A new discovery in MPC Software 2.9 shows that Akai Pro may be working on a Force 6, a keyboard workstation powered by the same powerful MPC firmware
With my website Synth Anatomy, I try to go other ways than typical music tech media. Fewer press releases that anyone can publish, towards exciting topics that go deeper. Thanks to my constantly growing community, which not only reads the website regularly, thank you, but also transfer news pearls from time to time. My detective group, hehe.
Dave K. is one of those people who sent me something today that is very exciting. According to his information, Akai Pro is working on a keyboard workstation based on the Force software. This should be called Akai Pro Force 6.
Akai Pro Force 6
The Force software is similar to the MPC software in many ways. Akai has developed a framework here that can be freely adapted to the respective groovebox products. Similar to Korg and his new digital Synthesizer generation Wavetsate, OPSIX, or modwave. That would make sense since Akai is already using the software. The hardware would probably cost the most work here.
This information was discovered by an Akai MPC Live X and Force Facebook group that specializes in hacking and modifying devices. In the depths of firmware 2.9, group members found a photo of a possible Akai Pro Force 6. The group also made the exact path to the file public: The PNG file is located internally at:
usr/share/Akai/ACVBTestApp/Resources/acvk.top.830×314.png
Interface
On the picture, you can see a 5-octave keybed, 5×8 pads on the left, 8QLinks encoder on the right, and in the middle a larger display. There are also some function keys that are distributed over the entire keyboard. So a kind of digital workstation with probably the same Force firmware including the different synths, sampler & more. Certainly very exciting, because they can reach a completely different musician area with this. Not just beat producers but also keyboard players. It would be a logical step.
Prototype Or Reality
The group in question is already discussing whether it is an old mockup or a product that is being worked on. I can’t say but I like the idea very much. For me, it would make sense since the Force software version 3.0 has come to a very solid level. The many synth engines including the new drum synthesizers but also the new arranger mode put the Force back in the focus of many electronic musicians.
It will be very interesting. Many are already thinking about a Force successor, but that would be a very welcome new path the company would take. Akai has experience as a keyboard manufacturer for a long time. In the past with real synthesizers or recently with the VIP range which was unfortunately stopped. The future will tell us whether this is just a mockup or a new product.
Source: Facebook Group
More information will follow here: Akai Pro
The current Force firmware is 3.0.6, not 2.9 (afaik 3 denotes the Force, 1 and 2 the different MPCs).
yes, this was found in the firmware 2.9 🙂
Something similar found in FW 3.x ?
The Force in a keyboard makes perfectly sense to me. At least if there were some addons to make bread an butter playing easy.
Wow, very interesting and cool hack!
What would make or break this product, for me, would be if it had better connectivity on the back. The Force only has 4 audio outputs, and that is really not enough. If they could expand that and give it more in terms of CV/IO this could be worthwhile. Really, though, just making the display tilt up like on the MPC X would be a huge improvement.
Also, there is so much empty space on this mockup. they could give a full complement of 16 q-links like on the MPC X. That sort of thing would put this ahead of the force + a midi keyboard. As it stands…this is kinda unnecessary.
With the latest Versions of FW 3.x Interface options have drasticslky imptoved.
You can now replace the internal audio io with a USB class compliant exteral audio interface up to 32×32 in/out (if I remember right) and even some compatible mixers. Not sure so about latency which might be an the slower side – at least from a live players/performers standpoint.
Similarily you can expand midi drastixally with USB class compliant midi interfaces like MioXL. The latter is especially interesting if you have a bunch of traditional DIN midi and USB midi devices. The Mio can host them all and provide additional midi over ethetnet.
My 2ct.
yes, covered in the Firmware 3.x article 😉