Basic recording problems

Hi, I am quite new to using the Force, so please forgive me, if the problems I am facing are basic ... but I have not found solutions for them ... So, I am trying to use the Force for live recording clips. But there are the following issues:

1. HUGE PROBLEM: When using the Rec button to stop recording, the clip is not recorded until the end (of the bar) but it seems to stop at the point where the Rec button is pressed, resulting fractions of the audio missing at the end of the clip. This does not occur when I press the pad to end the recording. I suppose this is not expected behavior, and I will not be able to always use the pad because I want to use a footswitch to start and stop recording.

2. Automatic fade in/out: I could not find a setting to enable a slight fade in/out at the start and end of a live recorded clip. Ableton does this automatically, and it is vital in this scenario because otherwise you will very often have digital crackles when the audio is simply hard cut – this would make the Force basically unusable for live looping, so I do hope you can tell me where this setting is hidden.

3. When Track A is armed and I press a pad on another track, this latter track will automatically be armed and start recording. Can this behavior be changed? For me this does not make any sense, because I want to only record on tracks which I have specifically armed before.

I am on firmware 3.1.3 (as I encountered audio crackle problems with an external soundcard on 3.2.1 ...), but if I remember correctly, the above mentioned problems – especially 1. – were the same.

I am urgently trying to make this all work for an upcoming gig on Jan 13, so your help would be very much apretiated.

When you stop recording with the physical button, it stops immediately, even though the display shows "exiting recording" and it seems to continue until the next bar. I couldn't find any way to change this behavior. If you stop recording by pressing the launch clip button, then it records until the end of the bar. I don't know why it is so.

Automatic cross-fades: not available. This renders audio recording next to useless. But you'll find forum members who say it's not a problem, and the only problem is your trying to do something that's not possible.

I haven't found the Force in its current state to be usable for any sort of live audio recording. If you're in a hurry, you'll have to find another product. You seem to have the same kind of idea as I did, on how the Force would have been great for live stuff. Recording and looping audio, starting/stopping with foot pedals, ... No. Use it for MIDI. Techno, trap, hip-hop made from sliced beats. 808 ratchet hi-hats. If you must use audio, prepare your set in Ableton and copy the WAVs to the Force, so you can press play and launch clips, etc.

What comes to record arming etc., have you checked the recording configuration options?

____ quote from manual ___
1. Press Matrix to open Clip Matrix Mode on the display.
2. Press and hold Record, and in the window that appears, tap Settings to open the Record Configuration window. Alternatively, hold Edit and press Record.
______

Did you notice, you can't overdub audio clips? Not even with the "looper".

Thanks for your superquick reply!

Well, I am a keyboard player, recording and looping what I play. So all the funny workarounds are no use to me. Meanwhile I checked: the looper seems to be applying fades because the problem with clicking from digital hard cuts is much less apparent there. If this is just one piece of your puzzle, you might get away with recording in the looper and then exporting it to a pad, which works even while playback is running. But for me this is not an option as I need minimal handy work (given that I am playing stuff on the keyboards while doing this), and I also cannot always commit to a specific length of the recording.

I have checked record settings, but there is nothing related to this strange arming behavior.

Funny, to be able to have small fades applied when recording/looping audio is such a basic thing, I wonder how anyone creating such a complex (and in many respects powerful) machine could miss this. The only explanation for me is that the engineers were just using this function for electro beats where there is either no overlapping sound at the end of the loop or they do not really care about the clicking sound as it merges with the attack of the drum sounds ... very strange.

I have gone back to using my Macbook with Ableton and Push 2. This is a great setup, of course, but for some reason I wanted to avoid having my computer on stage ... Pity.

I think the reason why these basic things are missing is, it simply hasn't been a priority. There are only so many developer hours to spend, and they seem to be struggling with regression testing, because each new version breaks something that used to work before.

It's too bad that a lot of potential is wasted due to bugs and general unfinishedness, but there's nothing anyone can do. It's not like they could open-source the whole thing and let me tailor it to the exact set of functions I want.

Anyway, it's a really fun machine, even with its shortcomings. Every time I turn it on with the intention of making something specific, I end up jamming improvised techno/house instead, molding beats and basslines and tweaking knobs.

You can set the pads to perform an overdub when looping. Press and hold the record and shift buttons and select record settings. I use the live clip recording everyday and never have issues with it. No it doesn’t have auto fade in and out on the clips. I haven’t had a lot of issues with it until there was a change in 3.2.1 version. I noticed a click in my audio loops. I haven’t noticed that in the recent updates. I have had some issues with timing or warp from time to time and had to make manual adjustments directly to the samples in the sample editor. Other than that force has been a dream machine for idea recording for me. I normally create my ideas and pre arrange on the force then finalize in Ableton.