ProCo Momentum Digital Snake & Personal Monitor System

[[Director] drew ryan]

As of now I believe we shoule cut the discussion of what is and what is not good about the naming of ProCo's new digital Monitor Mix system. I have not found it useful or helpful to anyone and see it as a point of contention, thus going against the stated purpose of CMN.

Now if there are specific questons or experiences with the Momentum sytem, we are here to find the answers. Post on.

[GospelLighthouse]

Originally Posted by Gracetech

It's like everything in life...you have to learn. If you ever stop learning you got issues. If i ever stop learning role me over cause i'm dead.

Our goal of learning is one and the same. But ambiguity and unclearness is a hindrance to learning. That's my entire point. I'd rather study to fill my noggin with more useful knowledge that will be with me for a lifetime, not having to guess at equipment function by staring at their model numbers, when the equipment will be obsoleted by better equipment in 10 years.

Originally Posted by Gracetech

As for the naming convention at hand i think its more intuitive than some but can you imaging having to tell someone over and over again to pick up the "ProCo 8 input digital processing unit with Ethernet and audio inputs".

I completely agree. That's why saying "emm oh eight emm ee" (mo8me) is awkward - each character in the model name takes a syllable to say! But I think "ProCo 8 input digital processing unit with Ethernet and audio inputs" is redundant. At the very worst, ProCo would post it on their website as "ProCo Tiger II - ethernet/audio input digital processor". This allows the item name (ProCo Tiger II) to be associated with the item description "ethernet/audio input digital processor". Of course you would refer to the item by name when using it (Tiger II). But as stated in my previous post, here's how ProCo chose to present their information without adequate description:

Momentum mo8me
Momentum mrc

Originally Posted by Gracetech

Here is a break down of the components.

MO8 = Momentum 8 Output unit = This is just 8 outputs off of Momentum network
MI8 = Momentum 8 Input unit = This is just 8 inputs in to Momentum network
MRC = Momentum Remote Control = This is a remote control for the MO8ME
MO8ME= Momentum 8 Output Mix Engine = This is the mixer with outputs for the Momentum network

I hope this helps.

crt

Thanks! It does help. Now how does the remote control work? Does each musician need one to control his own mix (a reasonable question, since it's being touted as a personal monitor system). It is possible to control multiple mixes like this, or is there only a single mix to control?

[Gracetech]

Originally Posted by GospelLighthouse

Now how does the remote control work? Does each musician need one to control his own mix (a reasonable question, since it's being touted as a personal monitor system). It is possible to control multiple mixes like this, or is there only a single mix to control?

You can use either one control and pass it around or multiple mrc's can be used at once, giving each musician their own control. If you need more mixes you can add another MO8ME and mrc's for that one as well on the same network. This makes the system very expandable and that is one of the features i really like about this system.

crt

For clarification, each MO8ME is capable of having 8 mono or 4 stereo independent mixes. If you add another MO8ME you could have 16 mono or 8 stereo independent mixes or any combination of. The mrc's are like a TV remote in that they only tell the device what to do and do none of the work. Also you have to have at least one remote for each MO8ME you have whether that's a mrc or a mts(touch screen version of mrc).

[[Admin] danroth]

How about we make this thread about helping answer each other's media questions instead of proving who's right in a disagreement?

Let a word to the wise be sufficient.

[stevengchristen]

Hi All,

I've been an electronics design engineer since 1982 and have designed digital products and systems for the audio industry since 1989.

I completely agree with GospelLighthouse.

Let me say right away that I'm not going to take up a position against Pro Co and their Momentum system, which looks to be a great product line; wish I had thought of it.

But I will always take up the side of somebody who is saying, "give me a break, this is too hard and could be made easier". There is no justification for saying, "tough buddy, suck it up and do the hard work like the rest of us". No, no, no. A company or an industry that can't listen to users who are trying to communicate their difficulties is on the wrong track. And so many times the justification is, hey, we're making plenty of money so I think we're doing just fine, thank you. My answer is, how do you know how much money you COULD have made, in ADDITION to what you made and are so proud of, if you had gone the extra mile.

Many times I find myself looking up at the ceiling and wondering, sigh, did the designers of this box ever actually use it themselves, before they unleashed it on the world? I don't think their intent was to make me rip out my hair, but that is the result in any case.

I do sympathize with the companies because it is hard to remember what it's like to come at something completely fresh, after you've been designing this type of thing for so long, and you talk mostly with peers. BUT, that sympathy only goes so far. It always takes more work on the part of designers to reduce work on the part of end users. And so often that important work on the part of the designers is skipped, because it costs money. I don't want to start an Apple / Microsoft war here, but Apple is an example of a company that has obviously made a global policy decision to allocate an unusually large percentage of its development budget on ease-of-use, quality-of-experience analysis. The thing is, every hour spent by designers on this sort of thing will save an end user 10 hours, and I believe I'm being very generous to the designers with a 10-to-1 ratio.

There is no defensible reason, in my view, to say to an end-user: "Quit yer whining, get with the program!". So much better to say, "We hear you, we can't always promise to change things immediately but we will take your issues into account with the next revision, and in the mean time here is the information or work-around you need to get you out of your present difficulty".

Model numbers are not able to be changed, of course, but it's very easy to change a website and add downloadable .pdf files to add explanation. I'm very sure Pro Co will do just that as time goes on. It's a new system and the first order of business is to get the kinks worked out of the hardware and software and get the product shipping to generate revenue, without which the whole effort will have been a waste of time. But once the reaction becomes self-sustaining, then manpower can be shifted to the follow-up, which is to listen to early feedback from users and improve the educational materials accordingly.

Steve

[GospelLighthouse]

Months later, I am not feeling as strongly as when I first wrote. I still don't understand the Pro Co Momentum system completely, but that's OK. No worries, I've moved on.



For the record, this week we're purchasing 8 MyMix personal mixer units and a 16channel MyMix input box. The system is so intuitive to use, even a non-techie-type singer in our worship team was doing complicated things like renaming inputs in less than 5 minutes with very little instruction. And I've found that a motivated rep can be much more helpful than even a website. Josh at MyMix has been more than helpful and willing to go out of his way to help me understand the system.

[timjamesmedia]

check out samepage. samepagemusic.com it actually uses similar technology to momentum but with a whole lot more benefits. it's awesome!

[Brad Herring]

I just spent a while with the ProCo guys and the Momentum system today at InfoComm. They were showing off their newest version with the iPad interface.

it was pretty slick. I've not had a lot of time on the system, but the integration is pretty straight forward. The iPad interface (or iPhone/iPod) is awesome! Connected via wi-fi, the iPad acts as a control interface (no audio passing though it) while the audio comes out of the mix engine to a headphone distro amp (or whatever you wish).

Our podcast should be up within the next week of the experience. 32 channels at the musicians fingertips, plenty loud, low latency... not bad.

So.. to answer the original question, yes, each musician does have control of the mix. And the stage is a lot cleaner thanks to the wi-fi controller of the iPad app.

Hope this helps.

--
Brad Herring
Church Production Resources
ChurchProductionResources.com