Just got an email from akai

A) Are you guys still working on O.S. 1.5? Will it still include the drum mixer and auditioning from disk?

B)How far off is the release of the O.S.?

C) Will you guys stay dedicated in making sure that this beast is capable of everything promised in earlier advertisments that you no longer advertise?

D) Do you guys have a dedicated tech team that actually tests the 4000 to try and find bugs and fix them?



akai's response:
Thank you for your email. It is nice to receive positive responses.
Yes, we are still working on V1.50 amd the mixer and 16 level tuning will definately be included. The audition feature will come later. A release date has not been announced.
We do test the operating systems before release and make every effort to insure that the release is working properly before providing it to our customers.

Thank you for your support.

Best Regards,
Technical Support
AKAI professional USA Corp.
Ph: 817 834 1900
Fax: 817 834 1983

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE IS WHAT I SAY TO AKAI.
man, I never trust anything unless its an exec telling me. I was calling alesis for weeks getting all kinds of answers until one nice lady simply transfered me to the director of sales (fyi, in pro audio companies, the ONLY person who knows dates and features to be released info 100% is the sales guy) who was very polite and answered my ?'s.
matter of fact, anytime I got an alesis ? I just call him up, he ususally calls back the same day.
Alesis gets props from me on that one.

Thank you for your email. It is nice to receive positive responses.

They must consider that to be positive since all the other emails they get are 4000 users threatening to blow up Akai headquarters.

Either way, Akai is done!

Actuallly I erased all the internal sounds that came w/ the 4000 and they sent me the sounds on cd so I emailed them and said thanks for sending them.
Man I really hope that's not true about them being done, I'm starting to wonder if I should ebay my mpc before it's too late. Does anyone really know the true state that Akai is really in around here? I mean some one has to know. I've checked around the internet and have found nothing but still keep hearing all these rumors.

Well....I dont know that Akai is 'DONE' yet, but obviously something is very wrong at Akai. You know its bad when Guitar Center and Sam Ash (thats almost all NYC sales) stop carrying Akai products in their showrooms. Sam Ash no longer sells Akai products even online. I wouldnt ebay your 4000 yet. I still believe that Akai will make good on their promissed OS updates as long as they manage to stay in business. But that could be another year. WTF! I believe serious damage has been done to Akai's reputation because of the problems with the 4000. I dont think Akai will survive this unless they come out with a slam dunk product in the near future. I dont think that will hapen anytime soon. Even if it does, I personally am never going to buy another Akai product. I have had the 4000 for well over a year now, and I think I should be refunded at least $1000 dollars for the lack of advertised features which has seriously hindered my production flow. Lets face it, Akai lies and continues to hide from their costumers. Thats not the way a healthy business is run. I'm not sure who Akai's parent corporation is, but if anyone knows, post it, and we can do some searching in business journals and see how they are doing.

The only thing wrong with Akai is distribution. They've been in limbo between distributors for like a year now.............

With all due respect, I could give a fuc about Akai's distribution. The only thing 'wrong' that I give a craap about is the fact that Akai's programers have their heads up their asses. Do you think its normal to have to wait over a year and STILL have bugs and missing features in a machine that cost over $3000? What if you bought a car that had a new antilock break system advertised for it, and found out on your way home that the car has no fukin breaks at all. And so the car sits in your driveway for over a year while the car company is still designing that 'NEW' antilock break system. Well thats exactly the way Akai has screwed us. Think about it.

What you all gotta realize is that its pretty much a common practice nowadays among software house's to release unfinished software. And the O.S for hardware these days are alot more complicated and more prone to have bugs in them. The analogy to cars is pretty common. However. theres obvious differences to why they cant release a unfinished car.

Just so yall dont get me wrong: I agree 100% that its a bad move for software & hardware developers to do this but its the reality.

Also AKAI Pro isnt a big company from what I hear, more like 25-30 people working there. And as someone said, they have really bad distrobution, especially here in Sweden; Hardly any music stores got ANY Akai Pro gear in store because of the fact that the Swedish distributor charge ridicoulus overprices and also uses a deal where the store alone takes 100% of the cost for warranty issues. Those two facts make it hard for the dealers to carry akai products. So if you want an Akai Pro product in Sweden you gotta order it and pay upfront in the store. I had to order mine and it took 2 months before it arrived.

Kalei

yeah, software os stuff has been "bugged" since the 90's man its nothing new. some bean counter somewhere figured that it would cost less to not beta test it and just ship it and fix bugs as they appear. With the rise of the NET and the ability for people to just go online and download patches that sealed the deal, gone were the days of getting patches in the mail (remember that? old skool).

c'mon what features are really missing? drum mixer? 16 levels. (now that is whack, I love 16 levels)
and I would also be mad that this happened but Akai is more concerned with making sure they can sell their product. They have been having mad istribution issues.
Alesis went thru the same thing when they went bankrupt and numark bailed them out, you couldnt get anything, parts, gear, support for like a year, until they got their issues sorted out. However the upside is that now Alesis has hands down the best Cust. Service Ive dealt with ever. Friendly, KNOWLEDGABLE and if they don't know, the actually send you to someone who does.

Akai is struggling to market hardware in a software driven industry. Thats the problem. I think they are caught in limbo between developing products for software or continuing the niche that they have helped create, divide and conquere. I haven't uploaded 1.45 yet I am afraid it will somehow introduce a new bug but as far as 1.5 i am still waiting patiently. Is 1.45 even worth uploading? Does it fix the "Save Entire Memory" function? I certainly hope Akai is not on their death bed. At least until they finish the 4k correctly. It really is the top sh*t for drum machines.

What if you bought a car that had a new antilock break system advertised for it, and found out on your way home that the car has no fukin breaks at all.

LOFL!!!!!

You're right, akai are struggling simply beacuse people don't need harware samplers anymore - it's a damn site easier to sample in software (hence ak.sys). The only reason us guys use the MPC series is because we NEED the mpc series. I could not do what I do on a PC (simply because if it went down at a show I would be in a whole world of pain!)

There are plenty of things that I would like (NEED) changed on the MPC4ooo OS, such as the ability to move between part mixers without the level jumping up (a "pass through" slider control, like you get on synths) - but I know that there's no point contacting AKAI about it because they will simply ignore my request. As a reuslt I will wait patiently for OS 1.5 only to discover my feature has not been implemented - so I will wait again.

It's a shame, I upgraded from the 2000XL to the 4ooo believing it would be this "wonder box" that akai marketed it to be. However, now I have it I wish I had just hooked an S3000 up to the MIDI ports and lugged that around with my 2000.

shame really
jues.

well firts off the fact that you got an email reply from Akai is as close to a miricale as the birth of your baby boy..

now the fact that they state that other features will be added after os1.5 tells us the mpc is work in progress and in no way going to end anytime soon

Akai is a huge coporation, they don't go under overnight, akaipro might be limping I dunno but akai still sells masses in hi-fi systems ect

Akai is pro, they will deliver, the reason they relase a unit with uncomplete os is due to us the users being the fatsest & most inexspensif way of beta testing a product, and ofcorse the: we hit the market first marketing theme..

unethical sure, but money talks

I do agree though: they seam to be a man short in the os development, but they'll make moves soon as the roland is coming sep/oct.

anyway, I just downlaoded the manual, and I was lauging all they way, this is unit is the mesia, slam dunk will come in the form of os updates,..

this is just why I was skeptical about the 4000, I never cop gear until I know that its not buggy.

As to the PC on the way in hardware out. AS long as live shows are done hardware will not die. Period.
I think the main advantage of the pC revolution is taht in the next 10 years hardware will drop so low in price that will be the reason (pun 100% intended) people will buy it. Look at it now, pc=400 (from dell and a pretty good one), top end soundcard 200, software=400, mpd pads (What are they like 200?) 1200 dollars the same cost as a mpc 2000xl, the mpc will drop to like 800 new. (2000XL) then it will be a no brainer, 800 for a brand new 2000xl is a good deal, and worth the price, that is all that will save hardware, is to lower the price so that its more expensive to buy a pc .

Yeah, but don't forget just how much more can be done on a PC. The MPC4ooo is good, but it's no PC replacer, and that's what akai seemed to try and market it as, bad idea in my eyes...

jues.

Akai's target group for the mpc 4000 seems to be those who are fed up with using a pc to make music, that is true and there are alot of people out there who dont want to use a pc, the problem is, you need a pc now to get the most out of the 4000, so its a catch 22. The 4000 gets rid of the pc, but the 4000 works best with a pc.

I would bet that when they get the os fixed and set it so you can record tracks to the burner that will play in a cd player, thus making it an all in one studio as promised, AND drop the price it will do well.
The main problem with hardware is they REFUSE to drop the prices to compete with PC stuff. That will all change when someone releases a REASON esque program that does the "total job" IE allows you to sequence both the program and a regular sequencer (bascially adds a "cubase" program to the package w/o rewire needed) then hardware guys are stuck. As PC;s get cheaper and cheaper eventually it will be all pc for the "entry" level guys since a fc fully kitted will run less then a grand, and the MPC 2000 will be selling for 1500 still? yeah....