Today, Akai Professional announced their Force Beta testing program. To support the upcoming integration of the Arranger and Ableton Live Control, they are assembling a Beta Tester team, along with a private forum to allow beta testers a private community feedback resource and direct line of communication to the development team at Akai Professional.
With Ableton Control integration, Force bridges the two worlds of for greater creative power. Force and its plugin instruments Hype and Tube Synth, plus the controller’s sound processing FX and sample manipulation algorithms, pairs with Ableton to ready musicians for new musical adventures.
The Arranger feature enables users to build complete compositions in a more structured, long-form manner. This new development expands the capabilities of Force as a performance and composition tool. Force now has complete independence to create a full, dynamic song composition from intro to grand finale, followed by standalone mixing and mastering.
New in Force Beta:
Live Control – Control Ableton Live using your Force.
- Wireless control and launching of Ableton clips in Session View simultaneously with Force standalone over WiFi.
- Instantly switch between Force in standalone mode and Live Control mode without ever stopping playback.
- Control the Ableton Live mixer, effects, instruments and VSTs using Force’s Touchscreen and knobs.
The Arranger – A fully featured linear sequencer. Users can now:
- Create an arrangement of a song against a linear timeline.
- Record a clip performance or live input (MIDI or Audio) into a linear timeline.
- Edit and arrange the song using Force’s powerful Arrange Edit commands.
- Mixdown the song to a stereo audio file or stem it as separate tracks.
- Experiment with different song ideas by launching clips against the linear arrangement.
- Edit a single track from your arrangement in the Grid and List editors.
- Undo History – Quickly backtrack and reverse up to nine actions.
Dan Gill, Senior Product Manager for Akai Professional said, “Force is a transcendent music compostition and performance tool. On its own, it provides more intuitive creative ability than any product we’ve ever created. With the addition of the Arranger and Ableton Live Control we’ve again opened up an even greater world of possibilities, making our greatest stride to advance music creation for everyone.”
To be eligible for the Force beta testing program, users are asked to sign an non-disclosure agreement [NDA], join the forum by creating a user profile, and downloading the Beta build to a qualified computer system. Force Beta is closed to the general public, but users interested in joining the beta team can apply here.
Akai Professional will also offer an MPC Beta program for Ableton Live Control integration. Those applying for that program will be notified once it has opened.
For more information, visit akaipro.com.
Holy shit, I see why the arranger is taking longer than people expected. They are going deep with the interface and functionality so its not that Fisher Price “My first song arrangement” UX like whats in the MPC Live and X.
That new look with those tacky colors doesn’t look Fisher Price? You think that looks better than the the previous design?
> Instantly switch between Force in standalone mode and Live Control mode without ever stopping playback.
This is where the potential for all the win is centered.
This looks awesome. Hopefully midi/audio out over USB is next. Those ports want to control things.
Already had the audio out over usb in the last update, works as an audio interface.
BITWIG PLEASE?!?!?
Native Instruments should definitely wake up and update their Maschine environment…such sleepy heads
I gave up on NI, literally this week and sold all my NI gear.
I love to see NI doing something like the Akai Force with but include a set list mode where you could create a folder with all the projects loaded up with everything ready for live performance. It would nice if you could also have a way to load the next song up while the previous songs was still playing and still be able to perform the previous by tapping a switch on a midi foot switch.
Now I’m excited – we need isome time signatures , this looks truly brilliant excited 🙂
You can make a time signature just by changing the number of beats in your clip. What additional functionality are you looking for?
Just assume, most that comment probably don’t actually have the device and it’s a feature that exist but not shown in videos. No time signatures on an Akai MPC-like, yup, you never used an MPC before.
Or maybe he means a update roadmap….
Oh I have the device alright there’s no assumption in that and so what if people don’t ?
As a guitarist time signatures matter -thanks stuffstuff for your positive input , in regards to additional functionality an amp simulation plug in from Air would be great ??
Can someone help me understand: would I be able to import existing Ableton Live sets (which are years old) into the Force, and play those sets in the Force with no computer?
It’s all export right now. And I’m assuming live control would make the force a push. Without stopping probably means you can disable the force and your able track would still work since its all in Ableton. I don’t see them the other way, would be awesome but I think there is a lot more involved inn Ableton than the force could handle. I mean, it’s Ableton. A single set could crash a computer depending on the amount of FX. That would mean Force would need all of Ableton in it to support the 1:1 functionality.
akai already said that the force will not have integration as deep as the push, so it won’t be a push.
I hope the akai company ad probability function to the internal sequencer, Good work Akai team!! diego
But , as akai force owner’s i have to say some bad thing:
midi clock don’t work on akai force. You can’t use force in slave mode via midi in port, you can’t use as master via midi out port. You are able to slave the force only via usb but when you are in slave mode you can’t loop via the audio sampler. So this basic function are still not avaiable today. I have buyed mine on march 2019. And in the manual there is write that you can use the midi port….