Thanks for your excellent report. Very interesting. (!!!) Here's an off-the-wall thought: the Raspberry Pi computer will soon be available at a selling price of $50 USD or so. It would be interesting IMO to consider what could be done by adding that powerful ARM based system as an adjunct to Milkymist. It's an open design from my perspective, and the price is very attractive.
My thought is Raspberry Pi as linux-based system controller, with Milkymist as a VERY powerful dedicated peripheral. --- Ron K. Jeffries On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 04:10, Yi Zhang <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi All, > > Last Thursday Oct. 13th, I went to Music China [1]. I had a good 20 minutes > meeting with Massimo (carisch.com CEO) and Ignazio (carisch.com sales and > marketing manager). They have showed quite some interests in Milkymist One. > Massimo said they probably can first carry Milkymist One as is on mslpro > [2]. They think it suits the use in bars and clubs. But they want to make > final decision only after Simon reviews the product, which is > understandable. > > There are a few things they mentioned that I think we need to improve > or/and think about whether it is something we would like to add/change in > later versions. > > 1) Clearer message: Massimo told me that it is very difficult to understand > what Milkymist One can do by looking at the product itself. Ignazio said the > professionals in this field are used to sliders and knobs. At the first, he > thought in order for M1 to work, it has to be combined with a mixer or > something. After I explained to him M is a standalone device and it's very > easy to use. Then he understood. > 2) Look more professional: Massimo looked at the M1 I brought and said "it > doesn't look expensive, and good that selling price is also not expensive." > I'm wondering whether look not so expensive and cost little will attract > more customers in this field or attract less. We need to ask Massimo (I > should have asked him right there). > 3) Be able to control with sliders and knobs: Ignazio asked whether we can > put M1 board into some sort of box with sliders and knobs. Like he said the > professionals in this field are used to those tools and during the show or > performance, they need to have some degree of control over the situation. > You never know what will happen. > > These are mostly all. If I think of something else I will let you all know. > > After the meeting, I walked around a bit inside exhibition halls. There are > areas for traditional western and Chinese music instruments, and also > electronics instruments, devices, accessories, LED, etc.. Most exhibitors > are manufactures, who try to promote and sell their products. With limited > time, I didn't find any potential distributors there. I do have a exhibitor > list (it's also online [3], which I can look through and see whether there's > anything for us. About 20 to 30% of exhibitors are from European countries > and the USA, the rest all from cities in China. > > At Acton's tent, there's a stage with a 5 x 3 meter LED for performances. > After the show I got a chance to hook the M1 to the LED and see how it looks > like on the big screen. It was pretty nice. I took a couple of pictures > [4][5] and a 30 seconds video [6] (will upload later after conversion). > Since it was in a rush, so the pictures and video were not that good. Also > since I was not allowed to use M1 during the show (I tried to get the > permission), so the effects were not that obvious. > > From what I observed and by chatting with some people worked in multi media > field, there are a few things I think may worth our time and resources to > work on in the future. > > 1) Content needs to be _powerful_: This is the feedback I got from a VJ > artist (he is also taking some other roles). He said the patches need to be > powerful, unique, and wows the audiences. What we have now are too weak for > professionals. Even for bars and clubs, different bars and clubs most likely > want to have their own different effects/patches. And they cannot be the > same all the time, every day. So how can we make it easier for people to do > that. Better documentation on how to write patches, a patches pool, easily > upload and download? > 2) Flexibility of mixing the patches: Maybe I don't know how to use M1 or > we really don't have this feature. I was not able to choose desired patches > to mix them in certain order, with defined display interval. > 3) Display images between patches: During trade show or exhibitions, what > people want is to show their company name, brand name once in a while on the > screen. So displaying the images between patches would be nice and useful in > such cases. > 4) Some way of controlling: Being able to modify the predefined > arrangements of patches will be needed in a real time performance in case of > changes during the show. > 5) All big LED are using DVI connector. So maybe we need to think about > supporting it. > > These are all I got so far. if anything comes up on my mind, I will write > it here again. > > What do you think about Milkymist One? You are very welcome to share your > feedback and thoughts with us! > > Thanks, > Yi > > [1] http://www.musicchina-expo.com/indexen.asp > [2] http://mslpro.co.uk/ > [3] > http://www.fineinshow.com/autoweb/reg11/33501actor/actor_search.asp?iEID=33501&ifeng=1 > [4] http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/File:20111013_music_china_m1_1.JPG > [5] http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/File:20111013_music_china_m1_2.JPG > [6] http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/File:20111013_music_china_m1.ogv > > _______________________________________________ > Qi Hardware Discussion List > Mail to list (members only): [email protected] > Subscribe or Unsubscribe: > http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion >
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