Force's turn to get the Florian Pilz treatment

The vast majority of MpC users want physical buttons for drums, such as 16 levels feature, that don’t exist on Force. Note repeat button missing is also a huge loss for drums. I’m looking at both right now and there’s more missing drum related buttons on Force I’m too lazy to list. No single device will ever be best at everything.

Force selling poorly and being discontinued is fairly strong evidence of this. But hey if I could only have one it would be the Force. But I’d prefer something like an XL that has 8x8 pads that also launch clips.

The Force has 16 Level & drum repeat - it's the arpaggiator button. You can lock on so you dont have to press it.

The 16 Levels on the Force can set to 3 different banks at once. I like to set the to 2 top banks to Tune & change the root note as wide apart to have 32 Levels.

As MPC users since 2005 my biggest fear about the Force before I got was that the pads would be too small, but after getting use to them I like them more. I think that same fear hold many MPC heads back.

You keep claiming the Force sold poorly based on assumption, which cool, I got my own, but, we don't have the data. I think they never made that many & sold those at a decent rate. I forgot it's initial price after it went down to $1,300, but stayed at the lower price for years before they shut it down if it was still selling poorly, I think they would've lowered it again.

It had a longer run the key37 LOL. It getting shut down when it did makes sense if they're making a F2. I hope they change the color of the black buttons so that they contrast the black case, making the buttons look cluttered.

The Force is an MPC on steroids. That’s all I have to say.

64hz wrote:The Force is an MPC on steroids. That’s all I have to say.

Steroids is for scrubs, but I get it. I like to think of the Force as the MPC in Super Saiyan mode.
A battery & tilting screen would next level.

B-Wise wrote:

64hz wrote:The Force is an MPC on steroids. That’s all I have to say.

Steroids is for scrubs, but I get it. I like to think of the Force as the MPC in Super Saiyan mode.
A battery & tilting screen would next level.

Yeah the small screen facing straight up sucks. I bit the bullet and bought an angled stand.

Nothing wrong with steroids, the body produces them naturally and once you hit 40’tjey decline. I don’t take them but it’s legit medical intervention. Women get hormone replacement therapy covered by insurance.

JethroJethro wrote:Yeah the small screen facing straight up sucks. I bit the bullet and bought an angled stand.

Nothing wrong with steroids, the body produces them naturally and once you hit 40’tjey decline. I don’t take them but it’s legit medical intervention. Women get hormone replacement therapy covered by insurance.

They have a tilt screen mod on YT:

I just use a mini massage roller from Target

Come on man, you know those weren't the steroids I was talking about. I still like the super Saiyan thing better.
I also like to think of the Force as the MPC's nerdy younger sister with nice features.

B-Wise wrote:I also like to think of the Force as the MPC's nerdy younger sister with nice features.

It’s like MOPAR vs BMW the more time I spend in both worlds

JethroJethro wrote:

B-Wise wrote:I also like to think of the Force as the MPC's nerdy younger sister with nice features.

It’s like MOPAR vs BMW the more time I spend in both worlds

Whatever gets your engine going!

This is exactly why there's room in the market for the Force as well as the MPC. Interface matters. EDM kids can have some fun, too.

Koekepan wrote:This is exactly why there's room in the market for the Force as well as the MPC. Interface matters. EDM kids can have some fun, too.

I like the interface of the Force but I don't make EDM & I think the best advertisement they can do for the new Force is show how diverse it can be by showing EDM artists doing their thing & get one of those amazing finger drummers to go HAM on 64 pads!

The MPC isn't just for Hip-Hop & the Force is just a MPC with more pads & a crossfader, which ironically would seem to more sense on the MPC. They can both make the same music. The Force is just better at operating the clip-matrix & because of that I don't find the L3/XL appealing.

The Gabe Miller guy they now have demonstrating Force/MPC is a good start but he’s pretty locked into a couple styles of techno and they don’t really show off synth layering and modulation him or Andy Mac whose dance music seems mostly house from what I’ve seen.

Tons of rave kids around still plus older diehards. EDM is having a resurgence and this seems a missed opportunity for Akai getting gobbled up by Ableton and FL.

Anyone over 20 and starting out is going to hear “Akai MPC” and think of hip hop. Ableton Push can do hip hop fine also, yet they oddly don’t seem to be courting that market.

JethroJethro wrote:The Gabe Miller guy they now have demonstrating Force/MPC is a good start but he’s pretty locked into a couple styles of techno and they don’t really show off synth layering and modulation him or Andy Mac whose dance music seems mostly house from what I’ve seen.

Tons of rave kids around still plus older diehards. EDM is having a resurgence and this seems a missed opportunity for Akai getting gobbled up by Ableton and FL.

Anyone over 20 and starting out is going to hear “Akai MPC” and think of hip hop. Ableton Push can do hip hop fine also, yet they oddly don’t seem to be courting that market.

Gabe is cool for what does, but he doesn't push shit to the max like Snowmetal:
https://www.youtube.com/@SnowMetalMusic/videos

What people think about a piece of gear is largely based on the how the company marketed it. At anytime they show other sides/styles & it's up to the customer to tell if it's the right tool for them. The Force was too different for most MPC heads back in 2019, but now with MPC3.0 & the pro-pack the gives g1 MPCs the clip-matrix, all Akai gotta do is change the corny-ass name from the Force to MPC-64 or MPC-"whatever" & get one of high level finger drummers play some dope sample chops over the 4 banks to show the benefits over just 1 bank of 16. The time is ripe for the mk2 as more them have adjusted to the new OS & like clips.

Snow metal definitely is more up my alley.

Your finger drumming idea is probably golden. So many ways to experiment and jam with the 64 pads. I especially like the sequencer mode that has 4 lanes on top and 32 pads below.

Imagine Jeff Mills on a Force! Or if Captain Pikant used one regularly. Akai is crazy not to send him some devices (He mostly focuses on sequencing drum patterns) and Force would beat CP’s Elektron devices in a lot of examples.

> “The Force was too different for most MPC heads back in 2019”

Probably so, yet they missed the bus by not going hard after the Ableton crowd or people who aspired to those kinds of music. Easy for me to say with my own puny business marketing budget I guess. But I guess the performance hiccups problems and freezes would make it hard to get touring performers to use a Force even now (mine freezes occasionally, seems to be related to the screen entering sleep mode).

Part of the problem has got to be the Japanese way of running a business. There’s very little pushback or questioning of what the boss wants, it’s a culture of corporate allegiance. They’re very slow to change course, and tend to dig in to defend a business decision. Toyota/Lexus is a great example of this - high quality and value, but an attitude of “we know better than our consumers” when buyers are asking for more modern features and styling. A few years ago someone high up decided that the stereo systems should have a very forward and midrange focused sound stage. Nice if you listen to Bethoven, not so great for any sort of popular music though. And the rear speakers can’t even be faded to match the levels of the fronts. Infuriating, even with the expensive Mark Levinson upgrade.

Europe does better with a managment heavy decision making process but with input and debate by the team. USA has fallen behind now that big corpos tend to make marketing decisions by committee with an aim to also hit social and political goals.

But nah, not Akai. And if you look at Akai ads the racial makeup of people in photos and videos is heavily skewed to the old core user base. Their YouTube sponsorships buck this trend but that smells like them just buying their way out of criticism, such as Tefty. I can’t imagine that guy is bringing many new buyers but maybe I’m wrong.

Lots of younger music fans of all kinds were into DAWless production and Force should have been front and center of that movement. But nah.

(Man I give a lot of TED Talks here lately)

Yeah Snowmetal is that dude!
The Step-Seq mode is far superior to what's on the MPC, but I don’t really use it, tho when I did it helped to come up witha unique drum pattern. I mainly play things live. You can also make it into a 64 Step-Sequencer.

Get Jeff Mills on the Force would be insane! But any skilled FDer would do like Araab muzik who already makes MPC promo videos. Hell, they could even start a Force FD competition to create some interest or they could hire us as independent consultants

Yeah, they could've did better to appeal to the Ableton crowd but maybe that's part of phase 2 with a more powerful Force that has a desktop software. I think once they get the MPC software out of beta they kinda have to finally include the force at that point as it will have the clip-matrix added to it.

Try turning Screensaver mode to Never in the Preferences to see if that helps with freezing. My is set to 5mins since 2021 & I've never had an issue. Did you report it?

How don't know how Japanese Akai still is since it been American owned. I wish they would re-hire JJ - who just updated the JJOS last month. That's 20 years of dedication!
But I agree with you about Japanese management style. Roland be on that Lexus shit. I old Akai wouldn't had made the drastic changes needed & would most likely been out business. We're living in the house that Jack built

Akai has their main base that need to market to but it more racially diverse then it was in the pass but it just still heavily Hip-Hop center but even that's been changing. Tefty & even Gabe are cool or at least more honest, especially when they make their non sponsored Akai videos. I see why they don't give free shit to Conan AKA The Crates Motel, his brutally honest & that's why we love him. Happy to see the community gift him a free MPC Samples.

With the price of RAM & just overall great quality of gear made in the decade I don't think the DAWless movement is going anywhere fast. A new Force with better marketing can still shine.

Ted Talks is my thing. Glad to share the stage with you.