Sending in a brand new Live 2 to Inmusic --

All,

I bought the last factory sealed beige colored live 2 retro on the planet -- and it was default out of the box! it had the "no sound device found" message and when it WOULD boot up, the leds would not light up. sometimes it did boot up, but when it would , it worked normal, but when you shut it down it would get stuck on the shutdown screen. at that point you have to let the battery run down because no matter how long you pressed the power button, it would not shut off.

i read on reddit that this may be a motherboard issue.

regardless, its new and under a fresh warranty. even though the guts are the same as the live 2, would akai be able to repair this? does anyone know how long that would take? im looking to see if its worth hanging onto to let akai repair or just send it back to AMS ? id like to have a brand new unit vs a used one, this is why i am wanting to keep this one as i know its brand new.

appreciate anyone's speculation, experience in repairing through akai, etc..

i don't like the black variant as its a fingerprint magnet. i was even contemplating the gold variant but those are out of stock!!! guitar center had them "in stock" but when i placed an order, found out it was a damaged unit at a store.

as context - ive had the OG live, OG X, mpc one, one retro, one+ so im not new to these, just never had to have one repaired.

marctronixx wrote:All,

I bought the last factory sealed beige colored live 2 retro on the planet -- and it was default out of the box! it had the "no sound device found" message and when it WOULD boot up, the leds would not light up. sometimes it did boot up, but when it would , it worked normal, but when you shut it down it would get stuck on the shutdown screen. at that point you have to let the battery run down because no matter how long you pressed the power button, it would not shut off.

i read on reddit that this may be a motherboard issue.

regardless, its new and under a fresh warranty. even though the guts are the same as the live 2, would akai be able to repair this? does anyone know how long that would take? im looking to see if its worth hanging onto to let akai repair or just send it back to AMS ? id like to have a brand new unit vs a used one, this is why i am wanting to keep this one as i know its brand new.

appreciate anyone's speculation, experience in repairing through akai, etc..

i don't like the black variant as its a fingerprint magnet. i was even contemplating the gold variant but those are out of stock!!! guitar center had them "in stock" but when i placed an order, found out it was a damaged unit at a store.

as context - ive had the OG live, OG X, mpc one, one retro, one+ so im not new to these, just never had to have one repaired.

If its brand new fresh out of the box you needa head back and return or exchange it.. you dont want it "repaired" its like having your car smashed in then "fixed" it will always be in the back of your mind. its under warranty use it. its not a YOU problem if it did it right out the box and you shouldnt be sadled with it either imho.

My Hydrasynth screen failed after about 6 months and I had to get it repaired. Which was a massive pain sending it back to Germany from Vietnam and getting it back again without paying tax twice. I still don't trust that screen, the repair note said it was the board not the screen, so at least it not a screen longevity issue, but I still wonder how much I can trust it.

Akai can replace the board if it’s defective under warranty as long as you have the time to wait and don’t mind the process. Most people just exchange the unit but you might find someone here who has had a warranty experience.

Personally, I’d return it for one the retailer has in stock and just wipe the black one down now and then. Accepting defective products just isn’t something I like dealing with if I can avoid it.

A black one collects the same sweat and oils from your skin as the retro and gold one. You just don’t mind how it looks on the retro.

Contact Akai for troubleshooting and repair if the retro unit is a must for you and you can’t find another. Good luck.

thanks for the responses.

cant agree that the gold and retro collect oils and such like the og live. that coating on the OG live is not on these units. ive not touched the live II so maybe it doesnt have that coating that the OG live had but the retro live ii and gold use the same plastic as the one/one retro/one+ -- all of which i had at one point in my life.

the retro was the last one available thats brand new factory sealed in the US. inmusic confirmed to me that AMS had a special run of retro II units and there would not be any more.

i ended up sending the retro live ii back to AMS but after speaking with inmusic, and realizing there are no more factory sealed retro II units out there, i had them send it back to me! :p ive found some info online that suggests it could be an intermittent cable issue and/or a bad OTA firmware upgrade. regardless its worth it to me to try these out. last resort is its under manufacturer warranty so i just send it in to inmusic and go from there.

as an aside ----

guitar center and musicians friend, say they are expecting to get more GOLD live II units in by September of this year. seems inmusic arent yet ready to do a live iii.

just to circle back, ill post up my results on if i can bring the retro live ii back. i should have it by monday. as i said , it was fine until i updated the software to 2.13 so maybe the update was simply corrupt.

So you don’t agree with physics?
You don’t have to agree for it to be true. You fingers with still transfer what’s on it to what it touches despite your anecdotal opinions.

RandomVibration wrote:So you don’t agree with physics?
You don’t have to agree for it to be true. You fingers with still transfer what’s on it to what it touches despite your anecdotal opinions.

ive had all 3 and the fingerprints i get on the OG live i dont/didnt see on the live ii retro, one/one retro/one+. thats been MY experience touching those machines.

with all due respect do not derail my thread. the fingerprints are not even the thing i am asking about

The point is you don’t see it.

so i chatted with mike/mpc stuff and based on what i said he thinks its the carrier board, which are on backorder according to him. akai are slow to respond but said they would contact me sometime this week. lets see what they say.

ive found when the machine is on, it works normally with no issue. its only when you shut it down that it hangs on the shutdown screen. then after a couple of minutes, it will restart back up and state "download directory not found" followed by " no internal sound engine". this makes me think the system unmounts the SSD that i have the splice directory set to and it also disengages the internal sound component. on the mpc reddit forum there are a few users who have the retro live 2 who also have the exact same issues as i am having. so its possible there was a faulty batch of components.

just keeping this thread updated. i suspect ill either buy a carrier board or let akai repair it as its under warranty.

ok final update.

so mike over at mpc stuff was right. the reason for my issues was a faulty carrier board ( the board that has the cpu/sd card on it). I was able to source one locally. it was totally plug and play -- just had to update the firmware to current.

My AIR plugins were also crashing the machine. i would insert an air plugin, press the pencil tool to edit a param and then the unit would freeze then reboot to the main screen ,losing everything in ram. i didnt even have to load up any sounds -- just to go to prog edit, drop in a insert and when i click the pencil tool --- crash.

so if anyone has an mpc live 2 and are seeing this type of behavior i noted earlier, its a good chance its the carrier board. even if you see directory not found error and/or no sound device found error. you will also get slower boot up times and slower shutdown times.

btw, the replacement has a different configuration -- some components are in different spots on the board, there's 3 less screws to screw the board onto the chassis and the wifi port moved.