MPC LIVE - Consistent Startup issues

Hey all - I wanted to see if anyone else has been experiencing the issues that I have been dealing with since day one.

No sound at all
Touchscreen stops responding after i load a new project
Midway through playing a sequence, the MPC stops and wont play anything

My expectation was that firmware updates would fix these issues, but no matter what, they always comeback. I've tried reinstalling the firmware and that stops the issues temporarily but they come back eventually.

The only solution I have at the moment is restarting and sometimes it takes multiple restarts to get everything to work properly.

I'm not here to **** about my MPC Live because when it works, it works beautifully. My question is, for those who have experienced similar issues -

Has sending it back to Akai for warranty repair worked out favorably or did you encounter the issues with a repaired unit? Also, what is Akai's turnaround time for repair?

Do you believe this is a hardware issue or firmware issue? (if its a firmware issue then i'll wait for the fix)

We all know its buggy as **** lol but these particular issues are a huge thorn in my plans for world domination

- SS

I believe it's a hardware issue as I have similar problems with mine and I've noticed Dan on Gearslutz mention that it's not firmware related to another poster. I tried returning it through Akai just before Christmas but they never got back to me, so I'll probably have to go through the shop I bought it from instead.

Do you (or anyone else) get a few seconds of audio popping/crackling when you first switch the Live on? It's not loud, but it's enough to make you wonder WTF is going on?! I get the exact same problem of loading a project and no audio playing, plus completely spurious lock ups mid-sequence while a loop is running. It's almost as though the Live needs to warm up for a time before it plays nice! After a few reboots it's ok.

It could be a faulty SD card or SSD that the Live is just not compatible. Remove them and check how it runs. If you have this problem afterwards, you might wanna reinstall the OS again. If all fails, best to exchange it.

Coz wrote:Do you (or anyone else) get a few seconds of audio popping/crackling when you first switch the Live on? It's not loud, but it's enough to make you wonder WTF is going on?! I get the exact same problem of loading a project and no audio playing, plus completely spurious lock ups mid-sequence while a loop is running. It's almost as though the Live needs to warm up for a time before it plays nice! After a few reboots it's ok.

For me, thats normal. Had many machines that sparked a clipping like click sound that reverbed into static debris. Manual sometimes tell you to switch on your amp or monitors last but not all will. The other stuff I did not experience yet but its been a while since I used it hardcore.

Coz wrote:I believe it's a hardware issue as I have similar problems with mine and I've noticed Dan on Gearslutz mention that it's not firmware related to another poster. I tried returning it through Akai just before Christmas but they never got back to me, so I'll probably have to go through the shop I bought it from instead.

Do you (or anyone else) get a few seconds of audio popping/crackling when you first switch the Live on? It's not loud, but it's enough to make you wonder WTF is going on?! I get the exact same problem of loading a project and no audio playing, plus completely spurious lock ups mid-sequence while a loop is running. It's almost as though the Live needs to warm up for a time before it plays nice! After a few reboots it's ok.

I actually haven’t run into the cracking/popping issue but I’ve read many threads about people encountering that issue....wow man, looks like we got the short end of the stick lol. Seems we’re in very similar boats. I’m going to try to contact akai as well

Ill-Green wrote:It could be a faulty SD card or SSD that the Live is just not compatible. Remove them and check how it runs. If you have this problem afterwards, you might wanna reinstall the OS again. If all fails, best to exchange it.

I can confirm that this is not the case because this was an issue before I ever used an sd card or put an ssd in it...thank you for the info tho! I reinstalled the os (for the 4th time lol) - it’s only a temp fix. I’ll be exchanging it with akai I’m hopes of a less* defective unit lol

This thread raises a question - why is the MPC Live encountering these problems (i.e. from what I have read here, the OP is not the only one experiencing these issues with the Live), but I have not yet encountered folks with the MPC X reporting similar issues. Both run the same firmware image.

Is it possible that something in the firmware, when running on the Live needs to be disabled? The X and Live have different hardware, with the Live having a subset of the various hardware goodies on the X. It is not uncommon for a couple of different products within a product line to use the same code, but with compile switches that determine what code runs at build time to enable/disable access of the code to hardware that is in one product, but not the other.

If this is what is happening, then that would be considered a bug to be fixed by Akai. Such a bug could be intermittant because of the timing involved with the various parts of the hardware being initialized and then accessed during startup so that one time, the Live comes up just fine, but power cycle it and it may or may not come up properly the next.

Being a retired software engineer working with embedded products like the MPC X (but for different industries entirely), I have seen my share of this kind of problem. Without going into a lot more detail, the above is about the best I can do in describing the nature of this type of problem. I hope it makes sense.

This would explain why some Live owners see it and others don't, or even why one person's Live comes up just fine one time and not another. So, rather than faulty hardware, it could be that one or more compile switches need to be added to the code build so that the code doesn't try to initialize and access hardware that is on the X, but not on the Live product.

Just a thought...

Tony

@tbeltrans very interesting analysis! My older brother is a software engineer so most of what you're saying makes sense to me (though I can still barely understand him sometimes; I'm a Financial Analyst with a background in accounting so we speak different languages lol). To that end, I would think that the bug wouldn't be difficult to fix. But I digress, hopefully I receive a better unit although after really thinking about what you said - my faith just waned a bit haha. Maybe if Akai had two separate firmware's for the Live and MPC X which were optimized for each based on the hardware available in each, then this issue wouldn't exist...maybe this approach is too costly or will give rise to a bevy of other issues though.

Thanks for the input Tony!

Its difficult to try and narrow down why one person sees one thing and another doesn’t on these machines specifically.

We all have different working environments, and that variable makes trying to pin down one or two reasons as to why this happens to one and not another near impractical.

I’m sure my setup is quite different from the typical mpc x/live user base, but to date ive not see this issue. I get consistent clean, uneventful startups on both the live and X.

I dont use the daw software, so could that possibly play in this? It could be..more detailed testing would be needed,

If the OP's Live is operating stand-alone, then outside factors would not be at issue. Whenever problems with the device itself are the focus, the first thing to do is to disconnect it from outside sources such as midi and USB connections, remove any SD cards and/or internal hard drive, and determine if the symptoms go away. It is certainly easy enough to start with a clean, fresh project, which would remove any possibility of loading something that might cause the symptoms.

I assume the OP did all this as a matter of course. If not, then I suggest doing these things before going further.

Tony

No offense but I attempted every “captain obvious” solution available several times over before creating this thread. After stressing all available options, I’ve determined that it’s an issue that Akai will have to fix and I’ve opened a warranty inquiry (which is pending a response from Akai’s support team).

I also believe it to be a bit naive to think that our so called work environments are a primary factor In the differences we’re experiencing, especially given Akai’s well documented reputation for releasing buggy products, and the multitude of others that I’ve read about having some of (if not all) the same problems.

Akai’s forum has similar posts to mine and the first response from support representatives is that the unit is defective and should be returned for repair. I created this post because I don’t trust them lol...but I trust the MPC community a lot more

It is what it is...that said, once I’ve gone through the process I’m going to create another thread detailing my experience and the results of this whole process (or just update this one lol). Maybe it’ll help someone...

I appreciate the input MPC Fam

- SS

ssnochevy,

No offense taken on my part. If anything, your post supports what I have said. My earlier post suggesting another possibility for the problem was just that. I agree that you will probably have to send your Live back to Akai, and I did assume in my responses that you did the "obvious" things, which is why I didn't mention those - until responding to the follow-up poster. To me, since you did those things, your work environment couldn't have been a factor, which was the point of my last post.

So, we are cool and always have been throughout this thread. Personally, I appreciate you bringing your issues here. If anybody else is having such issues, they then have extra "ammunition" in that they are not alone when communicating with Akai. You did a good thing here.

Tony

ssnochevy wrote:wow man, looks like we got the short end of the stick lol. Seems we’re in very similar boats. I’m going to try to contact akai as well

Yeah, shit happens. I'm not too concerned about it at this point in time. Thankfully the SSD pops back out inside 5 minutes, so I'll remove it and send it back.

Definitely update this thread with your experience and I'll do the same.

marctronixx wrote:Its difficult to try and narrow down why one person sees one thing and another doesn’t on these machines specifically.

We all have different working environments, and that variable makes trying to pin down one or two reasons as to why this happens to one and not another near impractical.

Seems like you're trying to make a backhanded comment about these issues being user error when they're obviously not.

Dan has already chimed in a few times in that mammoth Gearslutz thread and told users to return their MPC Live for repair when they've had similar issues to me and the OP. That suggests some kind of hardware or component failure that affects certain units. Shite for us but great for those who aren't affected.

I suspect there's a grey area of users who aren't pushing their units hard enough for certain issues to show up, but there's underlying problems there regardless. For example, my basic song starter projects with a few drum programs seem to be mostly ok when reloaded, but my bigger projects that contain a lot of keygroups start to trip up the machine.

you didn’t get the jist of my post, and thats ok. Ill explain .


There’s several thousands of these machines out in the world. If 100 people have an issue, thats within the margin of some machines to be out of spec. Products that are massed produced will have issues on some of them. Its the nature of the business.

Its great to hear inmusic publicity stated to return them. Other manufacturers have done the same with other products, so that’s nothing new.

Still, we all have different environments on how we setup and use our equipment, and its possible user error could be at play. Its just another variable.