I think you can get the screen elsewhere, I think Hugo has mentioned where it came from in the past. The hard part will be getting the new screen onto the board.

Sean

Yes, the screen is available elsewhere - a coworker of mine is playing
with one in a project for his home computer. If anyone want it, I'll ask him
about where he got it.

/Michael

i think i can sumarize the improvement as: move to the next playlist in the same folder without starting at the top of the playlist hierarchy

I'll try to describe the PJB: it has 3 folder levels, no more. but all 3 are displayed at the same time.
example:
Set: rock
Folder: Randy Newman
Disc: 12 Songs

I can move the cursor to the Folder level and LEFT/RIGHT to select different Folders in the Rock Set. Or I can move it to the Set level or the Disc level and sroll through my Sets and Discs respectively. In some cases the empeg would be faster, for example to move to the first entry listed at the top level takes 3 clicks (right, down, down) but to get to most of the lower level items i can get there faster with the PJB.

[...]

just want to reiterate, the unit is wonderful and i don't have buyer's remorse, but i feel it is lacking a few "idiot" features to make it simple and easy to move around in my music or change my display

Ah, I see now. If I had to choose between empeg and PJB UI, I would always take empeg's (I have learned to use remote blindly, while it is velcroed somewhere handy). That said, empeg does lack some 'idiot functions'.

OK, due to idea of running order vs. playlist (in running order one can - and I do very often - splice other lists or individual tracks and manipulate in other ways), 'skip to next playlist' function is not doable. However, similar functionality could be achieved by opening the playlist tree at the most recently launched one, in stead of at the root (also frequent request). What nags me is that I seem to remember reading that such a function is somewhere in 2.0b3, but I could not find it (neither function nor reference to it).

Other 'idiot' function missing (it has been promissed, though) is 'stupid' bass and treble control easily accessible from knob sound menu (of course, in addition to, not in stead of, current excellent parametric equilizer).

Speaking of that, what happened to promised 'assign EQ preset to playlist/tune' feature?

In reply to:

---

if the screen get too bad can't we just replace it anyway ? I know someone on here did that when their screen was broken

---

I had to replace mine when I dropped my baby on the Kitchen floor. The manufacturer is Noritake Itron and the model no. is MN12832E. Empeg charged me around £90 inc. VAT & delivery for mine. It's dead easy to replace if you're fairly competent with a soldering iron.

However, similar functionality could be achieved by opening the playlist tree at the most recently launched one, in stead of at the root (also frequent request). What nags me is that I seem to remember reading that such a function is somewhere in 2.0b3, but I could not find it (neither function nor reference to it).

Press and hold the bottom buton when selecting "Playlists" from the menu. This will take you back to the playlist you last selected.

Also, pressing and holding when selecting a playlist or tune will pop-up a menu to allow you to append/replace/insert the selection into the current running order.

What nags me is that I seem to remember reading that such a function is somewhere in 2.0b3, but I could not find it (neither function nor reference to it).

It was in the 2.0b3 release notes as I recall. I have also added it to the FAQ under the "tricks" item in the player operation section.

i read in another thread that it happens, and when it happens to me, the unit wil be effectively dead so i want to postpone it as long as possible. i keep dimmer down to 10-40% and no vis on most of the time for this reason

Don't worry too much about phosphor burn.

In order to get burn on my Mark 1, I had to leave the same text screen up 100 percent of the time for weeks. And even after that, the burn is so faint as to be almost not noticeable. There are only one or two visuals where you can notice it.

If you are really concerned about it, you can do one of the following:

- Leave a visual up all the time or use Info:Transient.

- Use Mark Lord's new kernel with a timed screen blanker.

But there's no reason to keep the dimmer that low. Just use a visual instead.

I too have one of the pjboxes. jlira is right, the players UI is dead easy to master. But, for controlling that interface, it also has two more buttons than the Empeg.

It may not be apparent, but this interface mimics the way that I play CD's. I go to the rack, where all the albums of an artist are together, I pick an album, and typically I just play it thru. I'm not a DJ. I have no real interest is building play lists. That's just too much like work.



Buttons are [UP][DN] [PLAY,PAUSE][STOP] [RIGHT,RW][LEFT,FF]
Up and Down buttons select between the menu items.
Right and Left make choices for each menu.

Menu items are:
Set | allows selection between user defined list of disks
Disk | allows selection of a disk within the current set
Track | allows selection of a track within the current disk
Play | Everything, This Track, The disk, The Set. Limits the player looping within the selected branch of the overall list.
Order | Sequential, Repeat, Shuffle. (When the player is set to Seq. the player shuts down when it reaches the end defined in the Play menu. ]
Tone | {Cheesy} Normal, Extra, and Super Bass choices.
Time | Disk, Disk Left, Track, Track Left (what the clock shows)
Clock | (When the clock is selected as a menu item the r/l buttons function as FF/RW)

I think the empeg interface definately has a high learning curve to it, but once you get used to it (took me about a month), it's very intuitive.. The remote is very easy to use for searches/etc..

Let me tell you my typical behavior though.. I tend to use the buttons to shuffle, play next, then if I hear something I like, I unshuffle.. If I wanna call something up, I use the remote - takes less then 30 seconds to find a typical album/song.

One note though - w/ 2.0beta, the search isn't as intuitive because it seems slower.. (button presses don't register as fast on the search screen) - I'm assuming that this is something that's being worked on (2.0 IS beta)

-mark

One note though - w/ 2.0beta, the search isn't as intuitive because it seems slower.. (button presses don't register as fast on the search screen) - I'm assuming that this is something that's being worked on (2.0 IS beta)

If you're sure about this, report it as a bug.

Press and hold the bottom buton when selecting "Playlists" from the menu. This will take you back to the playlist you last selected.

Also, pressing and holding when selecting a playlist or tune will pop-up a menu to allow you to append/replace/insert the selection into the current running order.

{Slaping myself} Damn, Bonzi, RTFRN!

I am using the later routinely now; I guess it kind of 'masked' the former in my memory...

Hey, this works from both front panel and remote! Well, I hereby officially pronounce that in my book this implements 'gimme another album by these guys' feature quite nicely, without sacrificing any other aspect of UI!

It may not be apparent, but this interface mimics the way that I play CD's.

You have exactly defined what makes the empeg such an extraordinary system: with the empeg, you don't have to play your music like it was CD's.

A year and a half ago Tony Fabris summed it up pretty well right here. The empeg will change the way you listen to music, and instead of wishing you could play it the way you used to play your music, you will wonder why you ever played your music that way in the first place. (simple answer: because before the empeg, you didn't have any choice!)

I think that if you make a note of this thread on the bbs, mark your calendar and come back here again in 30 days, you'll find that your attitude has changed. It usually takes about a month to really "get it" when it comes to the empeg -- and once that happens, there's no going back!

tanstaafl.

Agreed. welcome to club Empeg. We'll give you the official welcome package after 30 days:)
-mark

As far as playlists I have NEW,FAVORITES, then all the ARTISTS that's it. I do have GENRES using numbers in front so that alphabetize to the top (beginning of the menu). I don't seem to use them much though but it's a quick jump to HARD ROCK or METAL when I want to.