I’m waiting on a Force mk2, cause you know how akai does, it’s gonna be vastly improved if they make one, and there is a good chance of a form factor change
Ahhh right - that. My bad. I thought Force had this as well?
I thought the force had it too, it doesn’t?
The Force can generate random events, but as with the MPC it’s a static event generator, so once the events have been created they never change. Sometimes that’s useful, other times you want the “live” randomisation you might get from an Elektron sequence. The Force / MPC have gained some more flexible random features in later updates. Unfortunately their LFO sample and hold design isn’t really suited to sequenced randomisation (like several of Roland’s current devices), so you don’t have the flexibility offered by a Digitakt or Octatrack. But the flipside of that is that it’s not as easy to create repeatable randomisation on Elektron gear - if something great happens and you weren’t recording it, you’re out of luck. If you generate a nice random sequence on the Force or MPC, it’s right there to be tweaked and saved.
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Mpc (not sure about force) has probability to add in variations as well. But would be cool if the randomisation resets every pass through of the loop instead of being static. But i guess mpc allows for infinite bars (or almost), so randomisation can be across a longer sequence
The Force has probability & there should some way to fake randomness with the 16 envelope followers.
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Force has midi ‘skip back’ right? Is called retro record?
not sure as I don’t have a Force, but I hope so…
I suppose the middle ground I’m hinting at is a kind of MIDI Turing Machine, where the user can throttle (and ideally automate) the degree of randomisation. I don’t that’s on the radar at Akai, and I haven’t thought about it enough to know if it’s even a viable idea. Random features are currently divided between the sequencer and the devices - OPX4 has some interesting options that are limited to its own interface, for example. I’d like to see more focus on the MIDI and sequencer side, which I’d describe as comprehensive but quite conservative. Throw in some of the features of, say, the Pyramid (and Elektron style plocks!) and it’d be a marvel. Of course every piece of gear has focuses and compromises, or nothing would ever be released, so I’m not holding my breath or starting any petitions.
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I hope Akai listens to your suggestions.
Another sequencer improvement I would like is a the option to set clips as Leader & Follower.
Leader clips is like how the clips are currently where each clip is independent of each other edits.
Follower clips pick one of the Leader clips to follow or mirror its edits. So whatever edit you make to the Leader all the clip that’s following it would automatically have those edits saving a lot of time copying clips. The following clips should also have the option to mirror the name of the Leader clip even if you change it after you made the Follow clips. I hope this makes sense & other see the benefits of this. It’s similar to how the RS7000 & Pyramid handles its clips.
In a perfect world I’d like to see a MIDI plugin method added, but I think this is outside Akai’s focus and would be quite a substantial task (the current plugin system is firmly embedded in the audio chain). There’s a lot crammed into the MIDI sequencing side as-is, and despite putting out some useful additions I think it’s safe to say Akai are more interested in sounds than events. Can’t blame them for following the money, and I suspect the Force is tricky enough to market as it is.
What is this?
That’s correct. Both Force and MPC have MIDi retro-record. Both have had it for quite some time.
Fairly certain he means MIDI effects. Think Reason’s “Players” or VST like Xfer’s “Cthulhu”.
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They won’t even see these suggestions here, so hopefully everyone are posting these feature requests to their social media or stone tablets or something.
On the Pyramid many MIDI effects are presented as plugins, similar to the four audio plugin slots on the Force / MPC - and as noted, similar to what you might see in Live or Ableton. This lets you arrange them in interesting ways - random note into quantise into chord, and so on - again, similar to Akai’s FX flow.
I don’t expect it to happen, but it’d be nice. MIDI stuff on the Force at the moment is largely destructive, time correct aside, so it’d require quite a shift for something very few are likely to care about. Might as well go all-in and request that they support pd patches, and turn it into a plus-sized Organelle.
I have the Pyramid, so know what you mean about rearranging the fx slot for the MIDI FXs. That would be dope to have on the Force. Since it’s non-destructive, I would think it would be easier to implement, but what do I know.
Imagine if Force had MIDI FX slots!
There’s space in the mixer view for this already… I’d go as far as to have some slots pre-MIDI-send and some others Post-MIDI-send.
Force could be an amazing MIDI Processor adding tons of functionality for a studio or live “centerpiece”.
Dreaming aside, they’re still having issues with keeping MIDI Note-Ons and Note-Offs constrained to a specific channel.
Who knows if the issue is finite like available clock cycles or if it’s more code based and their team is patching flaws avoiding a complete code rewrite?
I think these types of things are more likely to materialize in a second product iteration if such a thing ever surfaces - I just get the feeling that they’re running out of room to squeeze stuff in.
Force is still my favorite Octatrack companion.
Not my way of making music!
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Some shit in life is an acquired taste.
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