RackForce

A browser-patchable modular MIDI rack for the Akai Force, running as a MockbaMod AddOn. Generative and Euclidean sequencers, a drum machine, a chord engine, quantizers, LFOs — wired together and driving the Force's own synths over MIDI. Design takes cues from Mutable Instruments' Eurorack modules (Marbles, Grids, Tides, Branches): the Force makes the sound, RackForce makes the musical decisions.

Runs alongside Akai's own app as an overlay AddOn — doesn't touch the firmware.

Download RackForce v0.2.0-beta

Prebuilt ARM binary, no GitHub account or build step needed — grab the .zip from the "Assets" section on that page. See Install below for what to do with it.

v0.2.0-beta — early build, expect rough edges. Bug reports welcome, see Feedback.

Screenshots

The web patch bay — open from any phone or laptop on the same network — is the easiest way to see what RackForce actually is:

A patch, built from three voices — a chord engine publishing harmony, a drum machine, and a bassline following the changes:

Every parameter is a live slider, not just a config file:

The step sequencer is a paged, Elektron/Opal-style editor with mouse-drag painting:

Highlights

• Musicality pass — velocity accents, humanization, phrase-aware generative lines, fixed chord voice-leading, per-drum note config.
• Routing — MIDI-In brings live Force pads/keys into a chain; a named internal note bus (bus_send/bus_in) fans one lane's output into others.
• Live config edits — changing a genre/scale/key mid-playback no longer panics all notes off and restarts the transport.
• Opal-style step editor — paged (Trig/Vel/Prob/Gate/Ratchet/Nudge/Mod), mouse-drag painting of values across steps.
• 23 drum genres, key/root picker on Gen/Marbles/Markov/Turing, and an honest publisher/follower harmony badge in the web UI.

Requirements

• Akai Force running MockbaMod 4.51 (or compatible)
• SSH access to the Force, to make the binary executable and enable the AddOn

Install

1. Download RackForce-v0.2.0-beta.zip from the v0.2.0-beta release page (all versions: Releases).

2. Copy the ModularRack folder it contains onto your MockbaMod SD card, into:

   <SD card>/AddOns/ModularRack/
   

   (The AddOn folder keeps the ModularRack name on disk — same engine, RackForce is the project name.)

3. Zip files don't preserve Unix permissions, so make the binary and scripts executable over SSH:

   chmod +x /media/662522/AddOns/ModularRack/modularrack
   chmod +x /media/662522/AddOns/ModularRack/manage.sh
   chmod +x /media/662522/AddOns/ModularRack/run_modularrack.sh

4. Enable it:

   cd /media/662522/AddOns/ModularRack
   sh manage.sh ENABLE

   Starts the rack immediately and sets it to auto-launch on boot. sh manage.sh DISABLE stops it and removes auto-launch; sh manage.sh UNINSTALL also deletes the AddOn folder.

Docs

• MIDI setup — voice routing, the channel-16 control scheme, macro knobs, the web patch bay.
• Module catalog — all 20 modules, what each does.

Feedback

Open an issue, ideally with the output of running the daemon directly over SSH with --verbose:

/media/662522/AddOns/ModularRack/modularrack --verbose

Credits

• Built on MockbaMod 4.51 by MockbaTheBorg and Amit Talwar.
• Module design inspired by Mutable Instruments (Marbles, Grids, Tides, Branches) and the Music Thing Modular Turing Machine.