Looper Clock sync with Akai force or any other Akai product

Hey All!

Does anyone have any experience with using a looper with Akai Force or MPC Live? I currently use the Headrush looper board and the clock sync is so unreliable. I would preferably like something I can control with my feet as I will be looping guitar parts. Just looking for a really tight midi clock. Any recommendations are welcome!

Thanks!

The Force is a better MIDI clock slave than master. I haven't used it with a looper much, but I've tested two setups:

- Force as a MIDI Clock master, Boss RC-5 as slave: It kind of works, but the Force's clock fluctuates so much that the RC-5 keeps making a gargling noise.

- Arturia Keystep 37 as MIDI clock master, sending MIDI clock to both the Force and RC-5: works much better! Sometimes, when I finish a loop recording on the RC-5, it makes a few gargling sounds for a second or two, but after that it's clean. Or it's completely clean right from the start.

Generally speaking, I've found the Force to work much better, if you think of it as a MIDI sound module, sample player and drum machine. No audio tracks, MIDI only.

Here are some of my tests on the Force's MIDI clock viewtopic.php?f=49&t=214354

Thank you for your response! I have tested the looper as the master and it does work much better. My only issue with that is I am not a huge fan of changing the tempo with a tap. I would rather use a knob and in a live setup, call me lazy but I hate having to bend down and change it that way....wondering if there is a way to hook up a midi controller and do it that way?

Thanks again!

I also tried
- Boss RC-5 as master, and Akai Force as slave.

Ok, this kind of works, in a sense that the RC-5 doesn't make gargling sounds. The problem however is that when I record a guitar loop into the RC-5 "a cappella", with the RC-5's internal drum machine OFF, and let's say I play a guitar chord progression that's 8 bars long. During the recording, since I'm not hearing a steady click while recording, my own "internal" tempo fluctuates - slowing down slightly and speeding up slightly, and I like it, it's emotional - but this is not sensed or recorded by the RC-5 at all. It just calculates a theoretical steady speed based on the start and end points, and starts sending that to the Force when I press the RC-5's pedal. The Force does follow the theoretical speed, but it does NOT follow my natural human timing in any way. When I tap the RC-5's pedal, the Force starts precisely in time, but along the way, it becomes evident that my guitar playing has emotions that the drum beat is not following. It actually makes my own initial playing sound "wrong" - a sensation that wasn't there during the first recording pass, when there was only the guitar without the Force's drum beat.

This problem doesn't occur, if I hear a metronome click while playing, and if that click comes from a master clock that ALL of the devices follow. Then again, you might wonder, is a bit of human feel lost along the way... (of course not! Real Pro players are like machines, and I just suck, and human feelings are overrated to begin with)

When I use the Arturia Keystep 37 as MIDI clock master for both the Force and the RC-5, and I hear a beat when recording, these problems don't occur.