MPC X, MPC Live, MPC One & MPC Key 61 Forum: Support and discussion for the MPC X, MPC Live, MPC Live II, MPC One & MPC Key 61; Akai's current generation of standalone MPCs.
By tyto Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:29 pm
Hi everyone,
i've been a reader here for quite some time, this is my first post.

I've had this problem, as the title says, i was having pads from the last row (so pad 13, 14, 15, 16) all triggering at the same time.
Different velocities: the pressed pad would have a higher velocity but still you could hear (and see) the other 3 playing in the background.

this would happen in any type of program (drum, plugin, key, clip and midi). even on track or pad mute. basically any instance involving pads.

it started happenign when i was working (still am) with a very big project for some concerts where the mpc is basically the brain of the whole thing (when it started happening i think i was on 11.4).
also i had 3 external synths and a controller midi-connected to the mpc via usb (i got the same powered hub akai uses in its videos).

I, of course, tested the unit with an empty project without any device connected and still got this tedious issue.
i also searched here, reddit, yt, to see if anyone had my same problem, with no luck.

so i went to the akaipro site and got support via chat (quite handy!).
with the akai tech we tried most possible firmware versions and everything he could think of as far as software trobleshooting goes. so he adviced to have the unit looked at by an engineer (as i luckily still was under the 2 years warranty) - so i sent my mpc back to the seller, Thomann, to have it repaired under warranty.

after 3 weeks i got it back fixed and i asked the guys at thomann what was found faulty and if there was anything i could do to to avoid such things moving forward.
they said they did nothing (!) other than upgrading to 11.7...

i'm really happy it was an easy fix but it still left me scratching my head a little bit... :-)

has anyone had a similar problem?

thanks for reading!
User avatar
By MPC-Tutor Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:47 pm
I can't see any reason for Thomann to lie about it not being a hardware problem, but it's possible that when they opened up the unit they accidentally remedied the pad issue (perhaps the pads were not seated correctly, or loose connection cable?). I am not aware of anything in 2.11.7 that addresses any known pad triggering problems,. Perhaps you had a corrupt preferences file and the update process, by chance, corrected this? Very odd, but if it works, then that's great. If it were me I might be tempted to roll back to 2.11.6 and see if the problem magically comes back, thus proving it was a software issue.
By tyto Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:58 pm
yeah i found all this very strange myself!

i should've mentioned before sending it to thomann i had tried to reset preferences and also i had been using the mpc really a lot for the previous year.
I have thought all the possibilities MPC-Tutor mentions but as i have understood the guys at thomann didn't even have to open the unit... (but i might be wrong about this... but i'm asking my guy at thomann again to be sure)
so maybe the healing powers of the shipping service are real indeed! :-)

i'm glad it works properly now, especially 'cause i have 3 shows coming up in february and i don't want to spoil my dawless setup...

my big project that made me discover this problem consists of 25/30 sequences and would bring the internal disk usage up to ≈ 80% (cpu was in the 20-25% range) - i don't know if this is a useful information in this case!

thanks a lot for the replies, i'll let you know if this problem reoccurs and maybe i'd be brave enough to go back to 11.6 and see if the problem reappears... :-)

p.s. also, thomann said they sent the unit to the AKAI repair centre so they didn't look at it themselves...
By e-Brainz Sun Jan 29, 2023 12:53 pm
This is similar to an issue I had when pads on the last row would activate the next pad, or even one pad over (but not the one right next to them). I think that one only happened at high aftertouch sensitivity. Once I detected the problem (while testing and troubleshooting double triggering), it was easy to reproduce every time. In my case it was out of the box, and the same problem was present on the replacement unit I eventually got, before finally having to ask for a refund. Firmware updates didn't make any difference, although that was a couple of updates back. If this is in some way firmware related, it must be the firmware compensating for the pads' performance.

After spending some time with a Novation Circuit and experiencing no issue whatsoever with the pads (if read my experience with the MPC you will know I was prepared for the worst!), I now believe more firmly that the MPC's pads issues are aftertouch-related. Which is a real shame and a little hard to understand, because AKAI has been pushing the synthesizers on the MPC quite strongly and they keep publishing new ones.

I also believe that most MPC users focus on the sampling (duh), and judging from the popularity of the Key 61 I guess that many users who cared about the synths in an MPC would be using a keyboard controller. So while the problems are there, most customers would be using an MPC in a way that makes them less noticeable (for example the double triggering is easier to control with pad sensitivity settings if you don't care about aftertouch) or irrelevant. Even so, there is slow but steady trickle of complaints about MPC pads. I don't remember ever reading about problems with Circuit pads, even when I was researching it.

If anyone here has experience with one of Novation's Launchpads that do have aftertouch, I would love to hear about it.
By tyto Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:15 am
hi,

i wanted to give a sad update on this issue: yesterday i went back to some heavy mpc work and the same issue re-occured in the same way (and i didn't even have to play for long for the problem to come back...).
of course i'm quite dissatisfied (to say the least) with thomann: i keep thinking they could have contacted me before deciding the MPC was fine even if no problem was detected (thus basically saying "you're wrong, your machine has no problem").
I think what some of you wrote in this thread could almost exactly be what happened: they couldn't reproduce the issue (they would have had to play the mpc for some minutes and hitting the pads harder than a gentle touch or activating the 'full level' option), opened the MPC up and involuntarly but temporarly fixed it.

I'm amazed of how unprofessional this behaviour is: it doesn't take a genius to understand that acting like that won't solve any aproblem, it just postpones it... :-(

i have 2 concerts in february and needless to say all this is damaging my work quite a bit as the MPC is the brain of my live performances... we reopened another request for repair but the MPC won't make back in time for these concerts, so i have to perform with my faulty unit (or borrow/rent another one).
that means i have to re-organize my projects so that i don't have to use any of the last row's pads; also i can't have more than 12 tracks in a project to be able to efficiently mute anything using pads... (i do that quite a bit) which as all of you would understand is a big pain in the a**!

as a possible workaround solution i was thinking to organize DrumPrograms so that i have pads 13, 14, 15, 16 in the same mute group so that i won't accidentaly activate all of them at the same time... unfortunately i don't think this is a consistent workaround, as the multi-triggering issue is quite random (you can't be sure which pads are triggered at what velocity along with the one you are hitting).
any suggestion in making my life easier for these concerts is more than welcome! thanks :-)

as a side note, i must say i'm negatively amazed thomann mildly apologized but didn't really own the problem nor they offered some kind of compensation or alternative solution: i think they are to blame for this situation. apparently they don't really care about losing a customer - or at least they don't care enough... (i hate to look as a 'cry-baby' but as you can tell rn i'm quite unhappy lol).
of course their AKAI repair center is to blame as well, but i'm not sure how the comunication went on that side as i only interacted with thomann...

anyways, as MPC-Tutor wrote here, it must be some faulty contacts in last row's pads.
i don't think (at least in my particular case) this has something to do with aftertouch sensitivity as e-Brainz was saying...

thanks everyone for your help and support :-)
User avatar
By MPC-Tutor Wed Feb 01, 2023 5:27 pm
Thomann, as the retailer, should put it right under EU law, I believe now that you've accepted a repair a refund is not possible but they are still obliged to either fully repair or replace (with at minimum, a refurbished unit). In the EU, this is on Thomann, not Akai, your contract is with the retailer and it is up to them to a) honour the manufacturer warranty (12 months I believe for Akai products in the EU), b) honour the 3 year Thomann warranty and also c) your statutory rights, which entitle you to expect a product to work for a reasonable length of time (much longer than 12 months but not fixed in law, you have to argue, but 2-3 years is a no brainer).

But ultimately they have their own 3 year warranty that promises a brand new replacement if they can't repair it!

Next step should be email to formalise your intenstion to pursue them under their own warranty, otherwise you will pursue other legal avenues under your statutory rights. Talk to citizens advice in your country to get specific guidance.

If you get nowhere with them you can take them to small claims court to get suitable payment.

I am surprised that Thomann are messing you around, I always assumed they were supposed to be 'good guys'. Perhaps you've just had a bad apple in the support department? The fact is they have a very clear 3 year warranty, you need to pursue them on this.
By tyto Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:55 pm
MPC_Maschinist wrote:Maybe that dealer has the right spare part for you:
https://www.mpcstuff.com/cart.php?sugge ... ea5ecc692e

https://www.mpcstuff.com/fsr-16key-akai ... 6key-ad33/


thanks for the tip! I should be able to repair my unit under warranty, but i'll bookmark these for the future (argh) :-)


MPC-Tutor wrote:Thomann, as the retailer, should put it right under EU law, I believe now that you've accepted a repair a refund is not possible but they are still obliged to either fully repair or replace (with at minimum, a refurbished unit). In the EU, this is on Thomann, not Akai, your contract is with the retailer and it is up to them to a) honour the manufacturer warranty (12 months I believe for Akai products in the EU), b) honour the 3 year Thomann warranty and also c) your statutory rights, which entitle you to expect a product to work for a reasonable length of time (much longer than 12 months but not fixed in law, you have to argue, but 2-3 years is a no brainer).

But ultimately they have their own 3 year warranty that promises a brand new replacement if they can't repair it!

Next step should be email to formalise your intenstion to pursue them under their own warranty, otherwise you will pursue other legal avenues under your statutory rights. Talk to citizens advice in your country to get specific guidance.

If you get nowhere with them you can take them to small claims court to get suitable payment.

I am surprised that Thomann are messing you around, I always assumed they were supposed to be 'good guys'. Perhaps you've just had a bad apple in the support department? The fact is they have a very clear 3 year warranty, you need to pursue them on this.



many many thanks man! really appreciate you took the time to reassure me and point all the right things out...
i am confident eventually Thomann will solve my case either repairing the unit or providing me with another working one... it just messes my schedule a lot... now i have to deal with the pain in the a** of having to find workarounds/re-organize my projects or finding an mpc to borrow/rent... it's doable of course, it just sucks i'll be the only one to 'pay' for something thomann caused (sorry if i sound too dramatic! i'm italian after all... :mrgreen: ) and which could have easily been avoided.

what upsets me the most is -basically- not being 'trusted' (in a way) when i sent the mpc out for repair...
i mean, you can't send me back my MPC without saying anything, then when i ask what was wrong with it you tell me 'oh by the way nothing was wrong and MAYBE updating the firmware solved the problem' which of course reoccurs shortly after... besides not sounding too professional, this means they basically didn't believe there was an actual problem in the first place.

thanks again for the tips and the support!
By e-Brainz Fri Feb 03, 2023 12:49 am
tyto wrote:what upsets me the most is -basically- not being 'trusted' (in a way) when i sent the mpc out for repair...
i mean, you can't send me back my MPC without saying anything, then when i ask what was wrong with it you tell me 'oh by the way nothing was wrong and MAYBE updating the firmware solved the problem' which of course reoccurs shortly after... besides not sounding too professional, this means they basically didn't believe there was an actual problem in the first place.


That is pretty much what happened with my MPC, not with Thomann though. It was a physical store, the repair guy looked me in the eye and told me that yep, we fixed and tested it and everything is fine now. A few seconds later I try it out in front of him and nothing at all had been fixed.

Sadly this appears to be common. You can have an excellent experience buying from a retailer or asking them pre-sale questions, but the moment you need any kind of support that costs them anything they are going to have you jump through as many hoops as they can.

Don't ever quit pursuing a claim, document everything, read the terms you agreed to, and try to invoke or involve any consumer support organizations and regulations you can at the first hint of resistance you encounter and/or if those terms are not adhered to.

There is a lot more I could say on this topic but it also depends on your local laws and rights and who you are dealing with. So far I haven't had to deal with Thomann's support about anything real, I have only asked them a couple of questions and they have been helpful. I've had a very different experience with another store.