Monitor Board "Upgrade"

[NCM engineering]

I have 5 pro-controls. They all click, pop and are right side heavy. I use Genelec self powered monitors. I have to balance the L/R level via the volume knobs on the genelec's. I really thought it was a session issue, or operator error, but I locked the audio precision dualdomain portable plus 1 (!) across it, and it is a fairly crappy monitor section when it comes to Mute, mono, and the click and pop thing. For 10k I would expect a better product. I am happy to see a fix, but an additional 2k (our facility) for "upgrades" is a bit crazy. If it were field serviceable, that would be a huge plus, but still spendy. Is there a schematic with wich we could mod the box onsite? We have been ironing out the bugs in our 5 room facility for about 4 months. We have 5 PTNT suites, with Procontrol in every one. They are all showing signs of wear. I stick by the fact the product is very cool, but seems a little funky. Digi, are you willing to cut some of us who own several some sort of deal? Bulk purchasing? Fat chance of our money folk kicking out 2k for a 4 month old product to "upgrade" it to normal pro-audio standards.

[stevegalante]

I am with Chris, what about Europe ? Is there a serial number from which we can see if we already have the new board ? Will we have to send to an authorized service or will we do it ourselves ?

[PTPerson]

Is it just my PC or do you guys have a Left/Right swap in the headphones?.

NCM, i thought my ears were playing up until i patched the PC into some high res meters....tis when i realised that the PC was right heavy......thank god it wasn't my ears.....and only a piece of gear that cost a lot of money.

[airon]

I don't know what to think of this. Perhaps you digi guys should talk to Thomas Funk in Berlin about proper preamp fitting. That guy builds gear with >130dB cross channel damping(for lack of a better translation that comes to mind). The company is 'Funk Technik' I believe. His preamp-for-monitoring gear is the best in the world most tests, figures and people say.

What Procontrols does this fix concern ? All of them I shure do NOT hope. I just got my training on Procontrol that seemed to be ok, but I didn't go out of my way to test the thing.

Tony

[CHRIS AIKEN]

I'm also in Europe,have Procontrol with 1 expansion pack.To add to this I also have to compensate my monitors because of the mains output being right side heavy.Did the procontrol tech really not notice this?And if he did was it posted somewhere?Also not to happy about this customer paid bug fix.As you have probably read by now the right heavy mains is definitely a real issue.If this can be agreed,then would you really consider that to be the unit working as advertised?Do you seriously think any of us expected the mains not be at least reasonably balanced when we made our purchase?
Tech support please feel free to answer the above.

[DigiTechSupt]

PTPerson
the reason your headphones are swaped L,R
from the main monitoring output is the DB-25
sub cable needs to be connected as follows
888/24 out 1-2 connects to PC DB-25 input2 8-7 then 6-5,4-3.... The mix up occurs if you connect 888/24 to out 1-2 to DB-25 7-8.
This is described page 9 of the PC manual,
2.Audio Input 2. It reads Main In, Right and left, not left and right. So, if you had PC connected with 888/24 out 1-2 to 7-8 on the DB-25 Audio input 2 connected you would hear
out of the main outs left and right to be correct because you would have also coonected
7-8(left,Right) to your monitors and would have only noticed the problem in the headphones. So, connect the inputs and outputs counting down from : 8-7 6-5 4-3 2-1
on all the PC DB-25 inputs and outputs.
See page 9. of the PC manual.
MJ
Digidesign tech support

[jallen0]

Gannon,

let me see if I can help you understand MY point of view.

I am new to ProTools. I have just spent over 65,000 for a Mix Plus system, Pro Control, tons of accessories. And now I have to spend $400.00 to fix something I have only had for LESS THAN 2 MONTHS.

I tried talking to customer service, however I got nowhere. I already send in the money, however I have to say that, IMHO, this is not a good way to start what I hope would be a long relationship.

Justin Allen

QUOTE]Originally posted by gk:
All,

Let me see if I can help you see Digi’s point of view behind this upgrade...

When ProControl was first released in 1997, we created a spec that included a very high quality signal path in the analog section. It had to be robust enough to cleanly pass transient peaks from the 24-bit DAC outputs of the 888|24, offer pristine audio quality, low THD, SNR, etc., while offering a flexible routing scheme. The original analog section does all of this very well. The basic performance specs are good and have been well received by most of the several thousand ProControl owners to date. However, after receiving feedback from our users both internal and external, we decided to improve the design to get rid of the occasional small switch pops and clicks, improve the crosstalk spec and adjust the gain scaling of the headphone amp circuit. We wanted to take a good design and make it even better.

So, now for the upgrade. Please understand that we can’t simply retrofit every ProControl ever sold for free, that's not a good business practice! As products mature, it’s normal for sustaining engineering to implement improvements, but rarely does it mean a complete retrofit of an entire product line. Yes, we are using the new board in current production units. However, we feel it is fair to ask current users to pay $395 for the upgrade because it is a replacement for what they already have that has always worked as advertised. Many users will choose to remain with the current board (our customer support lines don’t ring off the hook with dissatisfied users). The cost for the upgrade is well below our cost to produce it. We wanted to offer this in good faith that those of you who chose to upgrade would appreciate the fact that we are not making money on it.

This probably all sounds like marketing hooey to all of you, but it is not. We have an obligation to move forward and stay in business to keep bringing you great products. It would be great if we could offer eternal parity for free, but that is never going to happen with any manufacturer.

Hope that this helps some of you to understand, and thanks for listening.

Gannon Kashiwa
Product Manger – Control Surfaces[/QUOTE]

[michael c]

I'm still not sure how Digi can justify $400.00 to fix a bug in the original analog monitor board. Any new thoughts on this guys.............

I did replace the Main monitor pot; Digi sent it out one day after I ordered it at no cost. It seemed to help the L/R imaging problem as long as you are past 9:00 o'clock.

[moosh]

Can you say... "class-action"?

[houser]

Gannon wrote:
>It would be great if we could offer eternal parity for free, but >that is never going to happen with any manufacturer.

Ok, no eternal parity, how about initial quality?

We have already ordered our "upgrades" but it is
a blemish IMHO on the rep of Digi and the PC support.

sorry for grumpiness and thanx for listening
Janne A.