Akai Force Forum: Everything relating to the Akai Force, the iconic 64 pad, clip-based standalone sampler/groovebox from Akai.
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By GingerWitch Wed Jan 08, 2025 4:15 pm
B-Wise wrote:
GingerWitch wrote:Already made a thread about it, but MPC3 to Force 3.x project sharing would be my only wish.

I don't even need back and forth, I just want to be able to move my ideas from mpc3 to the Force without having to downgrade my mpc firmware :|

I would at least wait for MPC3 to get out of beta. This could be why the Force hasn't been updated. The beta is open to user feedback so not even Akai may know how it'll look when it done. Once it official, then hopefully the can update the Force & work on making them compatible.

Currently even 2.15 has features that's not on the Force like 8 sample layers per pad & some plugins. The Force hasn't been updated since Nov 2023.


Yeah, of course. I'm just throwing it out there in case any Akai engineers are following this thread lol

I did use the beta feedback form to throw that idea out to akai. I just hope they're watching.

I would be happy with any sort of integration between the two.

Thanks for the insight. I forgot about mpc having 8 layer pads, tbh. It's a feature I hardly use, and if I do, it's not usually more than 2 layers.

Knowledge :worthy:
By TR6 Telos Sat Jan 25, 2025 1:19 pm
* REC to Clip and REC to Arrangement both working at the same time.

As a improvisation live performer, i like to create new clips on the flow and record some midi notes into them like you usally do with the REC to Clip function. But you can't do it when REC to Arrangement is activated. It seems you can only record either the clips or the arrangement
To have to choose between the two kills my workflow and the possibility to record multitracks to edit them via the Akai after.
To record my whole performances multitrack, i have to go through a third part like a Mixer/track Recorder or Ableton or whatever DAW.

I don't know if there is a workaround bu if not it really miss this feature to make the Force really standalone.

Do you agree ? :popcorn:

(hope it will be added in the Big Ass whislist and an Akai engineer is reading) :worthy:
By B-Wise Sat Jan 25, 2025 8:27 pm
TR6 Telos wrote:* REC to Clip and REC to Arrangement both working at the same time.

As a improvisation live performer, i like to create new clips on the flow and record some midi notes into them like you usally do with the REC to Clip function. But you can't do it when REC to Arrangement is activated. It seems you can only record either the clips or the arrangement
To have to choose between the two kills my workflow and the possibility to record multitracks to edit them via the Akai after.
To record my whole performances multitrack, i have to go through a third part like a Mixer/track Recorder or Ableton or whatever DAW.

I don't know if there is a workaround bu if not it really miss this feature to make the Force really standalone.

Do you agree ? :popcorn:

(hope it will be added in the Big Ass whislist and an Akai engineer is reading) :worthy:

I agree that this can be a useful depending on how they implement it. It can also cause you to record over things by mistake because you forgot it's in dual-record mode, like what happens when edit-all is on in the drum program editor, but the option should be there.

I requested the option to "Convert arranger track(s) to clips(s). Either just 1 at a time, only the tracks that we select or all tracks. Since the Force only has 1 Arranger & the automation data can't be copied to other tracks unless you copy the whole track, nor can it have automation data pasted into it. So we're stuck with whatever is in there.

My workaround is to:
1->Use the clip-matrix as a pre-arranger to come up the song structure via the scenes & then record it to the arranger.
2->Record these long arranger tracks to a clip with the same bar length & make a copy. The first is used as a pure reference to the arranger track & 2nd is for adding automation. If I want another take I'll copy the pure clip & add different variations of automation & or edit sequences data via adding/deleting notes or whatever else.
3->Re-sample the scene made with these long clips. I also use the clip-matrix in the style of Ableton with session & arranger views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ankzrt0 ... bztY8EwENR
This also allows me to clear the Arranger, but still have what was recorded there & reuse the arranger for a totally new composition. There's 999 clips per track so take advantage.

Another cool option would be to have MIDI Send data be recorded to the track clip it is being sent to. Like if I have track 1 MIDI Send to tr2 with a clip selected on both tracks or just tr2. Tr1 MIDI data should be sent & recorded to tr2. Thinking about this made realize that they should also have MIDI Receive so we can have multiple clips on other tracks receive & record data sent to it via another track.

Akai is most definitely watching all these sites. Even if it's just an intern. Just don't expect them to engage.
By Zack Zerox Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:46 pm
[quote="B-Wise"My workaround is to:
1->Use the clip-matrix as a pre-arranger to come up the song structure via the scenes & then record it to the arranger.
2->Record these long arranger tracks to a clip with the same bar length & make a copy. The first is used as a pure reference to the arranger track & 2nd is for adding automation. If I want another take I'll copy the pure clip & add different variations of automation & or edit sequences data via adding/deleting notes or whatever else.
3->Re-sample the scene made with these long clips. I also use the clip-matrix in the style of Ableton with session & arranger views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ankzrt0 ... bztY8EwENR
This also allows me to clear the Arranger, but still have what was recorded there & reuse the arranger for a totally new composition. There's 999 clips per track so take advantage.[/quote]

Good ideas. I was thinking the other day how it would be great to have multiple arrangers (like the Songs in MPC).

For step 2, do you mean onto new tracks or the same track? Just wondering how the routing works.
By B-Wise Thu Jan 30, 2025 2:08 am
For step 2, I make a new clip on the same track the size as the bar length of the Arranger track. You may have to pasted the data specifically at time it starts in the Arranger or just put a temporary note at the beginning & copy all then past that to the matrix clip & delete the temporary note. Then copy this to another clip & use that put automation & other edits.

You need all these converted Arranger clips to be the same length. Some may have a lot of empty space.

BTW there are 999 scenes/clips & each clip can range from 24 ticks up to 12,600 bars. The clip-matrix is the like the MPC song mode all in one window. I just use rows of dummy/blank clips as screen dividers but you can also use dummy tracks & use it clip to name sections of the song like, Intro, main, chorus/hook, bridge, outro... the Force forces you to think out of the box.
By Zack Zerox Thu Jan 30, 2025 9:57 pm
B-Wise wrote:For step 2, I make a new clip on the same track the size as the bar length of the Arranger track. You may have to pasted the data specifically at time it starts in the Arranger or just put a temporary note at the beginning & copy all then past that to the matrix clip & delete the temporary note. Then copy this to another clip & use that put automation & other edits.

You need all these converted Arranger clips to be the same length. Some may have a lot of empty space.

BTW there are 999 scenes/clips & each clip can range from 24 ticks up to 12,600 bars. The clip-matrix is the like the MPC song mode all in one window. I just use rows of dummy/blank clips as screen dividers but you can also use dummy tracks & use it clip to name sections of the song like, Intro, main, chorus/hook, bridge, outro... the Force forces you to think out of the box.


Excellent stuff, cheers.
By B-Wise Fri Jan 31, 2025 3:04 am
Thanks!
The feature "convert arranger track to clips or explode arranger" would speed all this tedious stuff up. Or they could just allow for automation data to be copied & pasted, or give us more than one arranger like the hacked os. Akai needs to hire them dudes.

I'll work on updating my Clip-Bank Method video to be more detailed & to include all the new changes I made to it like this arranger to clips hack.