Akai Force looper tutorial: placing loops on drum tracks

Here is how you can use the looper in Akai Force to make multi-layered recordings and then place them into a Drum Track and trigger them in that track. A great advantage to using Drum Tracks for your samples is that the Force can have 128 drum tracks versus only 8 Audio tracks.

[@Noise-Conductor]

This clear up some thing about how the Looper works, thanks!

[@danecustance2734]

Thanks this was helpful. I'm going to try the vocal layering tip you mentioned.

[@joonasautero661]

I like that melody:) Sounds like something medieval folklore to me.

[@engx3733]

Cool, I have an Force and Roland FA-06 too. The Looper is such an epic tool to spark creativity and as you described, a great way to build complex melodies. Great tutorial. I subscribed to you. Thanks.

[@ericg6093]

Nice trick. Sure won’t apply for live performances (unless it’s saved within a project prior going live), but I love the trick to get over the limit of 8 audio tracks! Thanks for the info!

[@thinkingape7655]

Glad I found your channel. Thank you 🤘

[@United-Bengals]

Very nicely explained sir

[@antdog4117]

Akai force-How to loop a pad within a drum track/note mode/pads/sample edit> shift>loop
For live jam session. Only worked once. I created mute groups for the pick up, but it has only worked once.
I have firmware 3.0.5

[@lit3work]

Nice video man thanks

[@MonteTheTruth]

Thank you

[@plantificationpodcast]

Loop recording into Abelton is by far an easier way to do this work and then chop up the sample on to Drum Rack pads for the keyboard distribution. Sampling is still a million buttons too many. Always has been. And I've been sampling since 1984.

[@holidaygames]

Ableton is easier in a lot ways. But if you like to work or perform with a single piece of hardware you can choose your sampler of choice. I think the Deluge is a really nice way to go as well.

[@davidrobot7818]

Thanks Raxel. Can you do some more Akai force videos please.

[@vazfinestdjchozin1599]

As long as it worked... Thanks

[@MonteTheTruth]

I have force with fa 06 also

[@smokenojoke8182]

I’ve been trying to figure out what’s the difference between the sampler and the looper…they seem like they do the same thing.

[@holidaygames]

They both record audio but the difference is that the looper is set to a fixed number of bars and can keep overdubbing audio as it comes back around to the beginning so you can build up a more complex sample. The sampler just does a one pass recording.

[@smokenojoke8182]

@@holidaygames ok thanks for clearing that up.

[@just_pierre9730]

Good tutorial! But why do you have to place a trig on the first pad? From 1:30

[@holidaygames]

Thanks! I just did a new one as well. This trig is needed because I placed the sample on of A01 of the drum program and to play the simple I need to trigger that pad. If I kept it on the audio track (and set the monitor to Auto) then I wouldn’t need a trig - it would just play the clip.

[@kaislate]

Unfortunately this is not simple enough of a workflow to use any of these features for live performing. I wish there was a good use case for live performing from the Akai Force like the DJS-1000, but if given the opportunity it's like the force will choose to complicate things. I'm trying to get used to some kaind of workflow, but it s not easy.

[@pdiggz2003]

So we don’t have to do any setting chances in the Roland FA-06?

[@holidaygames]

No settings needed on your keyboard - you just need to get the audio into your Force via the standard audio out on your keyboard

[@pdiggz2003]

@@holidaygames great going to try it out later in today thanks so much for this video. I just brought the Roland FA-06.

[@tronlady1]

I am seriously confused dude. This seems a really complicated way to do what you wanted to do? I must admit the FORCE is not the easiest thing in the world to use! I’m not sure you needed to create a clip at all? How did you assign the sample to your drum kit? Also, you could do all this on your FA-06 yeh? Anyways It’s nice to see somebody using it with a proper keyboard 😎

[@holidaygames]

2 things: first, this is using the looper - which means overdubbing multiple passes of audio. You can’t do that on a regular audio track. It’s a special property of the looper and is great for making more complex clips. Second, yes you can do overdubs of midi on the FA-06 or most any midi sequencer, but this is a general idea that applies to stuff like vocals and guitar recording - totally away from midi. The other point is that you can’t overdub loops on an audio track. You get one pass. So the idea here was to 1) use the looper and 2) put the result into a drum track instead of an audio track because you have limited audio tracks on the Force or MPC (in standalone mode).

[@tronlady1]

@@holidaygames hey thanks for your reply. I get what you were doing and it's a good way of extending the limited number of audio tracks yeh! Still don't know how you assigned it to the drum track and I still don't think you had to create a clip to do it? Must admit I haven't played with the looper yet so this is really interesting :o)

[@holidaygames]

@@tronlady1 After you are satisfied with your loop and want to bring it into your project you tap the Export tab at bottom of the screen. That gives you only one option: Export to clip. You can choose the Audio track and lane number to save it to. There’s no other way to save the sample you made. The MPC Live which is where I’m coming from, allowed you to save your loop to a pad of a drum program. That is a more direct way. I mostly use the looper because it’s perfectly timed and needs no trimming. On the Force - at least as of 3.0.6 - your loops can only be exported to an Audio clip. Once that’s done though, you can go to the sample editor and export that sample to a pad on your drum track. That’s how I got it on the drum track.

[@tronlady1]

@@holidaygames thanks for this fab info appreciate it!