A new alternative to Kronos and Nautilus

[Lightbringer]

Use it for its strengths rather than its weaknesses, and you'll find yourself one happy camper.

Oh, I will. I'm excited to have it! I don't want you to think I was disappointed, quite the contrary. I ordered my 2 TB SSD, and can't wait to use the sampling and sequencer.

My other comments have to do with how great the Kronos is. I think a lot of people can't figure it out. The new workstation they are looking for, is the one that better automates the Kronos functions. I know it well enough that I have a workflow that is efficient. It's amazing.

I also think that what Akai is doing is pretty special, too! I'll be finding out about more of the Force's capabilities over time. I'm looking forward to shooting some videos about what I'll be doing with both the Force and the Kronos. It's going to be groovy!

Congrats on your Force purchase. For what it’s worth, I’ve had mine for about 2 years, and I think the feature set in the Force complements the Kronos really nicely. What a great combo.

The K definitely wins out with its synth engines. It’s hard to beat those in my book. But for me, the Force adds a bunch of functionality that is either missing in the Kronos, or feels like it is more fiddly to use than it needs to be. Step sequencing, clip style workflow with arranger, more straightforward sampling to name a few. Those things just feel like a joy to use on the Force.

One of the things I really appreciate about Akai is that they are constantly updating the OS, listening to user feedback, and improving the feature set. I bought my Kronos about 3-4 years before it was discontinued and never saw a major OS update. Granted, I probably still haven’t explored half of what the Kronos can do, but I thought there was still a lot of potential to modernize the user experience.

[Koekepan]

After much research and thought, I bought a Krome rather than the Kronos, knowing full well what the Krome's limitations are compared to the Kronos. At the time it was the only serious hardware device offering a halfway usable pianoroll implementation. And I've used it for production work, and it works well. It also works to drive other things in my studio.

The Kronos has better effects, more of them, audio recording, KARMA, aftertouch, and so on and on but for all the things that it had, the one thing that KORG never decided to give it was a pianoroll. It's as if they didn't really mean it when they gave it a sequencer.

This is why I bought the Force; as a full, all-in-one hardware production device, the sequencing interface is about as good as anything on the market. I can do direct entry, step sequencing, grid sequencing, direct note editing, and it is really this set of workflow options that KORG never bothered to put in the Kronos. To me the Kronos, at this stage, could not be more than a soundbank and controller keyboard, and that's a shame.

[SeedyLee]

I actually tend to think the Force is a better product overall than the MPC. Lots of the issues on the MPC have been fixed on the Force. It’s a better compositional/production studio than the Music Production Centres.

[blazerunner]

I actually tend to think the Force is a better product overall than the MPC. Lots of the issues on the MPC have been fixed on the Force. It’s a better compositional/production studio than the Music Production Centres.

I'm kind curious what where the "lots of issues" issues that were fixed on the Force?

They're the same product running on the same software and they both receive the same updates. The force however just has a different interface because of it's "clip launching" aspect. For instance "Arranger Mode" on the Force is built with you launching your clips instead of launching pads like on the MPC. But the MPC's have 2.0 Software that lets you assemble a song like you would on a DAW. The Force doesn't have that feature and it's a big draw back that you're stuck inside the box with what it's limited too. It does have Ableton Integration that does a few things if your like that jazz.

I know that most people that own an MPC also own the Force but it's because the approach to creating is different and the Forces workflow is streamlined because of the creative way Akai programmed the force to utilize its 64 pads.

I've had them all but in my personal experience the Force is a bit complex in areas where as the MPC's are more direct and streamlined. The biggest complaint about the Force is the cryptic interface and it's true. There are features you really wouldn't figure out how to access unless you studied the machine well and sometimes you have to relearn it a bit after the updates because some of the features change entirely. Not a bad thing as Akai usually just makes accessing something simpler but they rename things and that's annoying.

Personally while the Force is nice if you want all out standalone it's a set back without having it's own DAW to support it. You can't use 3rd party plug ins if you want to go more in depth with it. I think it's a great "remix" machine. It's like you remix your song over and over again till you get something truly funky. You can explore many options of making your loops/clips sound unique. For that it's a great creative box.

I just think it's heavily Ableton influenced. If you're an ableton user it should feel like home. For me I hadn't used Albleton since 2010 and I was just confused by all the jazz and clips at first but I was quickly able to recognize the shared MPC features on the Force which made getting used to it a walk in the park.

I know there's some things the MPC guys want that the Force has and vice vera but always keep in mind the MPC has a whole DAW to support it that can pull pretty much everything you want off.

[Koekepan]

The Force and the MPC aren't really running on the same software. They have a similar base, but there are substantial differences; they don't even get the same updates. For example, the Force now has disc streaming that the MPCs at the time of writing do not.

You can build an arrangement with launching clips, but you don't have to. It's an independent arrangement interface.

I agree that the Force is a complex product; it's a standalone device capable of being everything from sampler to a studio master. So too is a Kronos, and people complain about the complexity of the Kronos; well, it comes with the territory as far as I can tell.

For people who don't like the DAW experience, I'd say that the Force is a very credible, modern tool. I use mine for end-to-end production, just applying final loudness checks on a computer before I upload them.