AKAI professional's MPC1000 - consumer fraud.

1 year ago...this was a completely different forum. Everyone was praising Akai for both the 1000 and the new OS. I honestly tried to tell some of you......If you don't want to give any more money to Akai...just buy an MPC 2500 second hand. And stopped being fooled by the marketing ploy of a portable MPC....no, I can't make beatz on a train nor will I want to...but I can carry my MPC 2500 (or anyother MPC) anywhere I want.



Now doesn't he look happy carrying his MPC? Its larger and heavier than an MPC 2500...

jahrome wrote:1 year ago...this was a completely different forum. Everyone was praising Akai for both the 1000 and the new OS. I honestly tried to tell some of you......If you don't want to give any more money to Akai...just buy an MPC 2500 second hand. And stopped being fooled by the marketing ploy of a portable MPC....no, I can't make beatz on a train nor will I want to...but I can carry my MPC 2500 (or anyother MPC) anywhere I want.



Now doesn't he look happy carrying his MPC? Its larger and heavier than an MPC 2500...

do we need metal teeth also to have such strenght ?

being a 1k owner i gotta say the pad thing does suck although i havent had to replace any myself yet and im dreading the day , but to their defense the hardware market is hurting, since software became so sophisticated, cheap and easy to copy, at least they still exist and we have the the pleasure of using mpc's . for example e-mu went all software after makin some of the best gear of the time and i'm greatful for the existance of akai products even if they screwed up with the 1000 tryin to cut costs, i forgive them. if akai folds , in like 5-10 years we are all gonna be assed out or paying ridiculous prices for used mpc's or havin to use other gear. and i've used a bunch of different hardware and software but love the mpc line by far the most. Nym, i understand ur frustrations and appreciate the amount of time and energy u spent researching the issue and tryin to find a solution which all of us 1k users will benefit from, but dont sh1t on akai cause if ure puttin in all that work at least acknowledge the fact that u love ur mpc cause its by far the dopest beat machine (as far as im concerned) and akai brought it to u and they are still tryin to maintain the line when they could have easily abandoned it and used the "mpc hype"to start makin some virtual mpc software to go with the mpd's instead, which would be more profitable. i mean i could be wrong and akai might be this soulless evel corporation just out for max profit at minimum cost but it seems if that was the case they would have abondoned hardware adn used their well respected name to just start pumpin out software and midi controllers, but they didnt ... just my 2 cents

jahrome wrote:1 year ago...this was a completely different forum. Everyone was praising Akai for both the 1000 and the new OS. I honestly tried to tell some of you......If you don't want to give any more money to Akai...just buy an MPC 2500 second hand. And stopped being fooled by the marketing ploy of a portable MPC....no, I can't make beatz on a train nor will I want to...but I can carry my MPC 2500 (or anyother MPC) anywhere I want.



Now doesn't he look happy carrying his MPC? Its larger and heavier than an MPC 2500...

Yeah the pads might be crappy, but its a beast when the pads are working, especially for the price you can't beat it. JJ's OS put the 1000 on a whole notha level.

Id keep that b!tch in a SKB and with all that bank maybe figure out a way to keep them cords neat.

but dont sh1t on akai cause if ure puttin in all that work at least acknowledge the fact that u love ur mpc cause its by far the dopest beat machine (as far as im concerned) and akai brought it to u and they are still tryin to maintain the line when they could have easily abandoned it and used the "mpc hype"to start makin some virtual mpc software to go with the mpd's instead,

that's all perfectly true. but the fact remains that they pulled a mean trick with the 1k's pads. they swapped em for something way cheaper and didn't inform the consumer. when they realized their mixtake, they cut their losses and went back to the old version (500).

no matter how you look at it, this is just plain disrespectful to their customer, unforgiveably so.

Antonym wrote:that's all perfectly true. but the fact remains that they pulled a mean trick with the 1k's pads. they swapped em for something way cheaper and didn't inform the consumer. when they realized their mixtake, they cut their losses and went back to the old version (500).

no matter how you look at it, this is just plain disrespectful to their customer, unforgiveably so.

Going to have to disagree with you again there Nym.

No tricks were pulled. They didn't "swap" pads, they merely decided to manufacture the pads in a different way. This could well have been a cost reducing exercise, or maybe their supplier couldn't supply. Maybe their supplier wanted to charge a lot more for these pads which might have made the entire unit too expensive at retail. But there was no trickery. You still infer that they claimed the pads to be identical to other MPC's. That is not true. They used the same descriptive wording about the "feel" of the pads but never said or implied that they were using identical pad technology. There was no need to inform customers of anything.

The only element of truth in those statements is that maybe Akai did realise their mistake in changing the pad technology and reverted back to the older type for the 500, but how is this disrespectful ?? Should they have stuck with the allegedly crappy pads on the 500 to "prove a point" ?

I understand your grievances and applaud your efforts to find a solution, but much of your "anti Akai" & "anti corporate" argument is based on assumption and incorrect assertions.

Sorry dude, nothing personal

it's fine, i just disagree as well.

They used the same descriptive wording about the "feel" of the pads but never said or implied that they were using identical pad technology.

well, let's see here -

1, they are made to appear the same (smaller, but so is the 500)
2, they had released what, 5 mpcs before with the exact same sensor technology
3, they advertised them with the exact same descriptive wording
4, the machine was intended for the exact same purpose
5, they were and are still riding on the legacy of "great pads."

those 5 reasons are enough to make the consumer (who is not allowed to peek into the box til the warranty is shot) believe that they would have put the same pad technology into the 1000 as any other mpc. given those facts, what reason other than word of mouth would the average 1k user have to believe anything different? not much.

plus, to make it even worse, even if you were to call tech support to ask, you may very well get told that there were the same pads. i've called before to vent and just to test their tech support acted like i didn't know, saying "is the same pad technology in both mpcs" and dude told me "yes."

i first apologized for taking his time, and then took his time. politely, of course, but he could tell i was pissed.

not to mention the cruel irony that many peoples' pads gave up on them riiight around the time the warranty went bust. that's not meant to make you believe anything, but it still sucks.

lovesign, can you say that it given those 5 pieces of information, it was not a cold, disrespectful decision on akai's part to make this call?

have you ever seen the original 1000 pad composition? if you did, you'd be shocked. NO ENGINEER could POSSIBLY believe that that would last. this is not a case of just bad technology, this is just plain bad craftsmanship. the same technique the 1000 uses for triggering could work just fine (and will work just fine) but these guys chose to make the whole shaky structure rest on the adhesion of 4 dots of silicon glue - tihs stuff is literally in the family of "hot glue gun" glue, if you remember those.

if akai had done all this but had made pads that DIDNT break but had different technology, that'd be completely different because there'd be less to complain aboutl however, given those 5 and the fact that there is so much interest in a 3rd party hardware fix, it leaves akai in a very bad light as far as the mpc1000 pads.

if you could see the original composition, i think you might see my point better. there's just no way anyone with a grain of intellect could logically think it would hold out.

Antonym wrote:well, let's see here -

1, they are made to appear the same (smaller, but so is the 500)
2, they had released what, 5 mpcs before with the exact same sensor technology
3, they advertised them with the exact same descriptive wording
4, the machine was intended for the exact same purpose
5, they were and are still riding on the legacy of "great pads."

those 5 reasons are enough to make the consumer (who is not allowed to peek into the box til the warranty is shot) believe that they would have put the same pad technology into the 1000 as any other mpc. given those facts, what reason other than word of mouth would the average 1k user have to believe anything different? not much.

I see your point but those five points would never be considered in a court of law as being deceptive and misleading in the way you are implying. If you compare a top of the range car and a bottom of the range car by the same manufacturer, would you seriously expect the bottom of the range car to contain identical quality components ? Of course not, otherwise it would be too expensive to be a bottom of the range car.

True, your average consumer would not have a clue what was inside the 1K but they could have called Akai and if Akai had then turned round and said "Yes, Sir, absolutely, the pads are of identical construction to all previous MPC's" and then you got that in writing, you may have a case. Don't forget, the 3/4 size pads were new on the 1K, so Akai were treading new ground and yup, they messed up.

Antonym wrote:plus, to make it even worse, even if you were to call tech support to ask, you may very well get told that there were the same pads. i've called before to vent and just to test their tech support acted like i didn't know, saying "is the same pad technology in both mpcs" and dude told me "yes."

i first apologized for taking his time, and then took his time. politely, of course, but he could tell i was pissed.

I can imagine that being annoying and I don't know about America, but in the UK here, we treat any call centre based support with a lot of disdain and mistrust. It's a sad consequence of corporate restructuring and cut backs that many call centre tech support teams are limited both in size and knowledge. I couldn't pass comment on Akai as I have never had the "pleasure"

I dont know about the US but in germany it def. would be false advertisement, because from all they tell you get the idea it would be the same pads as usual...

For all the other stuff bein said, thats just capitalism. I dont believe in good/bad companies, they are out there to make money and i wont love any of them because i like a product...

keep it goin nym, cant wait for your pad solution

rinseout wrote:I dont know about the US but in germany it def. would be false advertisement, because from all they tell you get the idea it would be the same pads as usual...

No, and that's the whole point. You may get the "idea", but that's just your idea. The wording used in no way implies that. Trust me, my day job involves training people in the legal profession, and I know a thing or two about the law. If Akai had said, "The same as every other MPC, but for less" you may have a point, but there are no falsehoods in the descriptions, no misnomers, no implications and no misleading lies. There is no trickery and no suggestion.

Like I have said before, I understand the grievance, and applaud the effort put in by Nym to help users, but the threats and accusations of fraud and false advertising are groundless.

Yes it is the point, if you advert and get the customer to "get the idea" it is fraud (at least in germany).

Are you guys really debating this?

Akai marketed the 1000 as the first affordable MPC. Any user of previous MPCs can tell right off the top that they had to cut back and use lower quality parts. This brings me back to the days of the MPC 60II and MPC 2000. MPC 60 users looked at the build of the MPC 60II as a big joke. Akai later went back to a similar design with the MPC 3000. Akai did the same with the MPC 2000. It was built like crap compared to the MPC 60 and 3000.

The only other thing I will add is that I remember getting first seeing the 1000 at the Japanese version of Namm in Tokyo. I played with the 1000 for 5 minutes. Akai Japan employees asked me what I thought about the pads. I told them they were crap and not like any MPC before it. I told them I would never buy one.

What's up with the swear filter? Its blocking words I didn't know were curse words

class action! who knows you may win... 10 yrs later