buying parts straight from akai.

someone sent me this thread in an email, and i couldn't help it - i have to say something.

Akaiteam.

While a wait on a high-technology PCB isn’t unheard of in any tech industry

high technology? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? this is a PCB with a rotary encoder, 2 potentiometers, a ribbon cable terminal, and 2 types of tact switches. NONE OF THIS L/R OP BOARD STUFF IS HIGH TECHNOLOGY. get real. anybody with a lick of soldering experience/parts sourcing experience could put your L or R op board together. hell, i BUILT MY OWN a L op board when mine went bad rather than spend money that would eventually find its way back to Akai's pocket.

all parts that could go bad on L/R op boards can be sourced independently of akai. the tact switches can be found for 100 for $5 on ebay. the rotary encoder specs have been posted, it's just a matter of shopping around to find a comparable product. easy.

akai, if maintaining a stock of servicing components is so damn hard for you, why don't you simply release the specs of the components and allow 3rd parties (customers and places like VST) provide their own components? the only thing you had made special for the MPC series was the Sensitronics FSR arrays, anyway. everything else can be found independently.

i'll say it again, and then i'll return to the better world off the forums - don't buy akai. if you need an akai product, buy it used. poor OS support, faulty hardware, unavailable parts, and a lack of commitment to their current product line. in all my life, i've never had such a bad experience with a company...this includes health insurance, internet service providers, and mechanics.

there are better companies who deserve your business more. do some research and FIND THEM.

best wishes to my friends here at MPC-forums.
nym

It's a shame, one of hip-hops most important elements & contributors to the culture and they conduct themselves in this matter

Nym wrote:someone sent me this thread in an email, and i couldn't help it - i have to say something.

Akaiteam.

While a wait on a high-technology PCB isn’t unheard of in any tech industry

high technology? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? this is a PCB with a rotary encoder, 2 potentiometers, a ribbon cable terminal, and 2 types of tact switches. NONE OF THIS L/R OP BOARD STUFF IS HIGH TECHNOLOGY. get real. anybody with a lick of soldering experience/parts sourcing experience could put your L or R op board together. hell, i BUILT MY OWN a L op board when mine went bad rather than spend money that would eventually find its way back to Akai's pocket.

all parts that could go bad on L/R op boards can be sourced independently of akai. the tact switches can be found for 100 for $5 on ebay. the rotary encoder specs have been posted, it's just a matter of shopping around to find a comparable product. easy.

akai, if maintaining a stock of servicing components is so damn hard for you, why don't you simply release the specs of the components and allow 3rd parties (customers and places like VST) provide their own components? the only thing you had made special for the MPC series was the Sensitronics FSR arrays, anyway. everything else can be found independently.

i'll say it again, and then i'll return to the better world off the forums - don't buy akai. if you need an akai product, buy it used. poor OS support, faulty hardware, unavailable parts, and a lack of commitment to their current product line. in all my life, i've never had such a bad experience with a company...this includes health insurance, internet service providers, and mechanics.

there are better companies who deserve your business more. do some research and FIND THEM.

best wishes to my friends here at MPC-forums.
nym

thats whats up!!!! yo nym, i need to hit you up man, do you have the specs on that encoder and the tact switches, or a link where i could get both? i havent sourced them yet, im still practicing to get my soldering skills perfect, im just about there....
yea, a few weeks to get parts is how it should be, these guys arent even trying. the high technology thing made me laugh also. the parts are cheap, they look hella easy to make. cant they just make a phone call to sum little dude in china and have him send some parts, shit its 2010, what do you gotta do, send the order form over on a boat?? I could understand if you were out of a few parts and it took a few weeks to get them in, but wow!! you guys are out of a lot of parts!! everything ive needed is out of stock.. and yo, whats up with that pad upgrade?? its on back order, but i was told if i order i will not receive the ones coming in this next order cause they are all sold. so why dont you guys call and add more to the order?? its just strange

inflict3 wrote:
thats whats up!!!! yo nym, i need to hit you up man, do you have the specs on that encoder and the tact switches, or a link where i could get both? i havent sourced them yet, im still practicing to get my soldering skills perfect, im just about there....

It's been posted quite a number of times already a simple search would reveal that...

Encoders: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=113912

Tact switches are the standard alps SKHHAMA010

MPCHunter wrote:

inflict3 wrote:
thats whats up!!!! yo nym, i need to hit you up man, do you have the specs on that encoder and the tact switches, or a link where i could get both? i havent sourced them yet, im still practicing to get my soldering skills perfect, im just about there....

It's been posted quite a number of times already a simple search would reveal that...

Encoders: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=113912

Tact switches are the standard alps SKHHAMA010

dude, you are the shit!!!! thank you!!! so 026mt makes it a 24-detent. with all that info now maybe it will not be hard at all to find one.. thanks again fam..

Holy shit, akai employee and nym replying in the same thread in 2010? this is legendary almost!

mr_debauch wrote:Holy shit, akai employee and nym replying in the same thread in 2010? this is legendary almost!

lol...

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=127269&p=1255724#p1255724

here is a thread with someone looking for the data wheel encoder back in feb. thats 8 months ago, he still cant find one. akai could just make a phone call and blam, but no..

we need to all e-mail akai a few times a day bitching about this. go to akaipro.com, hit the contact button and fill out the little form with ur question/comment, then copy the comment, so you can send it to every **** department in that **** place,, lets get this ball rolling, cause if we just lay here and take it in the ass then nothing will get done..

Even better....forget about bombing them with calls...just stop supporting the company. The best way to attack greed is by cutting off the money supply. I love my 1k but it is the LAST Akai product I will ever buy. They have found a way to convince themselves that they are releasing quality products that rarely show any signs of defect. The problem is that we have proven them wrong time and time again, I've replaced pretty much every tact switch on my 1k and I know for a fact that I baby my gear and anyone can spend 2 minutes to find hundreds of recent threads on MPC problems. Its pretty pathetic that we have to resort to sourcing replacement parts on a piece of equipment thats only a few years old. We spend hours searching the web for interchangeable numbers and mods and hacks.... This isnt vintage gear we're talking about!!! Cheap parts, poorly implemented OS, lack of customer support, failure to accept and incorporate current technology (USB 2 for christs sake)...they dont care for a second what we have to say.... so we pull the money. Akai effed up, they had me sold on a 5k until I read all the threads of problems....

poundaproblem wrote: This isnt vintage gear we're talking about!!!

hahaha, no how right you are.... because the vintage MPC models are having less problems! lmao! It's bad when the 20 year old MPC models need less part sourcing.

^exactly

My MPC is 3 years old....3 years!!! Never dropped, never had a spill, but the screen flickers every now and then, tact switched sucked, pads were unresponsive, the CF slot bends pins if you look at them the wrong way. F*ck akai and every employee on the payroll...seriously. They had so many opportunities to fix all of this but they decide to b*tch out. If I ever get another MPC new it'll be stolen...lol. Those **** wont get pounds money any more.

I have to say that I am a long time Akai fan. My very first instrument was an Akai AX60 back in 1986. I spent many hours reading about their earliest samplers and wanted desperately to be able to afford the S612 sampler. Then it was the 900, the 950, and the 1000. I now own only one Akai product, and that is the MPC 1000. I love this instrument and cannot imagine ever getting rid of it. That being said I will need to be able to replace parts on it. I have already bought two replacement pads. One set of the original faulty pads and the current "fixed" pad set. I have also replaced a Q link slider and several contact switches for the buttons. The very leat that Akai can do for it's customers would be to make these parts easily and cheaply available.
For Akai to have the word "professional" in their name is something that really angers me. These instruments are expensive and should, at the very least, work in the way that they are advertised. To charge people who have already bought your defective product $180 just to have it work is unforgivable. Akai customers also had to buy a third party operating system just to insure they didn't lose any data when loading and saving.
I don't want to say that I will never buy anything directly from Akai again because I want my machine to last the rest of my lifetime. Other than that... You have lost a very loyal lifetime customer.

Nym: Great to see you back on the forum. I wish it were for something else.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS SAYS:


They discontinued the parts for the unit because they do not plan on continuing production in the near future. I highly doubt they have moved to a "just in time" production model where they only receive EXACTLY the amount of parts to build the number of units they want. They would have ONE in stock.

They are not giving straight answers because that would reveal their intentions. If they knew they were going to produce more units, they would have an EXACT date of when production would start, and subsequently when new parts would be in. I know this because I spent the past 5 years in an electronic manufacturing environment as a sales rep. Production is planned months in advance.

The fact they dropped a list of "parts we still have in stock" means there are several they don't have in stock. Not right for a "current production model" and these things aren't exactly flying off the shelves, We all know that. "Guitar Center doesn't have any in stock" is a common statement round here lately. They would have got some if they were still being made.

Just a very real possibility I thought I'd throw out there.

bump*

wow, i completely missed this thread! I've been trying to get a q-link PCB board for my 2500 for close to a year from MPCStuff. I was told they were waiting and had no idea when/if they were coming.

what a joke Akai is. I'm just gonna try and grab cheap used ones anytime i see them these days. fvck.