MPC Live Hardware Problems- Please Help?

Hello all!

I'm having trouble with my MPC Live. I'll often record hits on the pads and where there should only be a single hit, there are many (10 or so) low velocity hits on the other (not the one I hit) pads, at the same location on the grid. I've tried adjusting sensitivity and threshold settings for the pads, but even with pretty extreme settings I keep having this issue. Beyond that, I have noticed a bigger problem that's started happening more and more frequently lately. It's now happening just about every time I sit down with it. I play some pads on a drum (or keygroup) program and then suddenly either the top or bottom eight pads will "freeze" and become dimly lit in yellow. Hitting them won't play a new note. It's as if half of the pads believe they are just being held down when they're not. The only way I've found to un-freeze them is by going into pad mute and hitting pads and switching banks a few times until the unit kind of catches on. Also holding Note Repeat and pressing a few of them will sometimes fix it as well.

It's essentially behaving as if the pads are stuck. If I hold shift when they're stuck like this it will kind of spaz out trying to select a mode from the shortcuts menu, as it's being told to switch to eight different modes at once. This means that the unit is registering a pad press in the shortcut select mode when no pads are pressed. Or at least that's what it seems like to me.

I hope you guys might be able to help. I just found out from Akai that my warranty expired in August, which is pretty lame. I've never been hard on it, it seems apparent to me that this is some sort of hardware defect. Anyway though, I'm wondering if this is something you guys have run into before? I did contact MPC Stuff to see if they had come across this behavior before, and they said this was not something they had ever seen. Which is not encouraging...

A few people on Gearslutz recommended I cleaned the pad sensors, which I'm certainly willing to do, but I'm guessing from the reply from MPC Stuff that that's just not going to work

I'd really appreciate any help you could offer. My MPC is one of my favorite instruments and I am super bummed to be struggling with it like this. I look forward to hearing from you! Thank you for your time

Have you tried calling Akai or the place you bought the Live from, either *might* be able to do something for you.

Is it all the time on every project. I had a project get bugged out like that once but I think it was error. Nothing I could do could salvage that project. Only had it happen once.

If it’s all the time even on a new project then yea contact akai

jurfin wrote:Hello all!

I'm having trouble with my MPC Live. I'll often record hits on the pads ..

Have you tried doing a factory reset first and see if that clears up your problem? Are you having this problem when plugged in to wall power as well as when on battery?

I saw your post over at GearSlutz. Hoping your solution is simple, but you might be doing some surgery on your Live yourself.

I don't know if it can be helpful, I had a problem since years, I unmounted my hd and work with sd card and it seems my Live is going good, I am still testing it but I am not having that problem since 5 days.
Is your problem happening with any update?
Standalone? Controller mode?

Thanks for all the input everyone! It's really not good news to hear that my issue is so apparently rare. I've tried my best to answer all of your questions below.

This issue has followed me through several updates. I haven't yet done the most recent one, so I will try that out tonight to see if it might help. I use it standalone pretty much exclusively.

I usually run on battery, so I will try playing with it plugged in to see what happens. I do use an internal SSD. I have not tried a factory reset. Honestly the entire saving architecture of the MPC kind of intimidates me, I'm a bit scared of losing the many projects I've made. I know I just need to back everything up and hope for the best but it does freak me out a bit. Something I need to get over of course.

This problem has been consistent on many different projects and programs. Projects new and old exhibit this same behavior. It seems apparent to me that it is a hardware issue, because it has followed me through all projects and updates.

I have not contacted the place I bought it from, and Akai was not much help aside from telling me my warranty was done for I will try reaching out to the shop. I know they don't owe me anything, but maybe they can help.

I'll report back after the firmware update and battery/power supply testing. Thank you again for your help, it's much appreciated!

You absolutely have to make a system reset first.
Make a backup of all and try disconnecting the hard disk (you can try working with an sd card).
If nothing changes, contact Akai.