AKAI professional's MPC1000 - consumer fraud.

ive had mine for 2 years now and none of them have completely gone out.actually they havent gone out at all. and i use to pound the shit out of it. while i noticed that if my samples werent edited right, pad velocity would suck. but then again we are comparing these pads to the original ones. personal opinion is this machine was good, jj os or not because its os, again jj or not, is ahead of the 2000xl. now i agree that its mad **** that the 500 got better pad management than us, but look at their price compared to ours. and have you guys tried it? you gotta bang the shit out of them, 16 levels or regular. dont get me wrong, i agree that the pads suck - compared to the og models- but you guys are making it seem like its a piece of junk besides that. people who want to get the 1000 shouldnt pay 1000 for it but since you could get it mad cheaper, its worth it. but then again i do have a 2000 and i been using that if it werent for the 1000 pads hahah..but the 1000 is better compared to a roland 606, but even their sensitivity is better...to sum it up- ITS NOT AS BAD AS ITS MADE OUT TO BE, THE PADS SUCK BUT IF YOU CAN GET ONE CHEAP GET IT.
i put that in bold so people who dont like reading can get the point. cause right about now peoples thinking- mpc500 or 1000? cmon now..the 500 pads suck tooo and theres less features.....dont hate from people getting a good machine because you hate the pads.

i think this might be part of your problem:

http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=61783

i've had mine for over two years now with 100s of hrs of use and still no dead pads. there are two pads that i have to hit a little harder but i would expect that after so much use. but everything still works great, all of the pads, buttons and everything. i think maybe you've done too much moding. i could be wrong though.

it's not me i'm speaking for. it's the entire construction.

there are two pads that i have to hit a little harder but i would expect that after so much use.

this is unacceptable AND atypical. even if only HALF the mpc1000s had bad pads, that's still unacceptable. even if it was a fourth, a third, so on. the problem boils down to the fact that you're working on a machine whose sensor depends on 4 pinhead sized dots of silicon glue to hold a crucial component onto a sensor board. this is just illogical. even if you wanted to preserve that type of construction to avoid making a deal w/ interlink, AKAI COULD HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB so that you wouldn't hear so many people having broken mpcs.

i agree w/ alskee - it is better than the 500 in every way but the pad thihng, and no i'm not trying to steer people toawrd the 500 instead. i never plan to buy another akai product because this has left such a sour taste in my mouth.

ITS NOT AS BAD AS ITS MADE OUT TO BE, THE PADS SUCK BUT IF YOU CAN GET ONE CHEAP GET IT.

disagree w/ the first, but completely agree w/ the 2nd.
if you haven't seen the inside of this thing, you can't really say it's not as bad as it's made out to be. if you saw the 4 dots of silicon meant to hold together the most important part of your machine, you would wince. especially if you compared it to what akai advertised the machine to have.

the horsehair holding the sword of damocles seems pretty strong until it snaps

Antonym wrote:akai advertises the mpc1000 pads the same way they advertise the 2000 pads (and every other mpc on their homepage). this quote is taken verbatum from akaipro.com:

"Great-feeling, velocity and pressure sensitive pads for expressive programming"

how can Akai pro justify selling the mpc1000 when they advertise the machine as having the same pads as the 2000 and other mpcs?

This is consumer fraud and must be remedied.

I've just been re-reading this entire thread and this point struck me.

You claim that Akai are advertising the 1K as having the same pads as the 2K and others, but in actual fact that is wrong. They may use the same phraseology but nowhere in that statement do Akai claim that the 1K pads are identical in any way to any other MPC.

A Ferrari and a Honda advert can both say "Has truly responsive steering" but that doesn't mean that they both use the same steering gear.

I'm not standing up for anything or anyone, but just thought that to claim that the statement was tantamount to "consumer fraud" was wrong and therefore not to expect any progress on that point.

As I have said before, do keep us informed of any responses you get.

between my beatpartner and i, the 1000 we're using has been rocking for at least 6-7 months with no problems whatsoever. in fact, we just got some stuff on the radio thanks to it.

im not too worried about it but i guess that could change.

Talk to Interlink about releasing an MPC 1000 pad kit. There could be some money in it. I know I'd buy it.

^^cosign that

Antonym wrote:the horsehair holding the sword of damocles seems pretty strong until it snaps

Wow... that's deep bro...

DrunkenMonkey wrote:Talk to Interlink about releasing an MPC 1000 pad kit. There could be some money in it. I know I'd buy it.

That's a good idea, although it seems that this Interlink company only deals with large quantity, and doesn't sell direct to consumers... but it's worth a shot I guess.

I totally agree with you Antonym.. Akai have a responsibility to their consumers!

I've had this mpc for about 2 years now (my first one i returned because of the problems with the 1st O.S.) and the first 2 pads are almost dead and others are on there way out. What worries me the most is that the whole functionallity of the MPC is based around the pads! losing the sensitivity is bad, but losing the functions of the pads makes the thing unusable. This is completly unacceptable. We should be able to bang these pads for years with out any problems.

Part of me wants to sell my mpc1000 and upgrade to the 2500, but who wants to buy a 2nd hand mpc with shitty pads? and also i dont wanna give Akai any more money than i already have.

I love my mpc and it is the centre of my music production, but this problem really gets in the road of seriously making music.

saint surly.

surly summed up what i was going to say.
ive had mine for almost 2 years now, and the 1, 2, 4, and 5 pads are all done for because they work maybe 25% of the time.
pads 3 and 6 are going fast,
and as i move my drums up on the pads, the other ones start to go as well.
i wish i could sell it and buy a 2500 but i really dont feel like trying to sell a broken product just to spend even more money on something that i should already have: working pads.

this completely stops me from making music, since i get so frustrated when im trying to play something and certain kicks and snares just dont make any noise.
i usually get so angry with the pads that i just turn it off and never make anything new.

How much is the cost of replacing the pads, and is the labor do-able by a regular hack?

Can the cheap pads be replaced with quality ones easily? Will Akai change them out if you spring for shipping both ways?

Have you written them a polite letter with a request?

I don't think you can bad mouth them without first seeking a greivance. I'm new in this discussion so I'm just asking as a newbie. Also I'm concerned that my beloved unit will fail. I don't bang out beats very hard but if they fail after normal use that's not cool. We could use the power of our numbers to appeal to Akai for a solution.




Steve

the messed up thing is....even if you people with dead pads wanted to replace it with the same akai pads- they cant. seems like these things have been backordered for couple months now...was suppossed to be in last month but still nothing.....i honestly dont think theyre making the same ones....theres a reason its taking longer than it should be to make replacements....

this is kind of a side note, but it fits in this discussion...
i still have a few months on my warranty from guitar center. i talked to the company that handles the warranties and told them my problem was pad sensitivity. the lady told me that it was a common problem with the 1k and the parts should be on hand. hopefully they will replace them and reglue the pads properly. i think i will stick a note in the box requesting the entire pad to be glued...

ok, so i have some good news about the pads.

i was able to contact someone big who will be able to help.
i don't really want to namedrop in the case that this gets squashed by some potential akai lurker (you never know)

but i made a great contact from someone big.

in short, i learned that there is more evidence that newer mpc1000s are built with more reliable pads, and that at some point there was a slight design change between old models and new ones - i presume nothing huge but we'd have to have a black mpc user open it up to prove it, i guess.

as for contacting interlink, don't bother unless you want to order 60,000 + units...

sounds promising dude!

i really REALLY hope you can find a resolution to this that you are satisfied
with - for your own peace of mind, let alone the benefits that all us 1k users will reap.

Big ups to you.

I haven't had any problems with my secondhand 1k yet, but am beginning to notice some pads not working as effectively as I'd like. And they definitely lack enough sensitivity for 'expressive programming'.

keep us all posted yo.