Akai Force Forum: Everything relating to the Akai Force, the iconic 64 pad, clip-based standalone sampler/groovebox from Akai.
By Unreallystic Thu Jan 17, 2019 1:46 pm
CharlesRandolph wrote:For Ableton PUSH 2 users, this is what they wanted.

No its not. Its Akai trying to bend the work they did on the MPC Live/X into a new ecosystem.

Push 2 users want exactly what MPC users want - a stand-alone option that is fully functional. This doesn't have Analog, Collision,Sampler, etc built in. This won't have VSTs. There is no Max4Live. There will be no "Komplete"
. This will have pretty much the same tools that the MPC has for content generation, but will also double up as an APC for Ableton (I doubt the pads are even velocity sensitive) that will hopefully have some kind of tool for ripping clips made in Ableton - directly to the Force - hence the price being MPC Live + APC.

I dunno, I'm not down, and I'm not up, can't make heads or tails of the long term value of this, what situations will I use this and NOT have a laptop that can run Ableton? With the MPC Live, while it can be used on stage as a drum machine or a clip launcher, for ME it is a scratch pad for ideas foremost - I'll bring it to work, work on music during lunch, and throw it back in the bag. With Force, I don't see me using it outside of an actual performance, its really DJ geared - and - again, at that point whether I am running Traktor (in which case I would just use Remix Decks with my S4) or Serato (DJ-505) - I'd have a laptop.

To me, the Toraiz was a good idea because it had 16 PADs that could be played, Pioneer did a terrible job managing the ecosystem, so it has some what been a failure (and i was overpriced with poor sampling time), but the market for it had room for its existence. I can't speak for others, but playing live on APC style/sized pads that are more like triggers as they aren't velocity sensitive - just sounds un-enjoyable to me. I'd much rather just hook-up a Push 1/2 to a laptop.

And yes I'm still thinking of getting this because I'm a stupid music tech whore...
-Unreall
Bymember04959388 Thu Jan 17, 2019 2:06 pm
Unreallystic wrote:
CharlesRandolph wrote:For Ableton PUSH 2 users, this is what they wanted.

No its not. Its Akai trying to bend the work they did on the MPC Live/X into a new ecosystem.

Push 2 users want exactly what MPC users want - a stand-alone option that is fully functional. This doesn't have Analog, Collision,Sampler, etc built in. This won't have VSTs. There is no Max4Live. There will be no "Komplete"
. This will have pretty much the same tools that the MPC has for content generation, but will also double up as an APC for Ableton (I doubt the pads are even velocity sensitive) that will hopefully have some kind of tool for ripping clips made in Ableton - directly to the Force - hence the price being MPC Live + APC.

I dunno, I'm not down, and I'm not up, can't make heads or tails of the long term value of this, what situations will I use this and NOT have a laptop that can run Ableton? With the MPC Live, while it can be used on stage as a drum machine or a clip launcher, for ME it is a scratch pad for ideas foremost - I'll bring it to work, work on music during lunch, and throw it back in the bag. With Force, I don't see me using it outside of an actual performance, its really DJ geared - and - again, at that point whether I am running Traktor (in which case I would just use Remix Decks with my S4) or Serato (DJ-505) - I'd have a laptop.

To me, the Toraiz was a good idea because it had 16 PADs that could be played, Pioneer did a terrible job managing the ecosystem, so it has some what been a failure (and i was overpriced with poor sampling time), but the market for it had room for its existence. I can't speak for others, but playing live on APC style/sized pads that are more like triggers as they aren't velocity sensitive - just sounds un-enjoyable to me. I'd much rather just hook-up a Push 1/2 to a laptop.

And yes I'm still thinking of getting this because I'm a stupid music tech whore...
-Unreall

Well yes I almost agree with you.
I took Mpc to get rid of clips centered workflow and have a more sampler style workflow.
I thought Akai was working in this direction and Force is a surprise for me.
If I had to use an Ableton style workflow, I would stay with computer and audio card.
But I think Akai is working for the future, given that computer based music will be maybe replaced by dedicated hardware that at the end will just be small tablets with a software and a controller all in one.
Which is exactly what Akai is producing.
Ableton didn't make much improvements in ten years, they found a great working platform and just stayed on that.
So I think Akai is just building this devices for a future market of standalones that will work in a interchangeable way.
Even Mpc are still at the beginning with just 2gb of Ram which is even less.
In a year or two, they will launch a 4gb or 8gb new Mpc I guess and maybe they want to understand which is the hardware customers prefer, and they will choose to invest on the most selling ones.
So i think this Force is a kind of experiment and I think they already have plans for more powerful mpc standalones in the future, or a more powerful Force, who knows.
Anyway I stay with my beloved Mpc Live, Ableton style workflow is over for me.
User avatar
By MPC-Tutor Thu Jan 17, 2019 2:39 pm
I'm interested to see what they have to say about the Force at NAMM, who the target market is. I would have thought Ableton Live users would have no problem going on stage with their laptop and hence would still use Push; for them to consider a standalone option I assume it would ideally need to be running some form of Ableton Live, not a custom version of the MPC firmware. However, I guess we need to see it in the flesh to see exactly what's what, hopefully they stick to the specs and tone down all the marketing hype.
By CharlesRandolph Thu Jan 17, 2019 2:58 pm
Unreallystic wrote:[
No its not. Its Akai trying to bend the work they did on the MPC Live/X into a new ecosystem.

Push 2 users want exactly what MPC users want - a stand-alone option that is fully functional. This doesn't have Analog, Collision,Sampler, etc built in. This won't have VSTs. There is no Max4Live. There will be no "Komplete"
. This will have pretty much the same tools that the MPC has for content generation, but will also double up as an APC for Ableton (I doubt the pads are even velocity sensitive) that will hopefully have some kind of tool for ripping clips made in Ableton - directly to the Force - hence the price being MPC Live + APC.

I dunno, I'm not down, and I'm not up, can't make heads or tails of the long term value of this, what situations will I use this and NOT have a laptop that can run Ableton? With the MPC Live, while it can be used on stage as a drum machine or a clip launcher, for ME it is a scratch pad for ideas foremost - I'll bring it to work, work on music during lunch, and throw it back in the bag. With Force, I don't see me using it outside of an actual performance, its really DJ geared - and - again, at that point whether I am running Traktor (in which case I would just use Remix Decks with my S4) or Serato (DJ-505) - I'd have a laptop.

To me, the Toraiz was a good idea because it had 16 PADs that could be played, Pioneer did a terrible job managing the ecosystem, so it has some what been a failure (and i was overpriced with poor sampling time), but the market for it had room for its existence. I can't speak for others, but playing live on APC style/sized pads that are more like triggers as they aren't velocity sensitive - just sounds un-enjoyable to me. I'd much rather just hook-up a Push 1/2 to a laptop.

And yes I'm still thinking of getting this because I'm a stupid music tech whore...
-Unreall



Last edited by CharlesRandolph on Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bymember04959388 Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:40 pm
Well yes warp is not the best in standalone.
But if you work a bit with timestretch, tuning and Lfo you can obtain good results.
Or you can chop the sample manually and adjust the beat.
Its not fast as in Ableon though.
Bymember04959388 Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:46 pm
CharlesRandolph wrote:
Unreallystic wrote:[
No its not. Its Akai trying to bend the work they did on the MPC Live/X into a new ecosystem.

Push 2 users want exactly what MPC users want - a stand-alone option that is fully functional. This doesn't have Analog, Collision,Sampler, etc built in. This won't have VSTs. There is no Max4Live. There will be no "Komplete"
. This will have pretty much the same tools that the MPC has for content generation, but will also double up as an APC for Ableton (I doubt the pads are even velocity sensitive) that will hopefully have some kind of tool for ripping clips made in Ableton - directly to the Force - hence the price being MPC Live + APC.

I dunno, I'm not down, and I'm not up, can't make heads or tails of the long term value of this, what situations will I use this and NOT have a laptop that can run Ableton? With the MPC Live, while it can be used on stage as a drum machine or a clip launcher, for ME it is a scratch pad for ideas foremost - I'll bring it to work, work on music during lunch, and throw it back in the bag. With Force, I don't see me using it outside of an actual performance, its really DJ geared - and - again, at that point whether I am running Traktor (in which case I would just use Remix Decks with my S4) or Serato (DJ-505) - I'd have a laptop.

To me, the Toraiz was a good idea because it had 16 PADs that could be played, Pioneer did a terrible job managing the ecosystem, so it has some what been a failure (and i was overpriced with poor sampling time), but the market for it had room for its existence. I can't speak for others, but playing live on APC style/sized pads that are more like triggers as they aren't velocity sensitive - just sounds un-enjoyable to me. I'd much rather just hook-up a Push 1/2 to a laptop.

And yes I'm still thinking of getting this because I'm a stupid music tech whore...
-Unreall




Oh my god, the OS is different.
It's not a good news for us Mpc users.
User avatar
By MPC-Tutor Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:51 pm
It's clearly the same OS at the core, they've just reworked it to fit the different focus. It's also clear that this is not an MPC and is targeted to a different market. Although it seems to support loading of MPC kits and instruments.

I can see lots of new stuff in that OS that will hopefully make its way to the MPC (Air effects & Hype for a start)
By AikiGhost Thu Jan 17, 2019 4:05 pm
What I wonder is since the Force is getting a 4th synth "Hype: Wavetable, subtractive, FM and sampling" will MPC live get it too?