VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Jim Barton]

I may be temporarily moving out of town to take care of my parents, a week or so at a time. I'm trying to put together a road package to record at their house, and would like to try the Mbox (preferably the first version if I can get a good deal.)

I'm pretty certain it will work on my Gateway laptop...I tried it out a few years ago, and the only hitch was a short in my USB ports. I got the short fixed, but by that time I'd lost my motivation to purchase the Mbox and sent it back to Sweetwater.

Does anyone else have any personal experience with the Mbox? Deirdre, I know you were using one once.

I'd be using a Shure SM7 dynamic mic.

My daily setup is ProTools LE/Digi 001. I have the Waves Native Pack, which I'm not sure will run on a PC.

This move is not imminent, but these kind of things tend to come to a head fast, and I want to be prepared.

Thanks, Jim

[Charlie Channel]

Hi Jim,

I had an Mbox before I upgraded to the 002-Rack. It worked fine for me, but I found I needed to use a mixer as I did not like the pre's in the Mbox, at all. The other issue that bothered me was fiddling with the knob to get zero latency monitoring. Generally, the device is OK.

If you're going to do a lot of editing, you might want to invest in an inexpensive control surface.

Personally, I'd recommend an M-Audio product over the M-box at this time. Kitzie may actually have an M-box, as she recently upgraded to PT 7.0 and M-Audio.
_________________
Charlie

[marko]

I used an M-box before my 002 and loved it. Performed without a problem on both my Macs and my PC. Not as user-friendly as the 002, but you simply CANNOT beat it for bang for your buck.

If you can live without the M-box 2 (MIDI differences, mainly), you can pick up an M-box really cheap nowadays.

[brianforrester]

Jim,

If you're currently running PT and are happy with it, then by all means I would recommend buying an M-box.. the M-box 2 is absolutely unecessary for the purposes that we typically use it for.

I take mine on the road with me all of time, and while I agree with the comments regarding the pre-amps, I have no problems sending audio that I've recorded while on the road, without my studio pre...

Check out e-bay, you should be able to pick one up for less than $250 now

Ebay Item Numbers:

7387537991
7387034268
7387329158
7387419882
7388053401

Happy hunting!
_________________
Brian Forrester Voice Overs
www.brianforrester.com
brian@brianforrester.com
778.668.5715

[Deirdre]

Yep-- I'm happy as the proverbial clam with my Mbox, even though the plastic is incredibly El Cheaparino.

It works-- what can I say?
I need another preamp like a need a hole in the head, but farking Digi won't make a dongle, so I've got that beastly thing.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com

[billelder]

Jim,

As a son of an aging mom with dementia, my thoughts are with you.

I did the "portable thing" thinking that I was actually going to travel. Bill hasn't been able to get out of town since 1997. (Bill pauses to laugh hysterically...and to question why he speaks of himself in the third person in a public post.) That hasn't happened, but a laptop, mixer, mic and a power cord running to a converter plugged into the lighter of my car has saved my life during tornado season. Of course, dial up is so slow it makes your hair hurt.

[Jim Barton]

Thanks everyone for your responses regarding the Mbox. It looks like I'll probably proceed with an Ebay purchase...I used to haunt Ebay, both as a buyer and seller, but it's been a few years.

Believe it or not, thanks to Charlie's suggestion, I looked at the M-Audio web page. There are a few intriguing, simple interfaces there, much less expensive than a new Mbox2. Do these work with the ProTools software? (I apologize for asking this before really reading the information on the web.)

Bill, you picked up on my family situation right off. My Mom's pretty deep into Alzheimer's, and my Dad now has Macular Degeneration in both eyes. Thus my plans to be with them a week at a time, trading off with my 3 sisters. All I need now is to talk my Dad into going with cable broadband, as opposed to AOL dialup!

Again, thanks to all.

Jim

[Don G.]

First of all, best of luck with your folks' situation. My brothers and I went through a similar situation over a year ago.

As for the MBox. I really, really wanted to like it, as I pretty much use ProTools Free for most of my stuff. For some reason I'm unable to link to a thread on the Digidesign User Conference, but if you were to search there for posts by dg44, you can read about my issues with the MBox.

Long story short, I tried and returned two of them and have gone back to ProTools Free. The only problem is that I need to boot into OS9 to use it, but it's worth it for longer projects. On the plus side of that, PTFree works with pretty much any audio interface. And it's available for both Mac (as I said, OS9 only) and Windows.

[SoundsGreat-Elaine Singer]

For Windows users, don't forget that Pro Tools Free only works on Windows 98/Me and no other version of Windows either before or after that.
_________________
Elaine
The Youthful Mature Voice (Emeritus)
Senectitude is not for the faint of heart.

[marko]

I use Pro Tools LE on both my mac & PC without any problems at all, but I do believe Elaine is correct about the 'free' version.

$225 for an mBox WITH Pro Tools LE is as smokin' a deal as they come! Using and knowing Pro Tools will definitely be a feather in your cap.

[Don G.]

Thank you for clarifying that, Elaine. I didn't think to check as to which versions of Windows, being a Mac user.

[Jim Barton]

About 4 years ago I tried to "test" the computer requirements of ProTools Free. I downloaded it to a Compaq laptop, Win 98, powered with an AMD processor (a no-no for ProTools Free.) Needless to say the Compaq froze immediately, which is a shame, because I know plenty of folks who use Free successfully to this day (with approved computer configurations.)

Don I read your posts on the DUC. Sounds like we had the same experience...white noise, unpredictable playback. Obviously you never were able to track down the problem and you sent your second Mbox back?

As I've said before I've been using PTLE so long now that I'd love it if I could continue the experience on my laptop. I'll watch Ebay and see what comes up.

Thanks again,

Jim

[dscott]

Hi There!
I've used PT Free on my older Supermac OS9... PTFree is not OSX native, I haven't tried it in classic to see if it works there, mostly using Logic Express...
Cheers!
Dave

P.S. Having experience with PT is a plus!

[Don G.]

[audiogenic]

Check out the Presonus Firebox instead of the MBox for those looking to purchase...it's outstanding.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--PRSFIREBOX