problem: buttons & pads triggering on their own

All of a sudden my pads are triggering on their own at random, as if I'm touching them even though my hands aren't near the machine. It happens every few minutes, any time the machine is on, including while sequences are playing. It's not that I trigger a pad and it stutters or repeats.. they just trigger themselves. Buttons are behaving similarly. Mainly when I'm naming a program or sequence with the data wheel, the name fills up with random characters and I can no longer change them. If I hit cancel and try again, sometimes the same thing happens, sometimes I can get the name in and save it first.

Has this happened to anyone else? I've been using it to play live shows so this is a big deal as far as my use of the machine. I'm running Akai OS 2.13, though I suspect it's a hardware issue, not an OS glitch.

The interesting thing is that if it happens while I'm recording a sequence, the false trigger doesn't seem to be recorded.

Heya, still having probs with your pads triggering themselves? i had the same problem to the point where the pads were going nuts as soon as i turned it on. i have a black MPC1000 which originally came with version 1 pads. i've since beefed it up with v2 pads, 128mb mem, 80g hdd and JJOS 3.12. i thought it was triggering itself because i installed the v2 pads myself, but wasn't quite the case. i tried everything; had it "repaired" (didn't work), opened it up and cleaned the connectors and grounding points (didn't work)... in the end i got so pissed off i thought i'd try a pretty drastic effort of taking the case off, ripping the entire pad assembly out and powering it up WITH ABSOLUTELY NO PAD ASSEMBLY!! worked an absolute charm, haven't had a problem in over a year now. although having said that, i'm just gonna the same if it does it again. i call it "resetting pad state"

[disclaimer alert] don't get me wrong though, what i'm saying is that last ditch effort worked for me. i don't wanna be responsible for your MPC dying completely, cos' i know i LOVE my 1000!! i'm not guaranteeing it's gonna work for you, just a little something to suggest if you're looking at getting it repaired.

it seems that i'm having the same problem as you.

What did you mean by WITH ABSOLUTELY NO PAD ASSEMBLY ? did you mean that you have disconnected the pad sensor and reconnect it and everything went back to normal?

Thank you

hey man,

kind of. i turned the unit on for about 45 seconds or so then off again BEFORE i re-connected the pad sensor, though. so imagine the case is off, there's a great big empty space where the pads should have been, and the thing is turned on. just remember to turn it back off again and dis-connect the power cord before you put pads back on. it was a daunting task which requires some electronics knowledge, but it was a last ditch effort and i thought it was broken anyway and i was ready to buy a whole new MPC.

so far it's been almost two years with no problems, and i actually anticipate it to start playing up again on a daily basis. but having said that, next time it happens i'm just gonna do the same thing (rip the pads out and power it up with no pads).

good luck, man
Peace

sometimes people get the ghost pad problem because the faceplate is pushing down on the pads slightly, it might be worth doing an experiment where you remove the faceplate and power it up. run some general usage scenarios without the faceplate and see how it behaves. It could be that the faceplate is just indented or screwed on too tight.

Its not something ive experienced myself, but has been mentioned on the forums a few times.