Mixers/Consoles Any Roland M-200i users besides myself?

lighttechy

Member
To start off I am no expert in the world of sound, (I am lighttechy not soundtechy after all haha!), I can get by, but don't ask the fine details! But I figured I'd post this up to see if anyone has any suggestions, or more experience with this board than myself.

Short backstory: My church pre-ordered one of the first M-200i's and we've been "using" it since roughly last September so I have clocked a good 5 months on the board by now.

That said, how's it been treating you? Our board came functional...but as the months have passed by things have gone up and down as far as stability and useability and pretty much has fought us every step of the way.

So far the problems have been anywhere from major to minor.
1. We have now 5 Roland M-48 personal mixers attached to wireless personal in ear monitors - I have to say having a personal mixer wonderful as it's one less thing I have to hear performers complain about not being able to hear themselves.
1a. That said...I now face major complaints because the personal mixes drop out at random times. No one is near the board or iPad, but the M-200i or the M-48 randomly loses SOMETHING (I am guessing it is their LAN signal).
1b. The M-48's basically require a daily recall of their saved setting (from the onboard memory) in order to at least 90% ensure they *might* not drop their connection to the M-200i. It's a lousy workaround but it seems to work *most* of the time.
1c. Even then sometimes it still requires a hard reset from a PC connected to the M-200i to reset the M-48 to a saved "default" of the patchbay/line-ins

2. The board itself. To be honest I do like the features of the board, given the range of experience with sound our techs have it's not a bad little board, it's quick to pick up on and the iPad and iPad software is helpful since we're on a balcony and the speakers up there do not give an accurate depiction of the rest of FOH.
2a. Niceties aside - The board has clearly been rushed out, the patches so far have made it stable enough to run a service, but all **** still breaks lose from time to time. When inquired to Roland all we got was the typical "have you patched to the latest?" It's pretty clear though the software itself is to blame for a majority, the fixes are coming very slowly...
2b. Dropping LAN connections - Another forum mentioned some shipping with DOA LAN ports, ours has been sketchy at best so I'm hesitant to even suggest sending it in, I'll take sketchy over flat dead.
2c. The iPad software still has some connection issues, but if what I've read is true it's probably on the board end not the iPad. The iPad has a nasty habit of dropping the connection (wired or wireless) to the M-200i at very inopportune times. It's not the router as I've had the thing connected directly to the M-200i and the iPad literally sitting on top of the router.

Other notes: And this is more of a rant on all digital consoles it seems like.
Layers - it's not terrible if you plan ahead and lay out the 16 channels per layer ahead of time, but it's still easy to get lost
Motorized Faders - Actually I like the Roland compared to some of the others I've had to use like the LS9 and M7CL.
PC Control - Some options can only be controlled via the M-200i PC/mac software. Kinda a pain if you buy the M-200i to save desk space. The iPad does not have any of these options or the ability to change things like the M-48's.
Physical knobs - call me old fashioned but a single knob and layers upon layers of navigation to get to even the EQ is not conducive to a good mixer...
Onboard screen - it's pretty low res, so it makes navigating the layers to get to something like the EQ very time consuming (clearly the board is designed for the iPad).
Pre/Post Fader to Digital Out (i.e. the M-48) The Roland M-200i by default is set to post fader...and it's not easy to find on the iPad (the only reason I figured it out was I was playing with the PC software at home and it's right on the front page there).

One note I have no idea how to fix is my guitarists on the M-48's has complained of very muddy sound. "[The] sound is great until all the band starts to play and the sound gets real muddy, and seems to be highly compressed"
- Does anyone know how the Roland M-200i (or a Roland board in general) handle the Pre-Fader out? I'm inclined to think the reason my performers aren't hearing things correctly is the EQ that's set for the FOH is being piped directly to their M-48's and in-ears possibly? Or are the M-48/M-200i underpowered and can't handle it.


Ok so that's more of a review rant...well take it with a grain of salt. For it's purpose (an easy to use church board) I think it's got some potential, and given the other users it's probably one of the best options. Though we have discussed cutting our losses. To humor myself...what is your take on the Soundcraft Si Compact-32?
 
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Some of your problems may be Roland being Roland. Others might be caused by interconnection issues. Running a bunch of channels of digital audio through a Cat5 cable is much harder than it seems because there is no chance for error correction and there is no tolerance for loss of sync, unlike normal IP links. Anything that affects the crosstalk between pairs in the cable can screw up the connection. Crushing, pulling, stretching or kinking a Cat5 cable is bound to cause dropouts or noises until the cable is allowed to relax. Static electricity discharge into the cable is another cause of brief errors. Running these cables on carpet or a really dry environment is bound to cause problems.

The solution is to use good quality, SHIELDED Cat5e cables with Neutrik Ethercon connectors. The use of ethercon connectors with shielded cable helps direct static discharges harmlessly to the equipment chassis rather than to small circuit traces. The cables don't have to be expensive or exotic. Just buy standard, shielded cables and add the Neutrik NE8MC shells to them.

A friend told me about extensive testing of Cat5 cables, with real world audio systems, done by the Seattle chapter of the Audio Engineering Society. This reflects their findings. Behringer also tumbled to this with X32/S16 connections. They revised their recommendations to use shielded cables with ethercons on the X32 and it has proven to prevent nasty noises.
 
I could have sworn we had Ethercon connectors on the budget list, but I know we haven't added them yet. Guess I'll have to push for them and see if that helps.

Unfortunately, I think some of the Cat5 for some of the networks (either REAC or WLAN) was put in place by other-than-sound-techs so I really have no idea what's up there. Any of the exposed wiring though I do know is shielded at the very least. Yet another thing to have them look at and see if it changes anything.

Like I said, at this point I'm pretty sure a good chunk of the issues are just on Roland's end. The initial release of the board was virtually unusable and was a struggle for months until the first patch, x amount of patches later and it's starting to at least be acceptable, but it's clear they did not test the board much before releasing it to the public.
 
"One note I have no idea how to fix is my guitarists on the M-48's has complained of very muddy sound. "[The] sound is great until all the band starts to play and the sound gets real muddy, and seems to be highly compressed"

I suspect that the signal into their IEM is too strong, and is clipping the input or hitting the limiter all the time. A very common error IME.
 
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