Akai Professional Force – Standalone Music Production/DJ Performance System with 7” full colour multitouch display and clip launch matrix

The media could not be loaded. I'll start with the cons:1. Glitchy firmware. Expect crashes and freezes embellishing your performance\production. Akai has gone overboard with features on this product, most of which are half baked. Even if it were a long term evolution entity, the device lacks the amount of sincerity that it demands in terms of software stability even though it's been >2yrs since it hit the market. The Force community has been clamoring for bug fixes but all of this has been so far, to no avail.2. NO, IT'S NOT METAL. Rather some kind of a matte alloy or something that has a rubbery consistency on touch. I was trying to fit in an ssd and could easily scrape off the paint/layer to reveal a silvery base.3. Primarily performance focused the Force is. If you are more into studio work, try going for an MPC One\Live\X whatever suits your budget. I got the Force off for 85k and the price drop went all the way down to 75k in the next few days. Sadly, these beauties (and other hardware which are fairly commonly used by the prod fam worldwide) are sold at a premium in India due to low demand and high cost of logistics/customs.4. The slider is by far looser than a flimsy stole wrapped around the neck on a stormy day. The papa bear encoder on the top right is wobbly. Handle with care. You'll break your unit as well as your heart if things go south.5. The touch panel isn't akin to the response you're spoiled for choice by the everyday use of smartphones. Once you take the film off the screen, it does get a little more responsive. Zooming in to waveforms will often have you scrolled to either extremes at near max magnification. However, I can be colossally wrong about this since touch responses are subjective.6. Workflow is kind of a steep curve you gotta ride on for a little while. Not the kind the likes of which I drool about on the Digitakt or even the Circuit (Digitakt God Damn!! <3). There's no immediacy. The level of ease can be different for people already used to the MPC ecosystem. The things you find on Youtube regarding making beats in the time your coffee gets brewed are imo either genre specific or minimal. You still gotta finish your beat to turn it into a track.7. GET READY TO GET A LOT MORE ORGANIZED. Yes. You. Pestilent little imbecile. Give up your bad habits because this beast will demand good organizational skills. With a slot for ssd, sd card and usb ports you will be tempted to go on a sample hoarding spree. However, if you don't have your collection organized, most of your stuff will end up being the sewage clog in your workflow. Organize your collection before transferring them to your device. Well, this was more of a note to self. Hihi :DComing to the pros:1. All the Trap, Dance, EDM, Future Bass, Hip Hop performers/DJs/Producers/Enthusiasts. Stop reading this and buy it if the price of this is Sub 1L at the time of you going through this review. The stock kits and patterns and instruments will last you for a long time before you feel the need to load this up with your collection. This may not be the ideal standalone that you dream of, but it's not anything lesser than what it claims to be. I take interest in none of the aforestated genres. I purely use the Force for purposes of Midi Sequencing. Which brings me to my next epiphany.2. Force is a very good mastermind of gear that transmits midi. I use it all the time to sequence my FA06, essentially turning my workstation into this one for all sound module. Sadly, CC transmission is very hard to automate, to bring in and out effect changes. Nevertheless, if you've bunch of Analog/Digital gear to fool around with, Force is the prophet for their union.3. If you're used to Ableton style playing, this is your wet dream coming true. Guess what? This baby can read your ableton projects and load them directly into its interface with all the clips , audio, sequencing and everything. All you gotta do is select the Save all option in the Ableton menu and transfer the made folder into your Force. I have got a lot of projects done and saved in my Force that I can carry to my living room away from my laptop for tinkering with later.4. The included Synths are by far preset based, with very novel (nearly unsuable) parameters that either have elusive/esoteric names or that which control some technical aspect of the sound that can only be recognized by a synth head with Piccolo (DBZ Yayy!!) like aural reflexes. It has two synth, one bass, one ep and a drum plugin for your imagination to go crazy. All of them are fairly tweakable, but not essentially a creator/designer's dream. But one can do a lot with what this machine offers.5. 2GB of RAM is OKAY for this unit. Converting kontakt libraries for use in this machine is a fool's venture. You can make your own instrument if you want, but I have some heavy projects with maxed out audio track counts and almost a house-full fx rack on each channel. It's been only once or twice that I have noticed audio dropouts with CPU at >80%.6. The unit is chocked full of features that WILL HELP YOU FINISH A SONG. But that definitely demands some learning. Google, Youtube and the manual are your best friends. Reddit and Akai forums are your peddlers. There's a huge community spanning the internet that is very helpful should you run into a hiccup. Facebook has a very good page for this.7. For the price of 75-90k in INR this is a no brainer. For 1.44L, I may have to discuss it with my property broker for this. Most of the bedroom producers like me don't have a full time production career to afford such luxuries in India, essentially turning us more into hobbyists than artists. Do what you may. Art is priceless.