AKAI professional's MPC1000 - consumer fraud.

well, personally, i am fed up.

akai needs to make a statement about the mpc1000's pads. they advertise them as "Great-feeling, velocity and pressure sensitive pads for expressive programming" exacly the same way they advertise the 2000's pads.

i called akai and interlink today. for those of you who are not up to date with this whole thing, intelrink is the company that is responsibly for the Force Sensing Resistor technology which is behind ALL mpc pads except the mpc1000.

to make a request from interlink, you need to order 60,000 + units.

akai did not order interlink pads for the mpc1000. instead, we have a different set of pads. (all of this, i had to explain to the tech support dude when i called akai today).

i asked him to find out where the mpc1000 pad guts were made. he came back 10 minutes later and informed me that they were made by Akai themselves.

akai's 1000 is the most sold mpc ever. they have made a ton of money on it.

it's time for them to come clean. i want at least an acknowledgement that there is a problem.

do i expect them to order a new set of pads from interlink? no, i think the company (any company) is too btch to do that because they would lose all the money they gained by skimping on the materials.

what i do expect from them is acknowledgement, apology, and some form of compensation.

this is a case of consumer fraud.

What is consumer fraud?
Consumer fraud encompasses a wide range of improper practices involved in the advertising, marketing, sale, or provision of goods or services. For example, consumer fraud may occur when a product or service does not perform in the manner in which it was advertised or represented to perform. It may also occur when a company overcharges or improperly charges consumers for a product or service. Additionally it may occur when a company interprets a form contract or agreement in a manner that unfairly disadvantages consumers.

akai is guilty of the above, and more.
this is rediculous, and i've had enough. fixing these pads is turning into a witch hunt for rare materials (thanks, usa, for your lack of available materials for the consumer). i've not given up, but i'm growing more frustrated by the entire scene.

folks, we got screwed. if there wasn't a jj os for this machine it'd be a pile of broken pieces and pcb board by now.

this begins a bad publicity campaign against this sneaky ass company. it doesn't matter if other machines have been good. they are screwing over a whole line of customers - more than have bought ANY other mpc.

that's fked up no matter how you look at it.

damn....everytime i get ready to sell my xl to get a new black 1k....i see somthing like this


is it that bad? and as wack as it is....will simply replacing the pads....fix the the issue completly?

this is an email i just wrote to the support. i do not expect to hear back.

hello, my name is allen scaife. i am an owner of the akai mpc1000. please forward this to someone who reads and responds to emails, as akai is notoriously bad at candid responses.

this email could be about many things. it could be about akai's lackluster coding effort for its several newest machines AND its alleged flagship mpc.

however, this is just going to regard the mpc i own - the mpc1000. i bought this machine in the winter of 2005, moving from software sequencers into hardware. i enjoyed it immensely, but returned it almost immediately due to pad issues. some pads did not function as well as others.

i swapped it out for another mpc1000 at guitar center. this was better - for a while.

after a year, almost none of my pads worked. my warrantee was shot, so i decided to figure out what was wrong - the answer, incredibly poor craftsmanship. your mpc1000's pad sensors are unlike any other mpc, including the 500.

every mpc besides the 1000 uses custom ordered Interlink Electronics FSR (force sensing resistor) technology. the mpc1000 does not. the mpc1000 uses a pad technology from none other than Akai Professional. the pad technology in the mpc1000 is flawed - the conductive material is glued with four tiny pinhead sized dots of silicon glue above the active area. when this is pressed down, the conductive material touches the active area. however, after a half-year of use, many of my pads were going bad--this conductive material had come loose from the 4 dots of glue which held it above the active area.

akai advertises the mpc1000 pads the same way they advertise the 2000 pads (and every other mpc on their homepage). this quote is taken verbatum from akaipro.com:

"Great-feeling, velocity and pressure sensitive pads for expressive programming"

how can Akai pro justify selling the mpc1000 when they advertise the machine as having the same pads as the 2000 and other mpcs?

This is consumer fraud and must be remedied.

Interlink Electronics requires a minimum order of 60,000 for their custom manufacturing service. it is unlikely that akai will order an interlink solution for the 1000s it has sold.

however, it is necessary that Akai makes some sort of formal acknowledgement of the gross inadequacies between the mpc1000 and all other mpcs' pad composition.

even the mpc500, the cheapest mpc today, has interlink FSR pads. since the parts of the mpc1000 pads cost much less to build than any other mpcs, akai is raking in a serious profit. the 1000 is, after all, the most sold mpc.

you have a generation of products that have been put out with faulty technology. this must be addressed publically. as of now, Akai is guilty of false advertising.

another remedy is very simple: release specifications on materials that the existing pads are made out of - specifically, the black conductive material. this material gets less resistive as pressure is applied, creating the so called "great feeling, velocity and pressure sensitive pads for expressive programming."

make good on your advertisement. release the name and manufacturer of this black conductive material.

please respond to this email.

allen scaife
mpc1000 user/involuntary akai technician.

and yes, hermit, it is that bad.
using an mpd with your mpc1000 makes it a little sweeter, but it's not as good.

shit...i dont know what to do now..im lovin the 1k speeds alot of shit up

but i dont want my shit dead in a year or 2

again...if u just switch the pads out..are the issues solved?

yeah it does fix the problem, if you want to switch the pads out every couple of months. which i dont.

believe me, i love the 1k too, no other mpc has as much power in such a portable machine.

if akai didn't puss out on these goddamn pads and let someone build em who knew how to do it, we're be in a lot better shape.

Antonym wrote:yeah it does fix the problem, if you want to switch the pads out every couple of months. which i dont.

believe me, i love the 1k too, no other mpc has as much power in such a portable machine.

if akai didn't puss out on these goddamn pads and let someone build em who knew how to do it, we're be in a lot better shape.

every couple of months!?!? even with a brand new unit

damn even if ur puttin everything on 16 level velocity and not really bangin shit out all the time....if i had to change the pads maybe like once every year or 2..i wouldnt be happy but id do it since the 1k makes me work alot faster than the xl...but every couple months sounds **** insane

in the description of the pads for the 1k they dont actually compare them to the other models such as the 2k. They just used the same words describing them but they never actually said "Like the MPC-2000" or ever mentioned the other models in the pad description.


I am totally on your side and think this is complete bullshit that these pads suck horribly, but we bought it and we are stuck with it now. I am anxious to see Akai's response since i would to have this problem fixed as much as the next 1k user. peace

The MPC1000 we use here (which has taken some serious bashing, believe me) is nearly 4 years old and only recently has Pad 2 started to go and even then it's not that bad. Pad 1 has shown very intermittent signs too.

New pads are about £7 GBP plus tax, so a pair shipped to my home will be about £18 GBP. I think that's fair.

I understand your frustration Antonym and I agree that they do seem more prone to failure than any other.

I do hope you get a reply, but I don't think you will be satisfied with it if you do. Ultimately, at the end of the day, no law has actually been broken and any lawyer would say the same. The item comes with a warranty. After that, there is no obligation. Products are made with the thinnest of profit margins so that costs are covered and the product can compete. If it's really successful, the rest of the money is ploughed back into R&D to keep the ball rolling.

I agree that it isn't how it should be, but these things happen

And don't forget, the MPC1K was one of the final products to come out of "old" Akai, pre Numark/Alesis. Things were very tight back then. I have been privvy to many stories of how people were striving to get things done and get a product out just to keep money coming in and keep the company in existence !! Imagine how worse it could've been had you got your 1K and then Akai just folded, with no recourse whatsoever ! I know it's scant consolation, but what we have today is a company that still exists for us to complain to !! Much better than having nothing at all

Good luck and let us know what you hear back.

the quickest my pads wore out was in 4 months. and by that i mean WORE OUT completely, not even just like a little problematic.

the problem is plain and simple - akai releases mpc after mpc with the same interlink pad composition and then drops a new one with a MUCH less expensive/much inferior pad composition without informing the consumer.

and what makes it sting even more is that the mpc 500 was released with interlink pads, and akai still doesn't acknowledge that there is a problem. i had to explain the problem to the guy i was talking to on the phone. the tech support dude.

The MPC1000 we use here (which has taken some serious bashing, believe me) is nearly 4 years old and only recently has Pad 2 started to go and even then it's not that bad. Pad 1 has shown very intermittent signs too.

flukes like this are out there. the fact is that the design is still bad, whether they used more glue on your mpc or not.

i disagree - i think that laws have been broken. false advertisement is in fact illegal. consumer fraud is as well. until i have been shown without a doubt that neither of these are the case here, then i will stop saying those words and move on to some other kind of verbal complaint.

one way or another, there is no defending this company. they have tried to sneak this by their consumer and continue to reap the benefits. shallow and sneaky.

time to get serious

it's one thing to just model the original pads, but i'm going deeper

answers to be found here:

http://www.sensitronics.com/about_us.htm

Franklin Eventoff: inventor of the force-sensing resistor, is founder, CEO /President, Director of Technology and new product design. Eventoff has a successful history of launching start-up technology companies and is successful in both the licensing of product and the development of sensor technology.

While president of Interlink, he initiated the use of FSRs in Roland keyboards, Akai drum machines, KAT and Simons drums, Oberheim keyboards, and many other products for multiple industries.

aha!

this is my first mpc and i dont really mind the pads. whats so bad about them again??

djray182 wrote:this is my first mpc and i dont really mind the pads. whats so bad about them again??

they start going out after a few months of use, it all varies from how much you use the machine/how hard you hit the pads

I just got my 500 today. I did not want the 1k because of the pad issues I've read about here and having the buddies I have who use the 1k having issues. What I can't do on the 500,I'll figure out how to deal with it. Like Antonym,I preach against the 1k...lol.Stupid, because I have yet to tap on those dreaded pads.The 1k so powerful yet weak at the worse possible place imo. The 500 after 3 hours has been safe. Knock on wood.