Use Ableton Live 9 or 10
9 will import audio and midi clips clips pretty well, drum programs not so much. The samples end up in one long file somehow
Live 10 will import drum programs correctly.
Stick to the capabilities of Live Lite:
8 audio tracks max
8 midi tracks ( clips only, no instrument beyond impulse, simpler, sampler )
MAXIMUM file size 1.70(ish) Gb
As long as I stay within these parameters I have no issue importing .als into Force
SCG
So, Force doesnāt take v11 .als files!? That could be a problem for me.
I definitely had under the 8 columns and rows.
Scenes / rows; Iāve yet to hit the limit.
Live 11 has been a problem for many; 9 & 10 work as in my experience.
Test for yourself; Live 10 trial should confirm behavior
SCG
Sadly, thatās quite difficult when youāre working with other people who use Live 11.
Perhaps Akai just need to catch-up?
Didnāt 11 just come out?
4 months ago I think. Iāve certainly been using it for a while now.
So, one working method Iāve found to reduce the loop start glitching, is to set up a big drum kit for just kicks. That means everything stays on the one channel and individual hits work quite nicely.
Itās kicks which were really suffering with the glitch.
Sorry for spamming. Is there any way, to insert a track? Iāve been through the manual and havenāt found anything on that. Adding a track to the end is obviously possible, but letās say I want to insert a drum or midi track somewhere near the first set of tracksā¦?
If you donāt need to change the time, you can just switch off warp. I hardly notice the glitch as I record loop at the right tempo, but even so if there is a big transient you can feel the glitch.
Nope, but many requests for it in the Beata forum.
I donāt believe thereās an insert track feature, but thereās a manual workaround involving copy and paste (copy track, paste it elsewhere, create new track in the original place. This becomes less optimal the more tracks you have beneath your target location.
I think this is most likely a legacy MPC limitation thatās made more apparent by the Force layout and workflow. Probably already a feature request, but may be worth adding your voice if itās important for you.
By the way - V10 .als files do seem to work OK.
Iāll leave a copy of v10 around, for doing the major work in loop and kit preparation. Much faster on the Mac, than it is on the unit.
ā¦but then I add effects etc., which breaks the link. Makes it more of a one-way process. 
Hoping to spend some time with the Force now the weather is a little more tolerable.
Q: Am I just wasting my time trying to use aftertouch on the device? It shows as working in the prefs, itās set to record from pads, but on the internal synths and on keygroups it neither affects the sound or records to sequences (even with the parameter record enabled). I can draw it into a clip afterwards, but then it seems to be per-pad only, which makes it a hassle to apply.
I havenāt hooked up an external synth yet, but Iām guessing that maybe thatās where the recording comes in? Otherwise ārecord pad aftertouchā just seems to be a pointless setting, if not a flat-out tease.
Also it seems that Hype has a potentially useful Control LFO (the other LFO seems to be sine-only and locked to cutoff) that can only be deployed using aftertouch or mod wheel - neither of which you can usefully implement on the Force itself. Is that right? Iām charitably assuming I might be missing something here, but Iāve no idea whatā¦
in short, yes, you are wasting your time.
Aftertouch has yet to be implemented in the Force using the pads on the device (despite, as you noted, the frustrating ability to see it working in the setup preferences). It works fine with an external controller iirc.
I donāt think it is expected to be fixed in the next update either, unfortunately.
Thanks for this, Iāll calibrate my expectations. Seeing it working is one thing, but having a preferences setting for recording it is a genuine liberty.
Being able to manually edit what seems to be MPE aftertouch is anā¦ interesting feature. The screen doesnāt show that youāre editing a parameter lane for a specific pad / key, but you can see the recorded values change if you hit a pad while the editing page is open, and itās also visible in the list view (which is how I worked it out when it appeared that only half my drawn-in events were working).
In fairness, the manual does say this in the keygroup section:
Aft>Filt (AftertouchļFilter Cutoff) determines how much a connected MIDI keyboardās aftertouch data affects the filter cutoff.
But then also says this in the prefs section:
Record Pad Aftertouch Events: When enabled, pad aftertouch data (from the Force hardwareās pressure-sensitive pads) will be recorded.
Which is LIES. Well, Iāll try it with an external synth before I contact the press, but I donāt hold out much hope.
There is a workaround:
Create a drum track, route the output to a midi track, now you can send aftertouch out. Worked on the Hydrasynth.
Do not ask why aftertouch works on drum tracks and not on midi, it is not for us to understand the ways of the Force.
Isnāt aftertouch used for note repeat on drum tracks, or did I dream that? Maybe thatās implemented properly internally, and it translates to standard aftertouch when it gets sent outā¦
I should add that part of the reason Iām surprised by this is it all works fine on the MPC One - load up Tubesynth, assign aftertouch to cutoff, and it plays and records to sequences using the pads with no problem. Although Iām going to have to go and start it up now to see if it records it per-pad or just for the channel.
I donāt believe aftertouch has any connection with note repeat.
Ah well, chalk that one up to too much cheese at bedtime.
I finally hooked it up to some other gear, and the results so far areā¦ inconclusive. I definitely had some lag with recording audio to clips, but not all the time, and recording audio to the arranger seemed to behave much better. I set up a short click on the internal drum synth and a similar sound on the A4, and when that was recorded to a clip it was absolutely fine. But a few bass loops coming from the A4 sounded noticeably off.
From what Iāve seen so far I wouldnāt trust it to sample external loops on the fly, like the Octatrack - but, as I say, recording to the arranger seemed more reliable. Unfortunately I donāt think you can select a section of the arranger and quickly send it off to a clip, but please correct me if Iām wrong there because that would be really handy. Iād also like to be able to reverse audio recorded to the arranger but, again, that doesnāt seem possible despite being fairly straightforward in clips.
In mitigation, these are all problems Iāve had with various DAWs and may well be tolerable in the context of full sets - I wasnāt expecting miracles, which remain the Octatrackās department. When clips were in place, the matrix and macros were both great fun to work with, and MIDI clips recorded to the arranger were rock solid. Still confident itāll work out once we understand each other.
Anyone know how to load a sample into the box without putting it on a pad or in a clip.
I want to load up a bunch of loops, chop them up and create drum programs.
Problem Iām running into is that when I load a sample, it places it on the last pad I pressed. Which, messes up my pattern if thereās already a sample assigned to that pad.
On the MPC Live, you can deselect pads and therefore load a sample into the memory, but not assign it to anything. I want to do that with the Force.
Thanks,
Adonis