Is the Akai Force Worth It In 2023? - A Deep & Honest Review

00:00 Intro/background
01:05 What is the Akai Force
02:03 Sound engines
06:26 User interface
09:19 The biggest advantage over the Push 3
09:46 Value for money
11:45 Arranger view
14:34 Who should (or shouldn't) use the Force
17:32 The verdict

Watching that is a waste of time. Here's the transcript (from Youtube itself)

Intro/background
all right I had a whole script written
and partially filmed about whether or
not the Akai force is worth it in 2023
and then Ableton had to go and release
the push 3 and that means I have a bit
of rework ahead of me however I am glad
that things worked out this way
ultimately because I can give you an
actual up-to-date answer at least as of
Summer 2023 as to whether the force is
worth it and how it Stacks up to its
competition now that a new Challenger
has appeared the focus of this video is
going to be squarely on the force
because that's what I have familiarity
with and I'm going to try to give you
some fairly complete but quick context
on what it's capable of and what it's
like to use it but if you want the too
long didn't watch straight answer as to
what it offers that the push doesn't and
whether I think it's worth it time
Stamps will be provided below all that
being said let's jump into it
force is basically an Ableton push and

What is the Akai Force
an MPC stapled together because Akai
made the original Ableton push one and
they make the MPC which the modern NPCs
are basically computer brains surrounded
by Hardware that are more workstation
than a Groove box so the force is
basically akai's attempt to bridge those
two worlds basically become Standalone
Ableton before Ableton could get to it
themselves and to do so basically
repackage a lot of the software that
they had written for the current lineup
of Standalone NPCs so the sound engines
like the plugins the sample manipulation
a lot of that stuff is pretty much
identical to the MPC live mpc1 mpcx and
so on but elements of the interface are
going to look a lot more familiar to
people who know the Ableton ecosystem
things like the layout of the pads and
notes and the step sequencer and the
clip launching at layout so with that
Sound engines
very quick background out of the way
let's get into the details starting with
the sound engines now like I alluded to
a second ago akai's business model these
days seems to be essentially finding new
ways to repackage sound engines that
they've already made into new
incrementally updated hardware and to
continue to write new software that you
have to pay extra for in order to get
existing customers to keep paying them
money the cynical side of my brain which
I think is probably more correct says
this feels like they're just milking
their customers they're trying to
innovate as little as possible sell
stuff that is as low overhead as
possible and maximize the amount that
they can make from a minimum of effort
to be clear I actually do think that's
essentially what they're trying to do
but the good side of this is that the
core software like the sample
manipulation stuff and to a degree the
plugins are pretty good so the tools for
dealing with and shaping sounds in the
force are pretty good so among other
things you've got your drum programs
with the very finger drumable pads and
multiple levels of sound layering and
multiple levels of sound shaping which
is quite nice you've got four effects
plug-in inserts per Pad Plus an overall
track set of four plug-ins and
these extra
little effects units which are quite
nice similar deal with the key group
programs which allow you to basically
turn samples into synths
similar deal here
keep your programs can also be used for
multi-sampled instruments including the
built-in Auto sampler using the audio
input and midi out of the force in this
case I used the auto sampler to
multi-sample my Roland ju-06a available
as part of my five dollar key group pack
Linked In the description
then we get to the instrument plugins
which there are a couple of types first
of all there are at the stock built-in
plugins that come with the device and
they are adequate uh the one I use the
most myself is the hype synth and it
actually can sound pretty good as the
primary synth used in a song
to put it in perspective that clip that
you just heard is from an actual song
that I released and I'm pretty proud of
and most of the synths on there are the
Epson and I think it turned out pretty
good but I wouldn't go as far as to buy
the paid VST version of it and use it in
my thaw I would reach for a better synth
but hey for your basic sounds
it's pretty good it's got a reasonably
Hands-On way of working well optimized
for this interface it's fine it and most
of the other stock plugins are pretty
useful and I'm glad that they're there
that brings us to the paid plugins
though and this is where a long time
Akai device users start to feel a little
but the thing is the plugins themselves
are actually fine they're just really
overpriced so my recommendation is if
none of them do something that you
already really wanted them to be able to
do ignore them you don't need them or
maybe if just one or two of them fit
something really specific that you
really want to be able to do cherry pick
the one or two that you want or wait
until they go on sale I personally find
myself using fabric a good bit it's got
some nice multi-sampled pianos and
electric pianos and such built in like I
said it's overpriced for what it is but
for stuff like this I do find it useful
User interface
so that's the sound and of things which
is quite competent and important but
probably not the main reason that people
are going to be drawn to the force the
main thing about the force that you
either are going to really Vibe with or
not is going to be the user interface
and this is where things I think get a
little more interesting if you've seen
the push in action some of the stuff is
about to look very familiar to you
things like the clip launching
or the organization of clips into rows
of scenes that you can launch with these
side buttons
there's the probably recognizable step
sequencer complete with the split pad
grid layout so stuff like this
stuff like specific velocities being
able to be programmed in in a pretty
Hands-On way for instance
a lot of these elements in isolation are
pretty intuitive but because this is
Akai you will encounter your fair share
of non-obvious button press combinations
actions that take a couple more steps to
perform than that feels like they should
and overall bloat and discontinuity
every time I come back to the force
after a while of having not used it I
feel like I have to relearn major
aspects of the workflow stuff like
hitting shift and clip to get to the
instrument editor or in the mixer if you
want to see the master track you've got
your dedicated little Master button down
here and you have to toggle that on and
off or there are the two rows of bottom
buttons that do different things
depending on which of these buttons are
toggled and how long you press them
stuff like hitting arm or solo and you
have to remember to like change which
one of these are selected and long
pressing these selecting different
tracks the commonality between those
examples is that they are not obvious
but once you get them encoded into your
muscle memory they make working with
this thing pretty fast and hand on
ultimately the design of this thing is
clever but overwhelming the previously
mentioned clip launching makes iterating
ideas coming up with B sections and
layering super fast because let's say I
can just start a new plug-in track take
this little Melody and just copy this
entire clip over maybe I decide I don't
want this track so I can just
delete it all that stuff becomes really
fast to work with and so I find it very
quick once I get over the initial hump
of relearning elements of this thing to
build up a song idea into a bunch of
different song sections organize them
into uh different rows which are your
scenes and copy and delete and edit
that comes together very quickly and
more importantly funnels you into a very
particular song construction workflow
using the arranger the arranger was
The biggest advantage over the Push 3
already the biggest selling point of the
force over other comparable products and
now that the push 3 exists and doesn't
have an onboard Standalone arranger
continues to be one of the biggest
differentiators also if you skipped to
this point from earlier in the video
Welcome Back you now legally have to
like the video so yeah the two biggest
things that the Akai Force has over the
push are probably the arranger and cost
let's very quickly get that out of the
Value for money
way the Standalone push as of right now
goes for 2 000 bucks and that doesn't
even include a full license of Ableton
so that is to use the technical term
hell expensive but uh the force goes for
about half that or potentially less than
that if you get one used so if you've
already decided that Standalone is
non-negotiable for you and you don't
need things like MPE the force just
might be better value for money that's a
hard thing to just say as a blanket
statement because good instruments don't
go bad but stuff like this workstations
are at the intersection of instrument
and consumer Tech and consumer Tech can
become obsolete or at least supplanted
by something that can do more for less
money and maybe be a bit of a better
user experience right now in summer 2023
if you want the true Ableton experience
and all the Ableton tools you want the
MPE and you have faith that Ableton will
continue to support this a long way into
the future and give you the features
that you want
maybe the push 3 wins out because I have
no idea what Akai is gonna do in
response to this maybe they take this as
a push to stop resting on their Laurels
and finally start innovating uh I think
that's unlikely I think they're just
going to continue to try to repackage
Old hardware and software into
incrementally better versions and
there's a chance that they abandon the
push entirely when buying Tech products
I do always recommend that you pay for
what you're getting now not for what you
might get in the future because you also
might not get that unless the
manufacturer is like promised that
they're going to add such and such
but of course uh the force could become
maybe not obsolete but maybe supplanted
as a good option and I do want to be
really aware of that but right now in
Arranger view
early summer 2023 the forces price 2
degree but more importantly it's tools
for creating a full song including it's
a ranger set it apart from the
competition and that includes the push
which does not have an onboard
Standalone Arrangement view the force
does so let's do a bit of a dive into
that next the way this process is meant
to work starts with having all of your
song sections in the form of scenes
ready to go
and as a part of preparation set up some
custom macros so by default I usually
like to set my knobs to screen then
whichever screen I happen to be on the
function of the knobs will change to
match what we are looking at if I change
that to say project two that'll give me
the custom macros that I've set up
holding down menu if you're lost will
get you where you're trying to go
and you can set a bunch of parameters
including their ranges to a single knob
so in this case for example I have this
knob that I have just labeled the build
knob which will basically cut lows on
multiple tracks a little bit of highs on
those same tracks and bring up the
volume of the track that has my Riser on
it so check this out
so you can get that stuff set up in
advance and we've got all of the
building blocks of Our Song then we can
go to the arranger view in this case
this is what a song looks like once
you've already done the arrangement
essentially you're going to be launching
your clips and your scenes and uh
turning your Macros in order to build up
your song Arrangement live on the Fly
I'm going to link a video at the end of
this one where I just do that for a full
song on camera so you can see and hear
what that looks like you'll be recording
at these knobs automation as well by the
way then if I set this back to a range I
can go into the grid for say this drum
track and I've got all of the midi notes
in here which is a bit much but that
means that you can get really specific
about my new changes over the course of
the song or you can do stuff like tweak
the automation so if you've got
automation that needs to happen over the
course of your song and you want to dial
it in further after the fact if you say
didn't like
play it in properly you also are able to
do that then once you've got this full
Arrangement dialed in the way you like
it you can either just export this
entire song as a WAV file onto your SD
card or if you're me you can export all
of these stems of this and bring it into
your Dove choice for a Final Mix and
master and if you filmed the recording
Who should (or shouldn't) use the Force
of that performance which I do recommend
you do you end up with a nice little
music video or music visualizer after
the fact but you can still go back and
tweak the music as much or as little as
you want afterwards that kind of live in
studio approach though is very specific
and whether or not you Vibe with that is
going to be a big part of whether or not
this is worth it for you and you might
be asking why not live in general why
specify it live in studio and I've spent
a lot of time thinking about this
because okay realistically a club
audience say or a concert audience Is
Not Really Gonna care that I'm doing all
of this Improv aggressive clip launching
and knob twisting so that's kind of high
risk low reward because I think a mess
up on the force is not the easiest to
recover from live plus if I am in a club
or concert setting I'm probably playing
back to back with people so I'm probably
realistically gonna just finally teach
myself to DJ on the equipment that
they're using because that's how that's
gonna work or if it's a more kind of
chill show maybe in like a cafe or
something I might opt for something like
the Innovation circuit tracks and a
couple of outboard Hardware synths
because that feels a bit more forgiving
for jamming with the force is just a bit
of a beast to try to Wrangle and I would
prefer to do that in a studio setting
where I can do another take if I need to
plus note that there's no way to like
switch between projects while the music
is playing so realistically you're
probably going to be cramming your
entire set into one project which would
be fine if you figured that you could do
that without hitting the ram limitations
which you very well might so you'll
probably end up bouncing some stuff down
to audio or loading in stems from your
Daw this is fine except for the fact
that that does remove some flexibility
God help you if you want to do any Tempo
changes and it means that you're going
to run up against the audio track limit
because it's hard capped at eight the
the plug-in instrument number is also
hard capped at eight by the way I tested
both of these just to make sure that
that's still a thing it is
you can work with that you can work
within that but it's definitely going to
require you to accept more limitations
than I feel like one should have to
accept for something that is this
relatively expensive as far as
workstations go I should also mention on
the note of DJing I did do a little mini
DJ set on the force which I'll link at
the end of this video if that's on my
second Channel
that's fun because we've got the
crossfader you can set up macros with
your own filter sweep settings but
there's not going to be any spontaneity
you've gotta pretty much have all of
your Clips ready to go from the get-go
and once again Tempo changes are a
problem this is just not set up to do
that and so for the little set that you
can see in that video no Tempo changes
to be had everything's 150 bpm period
The verdict
what I'm getting at here is that the
force is very impressive especially as
it's been updated over time it used to
be kind of a dud and now it's very
capable and I would even say it's still
relevant I don't think the push has
eaten its lunch just yet that could
absolutely change to be very clear but
as of right now I think the force still
has some relevancy but it's a narrow
relevancy it's got a niche use case for
a niche audience who not only has the
desire to engage with the very specific
Clips to full song pipeline that the
device funnels you into but also have
the disposable income to spend on
something that's kind of overkill for
some things and under kill for others I
personally happen to be one of the like
20 people who really clicks with the
force workflow and can Vibe with the
sound enough to make it work but I think
that audience is pretty small although
to be fair if I was to splurge on an
Akai device I'll take the force over the
MPC xse any day of the week
anyway thank you so much for watching if
you'd like to see that full song Jam you
can check out this video up over here if
you'd like to see that DJ set you can
check out this video over here and if
you'd like to see a more in-depth look
at using the force for Life performance
I've got you covered down over here with
a more detailed walkthrough thank you so
much for watching and I'll be back with
a new video in a little bit

HouseWithoutMouse wrote:Watching that is a waste of time. Here's the transcript (from Youtube itself)

Intro/background
all right I had a whole script written
and partially filmed about whether or
not the Akai force is worth it in 2023
and then Ableton had to go and release
the push 3 and that means I have a bit
of rework ahead of me however I am glad
that things worked out this way
ultimately because I can give you an
actual up-to-date answer at least as of
Summer 2023 as to whether the force is
worth it and how it Stacks up to its
competition now that a new Challenger
has appeared the focus of this video is
going to be squarely on the force
because that's what I have familiarity
with and I'm going to try to give you
some fairly complete but quick context
on what it's capable of and what it's
like to use it but if you want the too
long didn't watch straight answer as to
what it offers that the push doesn't and
whether I think it's worth it time
Stamps will be provided below all that
being said let's jump into it
force is basically an Ableton push and

What is the Akai Force
an MPC stapled together because Akai
made the original Ableton push one and
they make the MPC which the modern NPCs
are basically computer brains surrounded
by Hardware that are more workstation
than a Groove box so the force is
basically akai's attempt to bridge those
two worlds basically become Standalone
Ableton before Ableton could get to it
themselves and to do so basically
repackage a lot of the software that
they had written for the current lineup
of Standalone NPCs so the sound engines
like the plugins the sample manipulation
a lot of that stuff is pretty much
identical to the MPC live mpc1 mpcx and
so on but elements of the interface are
going to look a lot more familiar to
people who know the Ableton ecosystem
things like the layout of the pads and
notes and the step sequencer and the
clip launching at layout so with that
Sound engines
very quick background out of the way
let's get into the details starting with
the sound engines now like I alluded to
a second ago akai's business model these
days seems to be essentially finding new
ways to repackage sound engines that
they've already made into new
incrementally updated hardware and to
continue to write new software that you
have to pay extra for in order to get
existing customers to keep paying them
money the cynical side of my brain which
I think is probably more correct says
this feels like they're just milking
their customers they're trying to
innovate as little as possible sell
stuff that is as low overhead as
possible and maximize the amount that
they can make from a minimum of effort
to be clear I actually do think that's
essentially what they're trying to do
but the good side of this is that the
core software like the sample
manipulation stuff and to a degree the
plugins are pretty good so the tools for
dealing with and shaping sounds in the
force are pretty good so among other
things you've got your drum programs
with the very finger drumable pads and
multiple levels of sound layering and
multiple levels of sound shaping which
is quite nice you've got four effects
plug-in inserts per Pad Plus an overall
track set of four plug-ins and
these extra
little effects units which are quite
nice similar deal with the key group
programs which allow you to basically
turn samples into synths
similar deal here
keep your programs can also be used for
multi-sampled instruments including the
built-in Auto sampler using the audio
input and midi out of the force in this
case I used the auto sampler to
multi-sample my Roland ju-06a available
as part of my five dollar key group pack
Linked In the description
then we get to the instrument plugins
which there are a couple of types first
of all there are at the stock built-in
plugins that come with the device and
they are adequate uh the one I use the
most myself is the hype synth and it
actually can sound pretty good as the
primary synth used in a song
to put it in perspective that clip that
you just heard is from an actual song
that I released and I'm pretty proud of
and most of the synths on there are the
Epson and I think it turned out pretty
good but I wouldn't go as far as to buy
the paid VST version of it and use it in
my thaw I would reach for a better synth
but hey for your basic sounds
it's pretty good it's got a reasonably
Hands-On way of working well optimized
for this interface it's fine it and most
of the other stock plugins are pretty
useful and I'm glad that they're there
that brings us to the paid plugins
though and this is where a long time
Akai device users start to feel a little
but the thing is the plugins themselves
are actually fine they're just really
overpriced so my recommendation is if
none of them do something that you
already really wanted them to be able to
do ignore them you don't need them or
maybe if just one or two of them fit
something really specific that you
really want to be able to do cherry pick
the one or two that you want or wait
until they go on sale I personally find
myself using fabric a good bit it's got
some nice multi-sampled pianos and
electric pianos and such built in like I
said it's overpriced for what it is but
for stuff like this I do find it useful
User interface
so that's the sound and of things which
is quite competent and important but
probably not the main reason that people
are going to be drawn to the force the
main thing about the force that you
either are going to really Vibe with or
not is going to be the user interface
and this is where things I think get a
little more interesting if you've seen
the push in action some of the stuff is
about to look very familiar to you
things like the clip launching
or the organization of clips into rows
of scenes that you can launch with these
side buttons
there's the probably recognizable step
sequencer complete with the split pad
grid layout so stuff like this
stuff like specific velocities being
able to be programmed in in a pretty
Hands-On way for instance
a lot of these elements in isolation are
pretty intuitive but because this is
Akai you will encounter your fair share
of non-obvious button press combinations
actions that take a couple more steps to
perform than that feels like they should
and overall bloat and discontinuity
every time I come back to the force
after a while of having not used it I
feel like I have to relearn major
aspects of the workflow stuff like
hitting shift and clip to get to the
instrument editor or in the mixer if you
want to see the master track you've got
your dedicated little Master button down
here and you have to toggle that on and
off or there are the two rows of bottom
buttons that do different things
depending on which of these buttons are
toggled and how long you press them
stuff like hitting arm or solo and you
have to remember to like change which
one of these are selected and long
pressing these selecting different
tracks the commonality between those
examples is that they are not obvious
but once you get them encoded into your
muscle memory they make working with
this thing pretty fast and hand on
ultimately the design of this thing is
clever but overwhelming the previously
mentioned clip launching makes iterating
ideas coming up with B sections and
layering super fast because let's say I
can just start a new plug-in track take
this little Melody and just copy this
entire clip over maybe I decide I don't
want this track so I can just
delete it all that stuff becomes really
fast to work with and so I find it very
quick once I get over the initial hump
of relearning elements of this thing to
build up a song idea into a bunch of
different song sections organize them
into uh different rows which are your
scenes and copy and delete and edit
that comes together very quickly and
more importantly funnels you into a very
particular song construction workflow
using the arranger the arranger was
The biggest advantage over the Push 3
already the biggest selling point of the
force over other comparable products and
now that the push 3 exists and doesn't
have an onboard Standalone arranger
continues to be one of the biggest
differentiators also if you skipped to
this point from earlier in the video
Welcome Back you now legally have to
like the video so yeah the two biggest
things that the Akai Force has over the
push are probably the arranger and cost
let's very quickly get that out of the
Value for money
way the Standalone push as of right now
goes for 2 000 bucks and that doesn't
even include a full license of Ableton
so that is to use the technical term
hell expensive but uh the force goes for
about half that or potentially less than
that if you get one used so if you've
already decided that Standalone is
non-negotiable for you and you don't
need things like MPE the force just
might be better value for money that's a
hard thing to just say as a blanket
statement because good instruments don't
go bad but stuff like this workstations
are at the intersection of instrument
and consumer Tech and consumer Tech can
become obsolete or at least supplanted
by something that can do more for less
money and maybe be a bit of a better
user experience right now in summer 2023
if you want the true Ableton experience
and all the Ableton tools you want the
MPE and you have faith that Ableton will
continue to support this a long way into
the future and give you the features
that you want
maybe the push 3 wins out because I have
no idea what Akai is gonna do in
response to this maybe they take this as
a push to stop resting on their Laurels
and finally start innovating uh I think
that's unlikely I think they're just
going to continue to try to repackage
Old hardware and software into
incrementally better versions and
there's a chance that they abandon the
push entirely when buying Tech products
I do always recommend that you pay for
what you're getting now not for what you
might get in the future because you also
might not get that unless the
manufacturer is like promised that
they're going to add such and such
but of course uh the force could become
maybe not obsolete but maybe supplanted
as a good option and I do want to be
really aware of that but right now in
Arranger view
early summer 2023 the forces price 2
degree but more importantly it's tools
for creating a full song including it's
a ranger set it apart from the
competition and that includes the push
which does not have an onboard
Standalone Arrangement view the force
does so let's do a bit of a dive into
that next the way this process is meant
to work starts with having all of your
song sections in the form of scenes
ready to go
and as a part of preparation set up some
custom macros so by default I usually
like to set my knobs to screen then
whichever screen I happen to be on the
function of the knobs will change to
match what we are looking at if I change
that to say project two that'll give me
the custom macros that I've set up
holding down menu if you're lost will
get you where you're trying to go
and you can set a bunch of parameters
including their ranges to a single knob
so in this case for example I have this
knob that I have just labeled the build
knob which will basically cut lows on
multiple tracks a little bit of highs on
those same tracks and bring up the
volume of the track that has my Riser on
it so check this out
so you can get that stuff set up in
advance and we've got all of the
building blocks of Our Song then we can
go to the arranger view in this case
this is what a song looks like once
you've already done the arrangement
essentially you're going to be launching
your clips and your scenes and uh
turning your Macros in order to build up
your song Arrangement live on the Fly
I'm going to link a video at the end of
this one where I just do that for a full
song on camera so you can see and hear
what that looks like you'll be recording
at these knobs automation as well by the
way then if I set this back to a range I
can go into the grid for say this drum
track and I've got all of the midi notes
in here which is a bit much but that
means that you can get really specific
about my new changes over the course of
the song or you can do stuff like tweak
the automation so if you've got
automation that needs to happen over the
course of your song and you want to dial
it in further after the fact if you say
didn't like
play it in properly you also are able to
do that then once you've got this full
Arrangement dialed in the way you like
it you can either just export this
entire song as a WAV file onto your SD
card or if you're me you can export all
of these stems of this and bring it into
your Dove choice for a Final Mix and
master and if you filmed the recording
Who should (or shouldn't) use the Force
of that performance which I do recommend
you do you end up with a nice little
music video or music visualizer after
the fact but you can still go back and
tweak the music as much or as little as
you want afterwards that kind of live in
studio approach though is very specific
and whether or not you Vibe with that is
going to be a big part of whether or not
this is worth it for you and you might
be asking why not live in general why
specify it live in studio and I've spent
a lot of time thinking about this
because okay realistically a club
audience say or a concert audience Is
Not Really Gonna care that I'm doing all
of this Improv aggressive clip launching
and knob twisting so that's kind of high
risk low reward because I think a mess
up on the force is not the easiest to
recover from live plus if I am in a club
or concert setting I'm probably playing
back to back with people so I'm probably
realistically gonna just finally teach
myself to DJ on the equipment that
they're using because that's how that's
gonna work or if it's a more kind of
chill show maybe in like a cafe or
something I might opt for something like
the Innovation circuit tracks and a
couple of outboard Hardware synths
because that feels a bit more forgiving
for jamming with the force is just a bit
of a beast to try to Wrangle and I would
prefer to do that in a studio setting
where I can do another take if I need to
plus note that there's no way to like
switch between projects while the music
is playing so realistically you're
probably going to be cramming your
entire set into one project which would
be fine if you figured that you could do
that without hitting the ram limitations
which you very well might so you'll
probably end up bouncing some stuff down
to audio or loading in stems from your
Daw this is fine except for the fact
that that does remove some flexibility
God help you if you want to do any Tempo
changes and it means that you're going
to run up against the audio track limit
because it's hard capped at eight the
the plug-in instrument number is also
hard capped at eight by the way I tested
both of these just to make sure that
that's still a thing it is
you can work with that you can work
within that but it's definitely going to
require you to accept more limitations
than I feel like one should have to
accept for something that is this
relatively expensive as far as
workstations go I should also mention on
the note of DJing I did do a little mini
DJ set on the force which I'll link at
the end of this video if that's on my
second Channel
that's fun because we've got the
crossfader you can set up macros with
your own filter sweep settings but
there's not going to be any spontaneity
you've gotta pretty much have all of
your Clips ready to go from the get-go
and once again Tempo changes are a
problem this is just not set up to do
that and so for the little set that you
can see in that video no Tempo changes
to be had everything's 150 bpm period
The verdict
what I'm getting at here is that the
force is very impressive especially as
it's been updated over time it used to
be kind of a dud and now it's very
capable and I would even say it's still
relevant I don't think the push has
eaten its lunch just yet that could
absolutely change to be very clear but
as of right now I think the force still
has some relevancy but it's a narrow
relevancy it's got a niche use case for
a niche audience who not only has the
desire to engage with the very specific
Clips to full song pipeline that the
device funnels you into but also have
the disposable income to spend on
something that's kind of overkill for
some things and under kill for others I
personally happen to be one of the like
20 people who really clicks with the
force workflow and can Vibe with the
sound enough to make it work but I think
that audience is pretty small although
to be fair if I was to splurge on an
Akai device I'll take the force over the
MPC xse any day of the week
anyway thank you so much for watching if
you'd like to see that full song Jam you
can check out this video up over here if
you'd like to see that DJ set you can
check out this video over here and if
you'd like to see a more in-depth look
at using the force for Life performance
I've got you covered down over here with
a more detailed walkthrough thank you so
much for watching and I'll be back with
a new video in a little bit

Dude says watching this video is a waste of time & instead, we should just read this wall of text from hell...man that gotta be the funniest reply ever! Gotta love nerd jokes

At least tell people to watch it at 1.5x or 2x speed since its on YT, but no, read all this...

Enh, to be fair, at least the transcript is a lot less bandwidth, and just as informative.

That Miller guy is a salesman, I've never seen a review from him pointing out something negative from what he reviews.

mario-g wrote:That Miller guy is a salesman, I've never seen a review from him pointing out something negative from what he reviews.

That's BS.

mario-g wrote:That Miller guy is a salesman, I've never seen a review from him pointing out something negative from what he reviews.

Not really a salesman, just a lame loser who doesn't even understand the first thing about music. I've listened to his music, cheesy melodies, awful chord progressions.

He actually does say some negative things about different products, his favorite world to use is "janky" ( used several times when descibing the interface of the MC-101) since he's a civil engineer and terrible at describing things.

I've blocked his YouTube channel for several years now, because I can't stand the fact that he pretends to be some kind of groovebox guru, yet clearly uses gear without reading the manual, makes awful music and complains about the limitations of the gear.

Pink Bhudda, Dylan Paris, and Maxipok do a WAY better job than Gabe Miller of using the Force.


In regards to buying the Force in 2024, anyone should buy whatever they want if it does what they want. DJs are still buying Technics 1200s Turntables in 2024, and Producers are still buying vintage synths to make music with. The gear doesn't matter, just make better melodies than Gabe Miller.

Koekepan wrote:Enh, to be fair, at least the transcript is a lot less bandwidth, and just as informative.

Yes, I'd rather read that long body of text than ever listen to Gabe Miller's annoying high pitched voice every again.

14:34 Who shouldn't use the force

Exhibit A. Gabe Miller.