I just bought the Force. Question about pads.

Hi,

Im wondering whether I received a defective unit or this is just how it is...
Basically when im hitting pads in the lower registers of velocity very often the note is not registered at all. Is it normal?

EDIT:sorry for some reason I previously wrote MPC in the title instead of Force

did you mean to post in the Akai Force forum? Which specific model do you have?

Short answer: they 'should' ideally register even with light touches, but I've found pad sensitivity to be inconsistent across models, even between different batches of the same model. MPC pads are not even remotely as sensitive as Maschine pads.

Anyway, make sure you have a play with the sensitivity settings in MENU> PREFERENCES > HARDWARE.

Sorry, don’t know why I wrote MPC. I meant Force.

MPC-Tutor wrote:did you mean to post in the Akai Force forum? Which specific model do you have?

Short answer: they 'should' ideally register even with light touches, but I've found pad sensitivity to be inconsistent across models, even between different batches of the same model. MPC pads are not even remotely as sensitive as Maschine pads.

Anyway, make sure you have a play with the sensitivity settings in MENU> PREFERENCES > HARDWARE.

I guess what you're experiencing is completely normal. Even the lowest threshold for registering a hit isn't extremely low. It's ok and usable, but not extremely sensitive.

But. I don't think it's much of a problem really. I've noticed that the less I use live-played velocity sensitivity, and the more I rely on actually thinking about the velocity levels note by note like what can be done in the step sequencer, the more organized and clear the beat sounds. Velocity sensitivity makes sense only for a few specific instrument parts. Like maybe a shaker or tambourine, or some other element where dynamic ups and downs are an essential feature of that part. But for all others, it's better to keep things clear-cut, as if you were writing notation. In notation, you can have regular hits, ghost hits and accents, but not like 127 different levels.

By the way, have you noticed that the pads send aftertouch? It can be an effective addition of expressivity for leads and synth sounds.