Thanks! 
ah, youāre on Muffs as well? Nice. Iām still a bit wary on it relying too much on a touch screen for my personal taste, but it does look a lot more intuitive to use than say an mpc live, and ticks pretty much all the boxes for what I want from a live performance tool. Looking much forward to it.
Yeah, on muffs as well. And untz! hehe
The touchscreen isnt too bad. But get a stylus! It is very helpful for editing midi in the piano roll. Thats like the only thing that is really bad doing with your fingers. For the other stuff i have my left hand on the main rotary encorder, and just select what parameter to tweak on the touchscreen. No hassle at all.
3 Likes
nice! I think I have a stylus laying around. the knobs-screen mode seems pretty useful as well!
Itās interestingā¦ For a āgrooveboxā it is incredibly capable and essentially a DAW replacement. It can do all the basic things that you would do with a DAW and the overall interface and hardware control is decent enough. Iām finding it pretty easy to get to grips with, and Iāve been able to get things sounding really solid, just mixing directly on the Force. Itās brilliant to have proper, velocity sensitive pads, and so many of them, and as others have mentioned, the touchscreen only really sucks for editing midi notes on the piano roll - the main encoder is used for pretty much everything in the way of parameter editing.
The downside for me is the overall UX. Coming from my Elektron boxes, the Force lacks the creativity and immediacy of the OT/DT etc. The OT for example is amazing in that it gives you something near enough to a DAW in a box, but the experience of using it is nothing at all like using a DAW. The Force on the other hand feels very much like a somewhat limited DAW with a really great control surface, which makes sense as thatās pretty much exactly what it is.
I partly got mine as a kind of R&D effort, as I want to solve this problem with something new, and between the Force and the OT I have two very different approaches as a reference.
Overall I think the Force is a fantastic box that does incredible things, and for people who prefer a more linear workflow (like me), itās pretty much the best option out there for a hardware studio centre-piece. If youāre more experimentally minded (also like me tbh), the OT is indispensable. I have yet to figure out the best way to get them working together in a single workflow, but Iām sure Iāll get there eventually.
3 Likes
Itās not really comparable but the macros pad mode is really fun. Itās one the functions that has laid the OT ghost to rest, for me.
2 Likes
Iāve not tried that yet, Iāll have a go! Thanks
1 Like
Let us know how you get on with it.
Itās no way as slick as the OT in the execution of its sample mangling capabilities but as a whole I personally find it far more capable.
Nice, thanks for that. Iām primarily getting Force to try to build live sets out of loops/stems Iāve already recorded - and being able to add like a little spice here and there with some one shots, a synth stab from one of the vstās in it, some effect macros and stuff like that - and just being able to have all that in one portable case - seems very convenient. Weāll see how it goes though, it all comes down to how you gel with the hardware and workflow afterall - and for some reason, it can often be kind of hard to tell beforehand how youāll gel with something.
It sounds like you dig it though, which is very nice to hear, seeing as youāre a relatively new owner. Canāt wait to get it.
Itāll be good for that! The clip launch mode is really fun. I think thereās a limit of 8 audio tracks, but you can have as many sampled keygroup or drum tracks as you want, and the crossfader macros will be very useful.
1 Like
How you doing mon?
Last I read on this, you was getting kicked out of yer house and wife was acting upā¦
All sorted out?
If all goes tits up you have a least Ā£600 sat there in the Force to last you for a few weeksā¦
1 Like
That made me smile.
Iām doing ok. Still at home and weāre working things out. Also, my mum died so things were way too much to handle.
But we have a plan.
Cheers fella!
Good.
Your girl n your child ā¦ its pure love. and that will rise throughout the chaos.
donāt spin out.
Sounds perfect. Thanks! Not entirely sure what keygroups are yet, but Iāll figure it out.
Keygroups are a sample or collection of samples ment to be played chromatically. Like a regular keyboard/synth.
With the autosampling feature it is so simple to make good sounding keygroups. I have a Pro-1. So if i get a nice sound going, i just go into the autosample menu. Select how many notes it should sample from for example C-1 to C-6. Select length of sampling. Press a button and it samples all notes and makes a keygroup. And my pro-1 is āpolyfonicā.
aaaahh! nice! thatās a pretty awesome feature. cool, thanks.
How is the Force as a Push alternative?
Not expecting it to deliver a like for like but curious if it can control Abletons instruments/FX and whether it offers stuff like Pushās drum rack/sequencer combo.
Just curious really. Quite like the thought of a standalone that can swap into controller mode easily. Like Maschine but just with Live instead!
To be honest I hardly use the touch screen, unless I need to set loop points/cut, but I also prefer to re-record rather than editing in the grid edit.
Quick tip, select+pad in step sequencer mode will select that event in grid mode, then you can just tap the action (move/edit start/edit end) and use the main rotary to tweak. Not an Elektron workflow, but for me itās faster than grid editing
3 Likes
Cool. Didnt know about select + pad!
1 Like
Nice, cheers.
A couple more questions, if you guys donāt mind answering.
Have you had the Force crash on you? I see a lot of mixed experiences here, some people say it crashes a lot (which of course is horrible for playing live), while others havenāt experienced it.
How do you record a performance? Letās say I have a lot of audio clips loaded in a set, I hit record to start jamming away on the pads with clips (and I assume it will record into the session view) - will it then also record whatever effects changes Iām performing with macros, crossfader, xy-pad etc? And how does it record this? Like MIDI-events, or as audio?
Nevermind, I guess thatās whatās explained here.
Yes, for me Force crashes once or twice a week. I use it ~2-8 hours a day. Usually when slicing samples (>64 slices) or when setting up multiple macro assignments. Once things are setup, itās pretty reliable.
For the record, occasionally my Elektrons crashed, though not as often, and usually it was due to something MIDI-related. My Windows/iPad apps crash much more often, usually for no reason whatsoever (I disable power management and networking too, on Windows).
To record a clip performance to the song arranger, hit Shift>REC to record to the arranger. MIDI/audio gets recorded just like a linear DAW arranger. You can dive in and edit each MIDI/audio track in the arranger view just like editing a clip. Clips and the arranger are completely independent, but can be used simultaneously (per track - clip launch mode or arranger mode). Clip/track Macro automations will be recorded to the arranger, but you cannot record Master Bus FX automation, afaik.
Force has āLive Controlā mode, but the Forceās pads and its multiple play-modes cannot be used to play instruments hosted in Live. The pads are for launching Liveās clips. Fortunately, switching between Live Control mode and standalone mode is quick, so both Live and Force can play together. Though I rarely use Live Control mode since itās easier for me to just use Force in standalone mode and trigger Live instruments vis MIDI.
2 Likes