Force should be more powerful are be able to process more tracks than it currently does, I am just saying it would be nice to let me fully utilize the power it has.

I also agree with you about the Force as a controller for external hardware. IMO there isn't any other piece of single hardware that even comes close to what the force can do for controller external gear. Not only how powerful it is as a midi controller, but also how easy it is to use. There isn't anything I do with the Force I couldn't do with Ableton for controlling my gear, but the Force is just so much nicer to do it on. The macros you can setup to control multiple pieces of gear are really powerful,
User avatar
By Koekepan Sun Sep 04, 2022 9:03 pm
I have no way of proving this, but I suspect that the limitation on audio channels is more of an I/O performance and headroom limitation than a CPU limitation. Just shunting data isn't that CPU heavy these days, but only so many bits per second can make it down the pipe.
By allreddv Mon Sep 05, 2022 4:20 am
Yeah that could be. I don't know enough about how the backend works to speak much on that subject.

It would be nice to be able to create more audio tracks even if the limit is 8 playing at a time. Not the end of the world by any means, and if it is an actual limitation of the Force it would be understandable. Would be nice if Akai maybe commented on the subject. If it is a hardware limitation then I wouldn't complain and wouldn't even talk about it more.

Just curious if you know, why would it be easier to process the same audio files in drum programs vs audio tracks? Isn't it still needing to accommodate the same amount of bits?
User avatar
By Koekepan Mon Sep 05, 2022 5:12 pm
It depends on the flow of data.

If all you're doing is streaming from RAM, then your pathway is very simple: RAM over primary data bus to DA converter.

If you're slurping in audio from a synth connected by audio interface, you're bringing in a data stream over USB (which is not a proper realtime bus, so it's vulnerable to glitches), over the main bus, into RAM for processing, and then feeding back out to the DA converter.

If all you're doing is plopping down fat audio samples in your audio channel, that's great and all, but why? You're not doing anything with your audio channel that you couldn't do with a drum track built out of samples. What makes the audio channel special in this context is that you can feed live audio in and out - and then you involve a longer, more complex and more limited stream.
By allreddv Tue Sep 06, 2022 7:51 pm
When using an USB audio interface isn't most of that audio processing being off loaded to the interface? Isn't that kind of the whole point of using interfaces? I could see the 8 limit making more sense when on the internal interface but now with the expandability of audio interfaces I would think that would free up a ton for the Force. I am by no means an expert in the area of interfaces and signal conversion though, so I could be completely wrong, that is just my current understanding.

I do disagree a bit about there not being any benefit to clips in audio tracks vs loaded onto pads in a drum track.

Don't get me wrong, you are correct in that you can accomplish the same thing with both, but the workflow for loading clips and looping them in audio tracks is quicker and easier than setting them up in drum patterns.

when I am playing live I will often drop in clips on the fly, or move them around within the track frequently and doing so in drum tracks isn't nearly as seamless.

Also nice that the clip names are automatically loaded in on audio tracks, often I will use 10-20 different looped samples throughout a song on the same audio track, for a whole set many more, so having to rename each one just adds to time and takes away from my workflow.

My whole thing still just boils down to if it is an actual limitation of the Force to only have 8 tracks or if it possible to just remove that constraint when using an external interface. If it is removable, for many it would be a big upgrade, if it can't then cool, still a great piece of gear and all gear has limitations.
User avatar
By Koekepan Wed Sep 07, 2022 2:07 am
You're missing the point.

The audio interface contains the DA/AD converters, that is true. This saves some electronic work on the side of the Force.

This doesn't help for I/O.

Why not?

Because even if you had a supercomputer inside your audio interface, you still have to ship every bit of audio data over the USB bus, then it has to be passed from the UART into the rest of your system, and then back out. If the limitation (and I'm speculating here, because I don't have the specs in front of me) is one related to the bus capacity of the mainboard in the Force, then your audio interface could be a tiny tin god and you still wouldn't be able to reliably push more bits per second over the path in question.
By wyram418 Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:32 pm
I realize I'm digging up an old thread here, but there's still something I can't quite wrap my head around about this. In my mind, it just doesn't make sense to have a 32 I/O option available in the device menu if it's impossible to actually utilize 50% of those inputs in a project. Is the 32 I/O option just a generic standard they've implemented in the Force? Why not call it 16 I/O instead?
By HouseWithoutMouse Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:01 pm
It's got something to do with their internal structures that are what they are. They have two versions of something that they haven't bothered to make very dynamically adjustable, and one of the options is 32 something big. If the smaller one isn't enough for you, you use the larger one. You don't need to understand it any further, because there's nothing you can do about it anyway. ;)