AKAI Force

Hmm. Seems like Akai wants us to buy yet another unfinished product.

I’ll be on the fence for now. Let’s see what 2.4 brings to the MPC

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Yes im waiting until they have the promised direct stream audio, before buying. And multitimbral midi in.

Hmmmm. On no song mode. It’d be cool to jam and record your arrangement though. That’d be different than the current MPC flow. For better or worse.

Seems like a fun box in any event. But probably not necessary or needed for making stuff given all of the other options that are currently out there.

This would be more of a curiosity purchase. And an expensive one at that :astonished:

Those videos have a real “Ableton Push vibe” to them, same visual setup.

I really struggle with Akai. I find their designs quite poor and as a company they have a terrible track record of overpromising and underdelivering while also not being very responsive to customers. I owned (and still own) a bunch of their gear and with every single unit I bought on launch I got the feeling that it wasn’t quite finished and/or thought through.

I find the design of the Force quite uninspired, somewhat opportunistic, and I can’t imagine them developing and supporting this form factor long term…I feel this may be Akai’s Maschine Jam, which was hyped and then dropped by NI in pretty much the same breath…but maybe I’m also being too harsh, so far this thing does not tempt me at all.

It is also important to point out that this in fact IS a computer…running Linux I believe…just so the “it’s hardware, standalone - detach from your horrible computer and gig the world” pitch doesn’t overwrite the fact that it IS a computer and hence UI/UX design is the key that would differentiate it from a tethered solution…and again, Akai aren’t the best at that stuff. But we shall see :slight_smile:

The force actually made lot of sense to me at first… until I read that it’s not a part of the MPC hardware/software family. If the projects are not compatible with MPC, I’m much less into the idea tbh

Twoulda been the perfect system for gigging my MPC material with a vocalist (or two). Maybe when the now rumoured MPC 3.0 becomes a reality the new project format will be compatible with both force and MPC?

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VIDEO UP!

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We can assume the Force is going to be a flop for Akai

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A long time ago I thought the little blue MPC was going to be a flop…

With that said, I have no desire to buy an Akai Force

It’s design is super ugly, and from all the vids I’ve watched the work flow looks like a rats nest at first glance, but it does have some interesting features… I’m debating selling my digitakt (having a major heart ache just thinking about it because it’s so wonderful) and my Korg Electribe 2 for this. It looks like it could cover the digitakts features at a minimum.

If I do it, first thing will be a vinyl wrap that covers the word “Force” and “Akai professional” lol.

first thing I thought was “I should sell my DT and get this and it should cover all my sampling needs” but after trying OB im just keeping it.

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don‘t! The Digitakt is a work of art, the „ Force“ isn‘t.

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True. I need to try OB now that it’s available.

Very true. DT is quite Magic. I’ll likely keep it and try the force. From what I see its sampling abilities are pretty powerful- and it reminds me of the only parts of my electribe is still care about lol.

Convertors on the MPC-Live and MPC-X don’t sound as good as the Digitakt so a safe bet that the force will have the same sound.

MPC live is very transparent. What you put in is what you get out. The factory samples have been squashed for loudness though so may give a different impression.

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I don’t agree about convertors. MPCs are transparents here. Not the case with DT, as should be obvious to anyone now that OB is out and everyone can compare with their sound card output.

I don’t own an MPC, but the converters seem quite good. As good as DT or better from what I’ve heard.
Like a moron I sold my DT the day after OB came out, but honestly haven’t touched it since I got my OT and I needed money to fund an A4mk2. We’ll see how badly I regret that or not. In the meantime, a truly hysterical ‘review’ from someone who’s never laid hands on one

and who’s not even familiar with Live so… :rofl:

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Akai confirmed there won’t be song mode as “arrangement” mode will come later. They will keep song mode on the Live and X as a legacy feature

While I don’t enjoy this sort of “review” (and its tonality) much, I must admit that I agree with his analysis/opinions on the Force.

:slight_smile:

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