PageMatrix II Device

The Peavey PageMatrix™ system is a separate controller that interfaces between the Paging Stations and the MediaMatrix Mainframe or Miniframe's RS-232 PASHA port. While the PageMatrix Controller keeps information on what each button on the stations should do, what the LCD display (if present) will display, if the LEDs should be red, green or off, and converts the microphone signal to line-level to send to the inputs of Break-out-Boxes. While all of these functions are necessary for proper functionality of your PageMatrix-based paging system. There are certain functions that have to be performed on the MediaMatrix frame itself. This is the purpose of the PageMatrix Device. From this point on PageMatrix device will refer to the graphical PageMatrix device as obtained from the Devices\PageMatrix II menu in MWare 3.1.2 or higher.

The PageMatrix devices provide all the logic to handle a specified amount of paging Stations and a specified amount of paging "Zones" Each Zone should be a separate physical area that would need either different paging (such as a department or room) or different background music (or another source). If two physical areas will always have both the same background music (referred to as "BGM") and will always need to hear the same pages, then those separate areas could be connected to the same Zone's output of either the PageMatrix device or of the analog output of the MediaMatrix itself.

Station Priority is also handled inside the PageMatrix device. Priority in this case means that when more than one station has its Push-to-Talk button pressed, one of the stations' microphone signal will override any others that may happen to be in use. You have the ability, within the device, to re-assign the priority levels given to each Station. To make this task easier for you, the designer, you have the ability to assign page station priority by station or by zone. The priority of a page from Station x to Zone x is really the same control, whether you adjust it from the Priority by Station control blocks or from the Priority by Zone blocks. This duplication is provided because different people think about priority from these two different perspectives.

PageMatrix II is our name for the current series of PageMatrix devices. We created the original PageMatrix devices before the advent of Control Logic in the WindowsNT versions of MediaMatrix MWare (3.0 and above). These devices worked by inserting low frequency sine waves into the stations microphone signal and then using the presence of those signals to determine the output path of the audio. Needless to say, this isn't the best use of DSP resources, considering all the EQ, Delay, Mixing, etc. that has to occur with the same resources.

What became the PageMatrix II device was started when we first released the 3.0 level of MWare. It was designed to use the Control Grouping functionality as well as the customizable control logic scripting abilities that never existed before. Unfortunately, these first forays into off-DSP logic were large and slow devices, mainly due to the overwhelming use of Control Groups. Also they were not consistent from device to device, making the learning curve slower as well.

The PageMatrix II device currently uses Control Groups only where necessary to receive commands from the PageMatrix Controller linked to the system's PASHA input.

Since all PageMatrix devices work the same way, we'll just take an 8x8 device as an example. When you place a PageMatrix II device into your view file, you will see a block with input nodes for the microphones and for BGM inputs (one for each output Zone). These will be the audio that is played through the outputs when there is no paging to the zone. As for outputs, there is one output for each Paging "Zone" that you need. These outputs are typically wired directly to the output, since any EQ or switching of BGM sources should be done before passing BGM or microphone signals into the PageMatrix device.

The PageMatrix device is a "complex" device, meaning that it contains many "primitive" devices linked together to function as a whole priority paging system in one block. Wiring in a PageMatrix device can be as simple as wiring the raw line-level mics from the Input block. The following shows a simple, yet complete view file for a functioning 4 Station system with 8 Output Zones:

To decide which size device you need, consider the number of paging stations (round up the number of inputs) by the number of output zones (round up the number of outputs). Here are the configurations that are included with the MWare software install:

Other sizes are available, but not included in the release, because of the need to keep the MWare install to a minimum size. In the future we will post the .DVC files to our website for you to download. For the present, send us an e-mail (mmsupport@peavey.com) if you need a configuration not offered in the software. Don't e-mail if you need a device slightly smaller than the existing device. For example, if you needed a 14 Station, 28 Zone device, then the 16x32 device would serve that requirement very well. The unused Zones wouldn't be compiled into the DSP because you didn't pass any audio through them. We also have 24 Station and 32 Station devices that are available, but those are several megabytes each, so they weren't included in the release.

The red buttons on the left-hand side of the device represent the Push-To-Talk (PTT) button on each station. The yellow and gray buttons underneath the Paging Zone Matrix bump panel are the "Pre-Assign" buttons that assign the Station to be able to page to specific zones. This is what is set up with the separate PageMatrix software to occur whenever the selection buttons are pressed. It works with the PageMatrix Controller (the hardware device) very much like having several Sub-Preset buttons that select where the pager's microphone is routed.

The Amber LEDs are to indicate when any station is currently paging to that particular zone. The Station Select Numbers in white boxes at the bottom show which station is currently paging to that zone. As you will notice, all zone information is shown in one column.

It is possible to use the PageMatrix device without having a PageMatrix controller or PageMatrix stations. However, you lose some of the built-in features of the combination of PageMatrix Hardware and Software (MWare PageMatrix devices). You would typically Control Group the PTT button to a CV input to trigger the paging. If the remote pager needs to be able to re-assign the matrix associated with his station, then you could copy all of the gray/yellow buttons in the row of the station into a new block by themselves; place SubPresets into that block as well and save different combinations of PreAssign buttons into those SubPresets. Then Control Group the load buttons to CV inputs or PASHA codes. You could also pass the SubPreset LED to the CV TTL outputs to display the current settings remotely.

Paging Priority is a method of determining which Station to pass audio from if two or more stations are paging simultaneously. With the Priority Settings of the PageMatrix II device, the station attempting to page that has the lowest priority setting for that zone is routed through to that zone. The other station(s) which have lower priority are prevented from paging into that zone until their priority setting is the lowest setting among those stations that have their PTT buttons depressed.

There are two different ways to set Zone Priority. You can either set up priority using the "Zones by Station" blocks, which are the blocks that have "Station 1," "Station 2," etc. on them. In control mode, only a single-click is required to open the blocks. Here is the "Zones by Station" block (and its contents) for Station 1 from the 4x8 device:

You can also adjust the Priority Settings by using the "Stations by Zone" blocks, which are the small blocks above the Pre-Assignment buttons and under the "Paging Zone Matrix" block. This block presents the same priority controls as the Zones by Station" except that for each zone, you can see the priority settings from each station. There are two presentation methods, so that you can choose the method that makes the most sense to you. They are the same controls; they are just presented differently. Here is the "Stations by Zone" block (and its contents) for Station 1 from the 4x8 device:

This shows the "Zone 1 Priority" Settings for each of the 8 Output Zones. The Station 1 controls are the same as the Zone 1 controls in the "Station 1" block above. The remaining controls are not duplicates from "Station 1," rather they are copies from the "Zone 1" controls from other Station blocks.

As noted inside each Priority Settings Block, you will notice the simple notice indicating that "Priority Level 0 mutes the station in this zone." If any settings are 0, no paging will occur in that zone, regardless of the Pre-Assign button's status for that Station to Zone combination. This is useful if you don't want a certain station to ever page to a zone, regardless of the Pre-Assign buttons. When priority is used this way, the text block is usually copied into a block with a SubPreset to change several priorities at the same time.

The inputs to the Router are from all the different BGM sources. You can use the router to select the appropriate BGM source to play into the zone. When there is no page occurring into that zone, the BGM at the Zone's BGM input is passed directly to the Zone output at unity (0db). When the logic determines that a page is occurring to that specific zone, the audio is Dimmed or Ducked to a level that you can specify (default is -12db). The BGM Dim Block allows you to set the default BGM Dim level across all zones. To actually see the Dim level, you have to be paging to Zone 1 (since the level shown is copied from that zone's BGM level device. The "BGM Master Dim Level" is actually all of the Zone's Level controls control linked

The Ramp Change block, like the BGM Dim Level is simply the grouped controls from each zone's Ramping Router. The -40db Master Switch Level and the 150ms Master Ramp Time are the normal defaults. Unless you specifically need to change these settings, there isn't any need to change the settings.