M Box Users Options

[MrDee]

Lol while i'm on the issue...

True true true, if the signal is simply mixed down into two channels, there is no excuse. Other than trying to be the microsoft, mcdonnalds and coca-cola of the audio world.

Yes i've noticed that with the sleep and iTunes. Also, on a mate's machine Virtual PC 6.0 simply stopped after the MBox was installed. His machine no longer recognises the Windows CD! I don't know about other people here, but i'm sick of having limitations placed and 'can't do this or that'. Have to check out that link to Jack Tools. Thanks for that. Composing wise - Motu's DP is a serious contender - apparently it's what a lot of film composers are using on the mac platform atm.

[Lord Pasty]

Well, I still have a problem here, if I may again bend everyone's ears...


I read somewhere that Logic Express could be upgraded to Pro for no more than the difference in the cost... that would make Express the obvious choice to me, EXCEPT that I hear it has fairly difficult documentation. That's tough for me, because I *will* be a noob to recording, even though I've sequenced for some time.

I also still like the amount of software that comes with the MBox bundle. Reason especially, where as I would have to go out and buy Reason to use it with Express. VSTi support may become a big deal for me, but I don't know. I'm mostly prolly going to us my Korg and Reason/VSTi. One big thing is that I hate my drumkits on the Korg. (Well, I like one of them, but it's pretty damned limited.

[MrDee]

Note that the version of reason you get with the bundle is actually a cutdown version... reason adapted.

In adapted, you get a few nnxts, one or two malstroms, this and that, and that's it. You can't actually add or delete modules and so on (I use the full version, so this is from what i've seen at uni) so if you were thinking of using that to its full capabilities, you're going to want to upgrade to the full version in the end anyways...

If logic does have that deal, then thats a MAJOR strength point - also it does come with some pretty decent synths of its own as plugins (not sure which ones with the express version though).

Ahh what the hell... flip a coin!

[Lord Pasty]

HAHA! That's what it comes down to, I suppose. Actually, It's all going to come down to whatever my local retailer has in stock.

[nlowther]

Well I suppose from what yo've all said Logic Express and a decent soundcard for $1000 aud, is head and shoulders above the Mbox for composing. And for video sound design, Mbox with the DV toolkit @ $2000 aud is the dogs bollocks. Horses for courses I guess

[arvidtp]

hey, its not all bad - things are looking up around here for a change - check out the Macmusic news: "Digi Coreaudio goes Multiclient!" A real coreaudio driver I think! Never thought it would happen. And just as this discussion was going on. Dunno how it works, downloading it NOW. Well maybe somebody was listening to people's rants on the Digi User Forums for once. We'll see how this works. I'm excited.

[Lord Pasty]

Arvid! Make sure to post on how things are going with the new driver!!! This could solve a lot of my buying issues. I'm still kinda stuck on Pro Tools. (I'm sure the reasons are obvious or have been stated...)

I wonder though.... would Logic Express run with the MBox HW? That could still be cool. Maybe the ultimate yet!

[lepetitmartien]

First checks on the new drivers in the FR forums are awesome

At last ! (grumble grumble)

If I understood well though, it's multiclient as long as you don't use Protools, then, with PT in use, it's monoclient.

[arvidtp]

For once the mbox coreaudio driver doesn't completely suck! Wow. This is a vast improvement. Software such as Reason no longer crashes always, and multiclient support means I can (almost) just set the mbox as default and have every app play/get sound though it, even for casual stuff. Works nicely with Jack OS X - no more strange need to open the prefs dialog before starting jack all the time. They finally listened to all the people complaining on the DIgi user forum I guess (i was one of many). My advice: if you haven't tried this, do so NOW. It is vastly better. And you don't have too much to lose - thats for sure.

There are still limitations, however. It does not work with some software that it never worked with, like Audacity, but who knows who's fault that is. Could very well be audacity. Seems like it has caused some software like iMovie to hiccup/crash, but nothing really reproducible. There seem to be lots of little bugs in iMovie 3, now that I am using it a lot, so again I dont know who's fault that is. And, as stated it is single-client when Pro Tools is active. And it doesn't reduce latency at all - a major complaint of mine. 512 samples is too large a buffer for certain things when performing, or even when recording using certain timing-critical software instruments like percussion-type stuff. I think I will still stick with my internal sound card (unfortunately) for performance, as it can go nicely to 64 samples latency, and use the mbox as analog pres for that. Also it still screws up (not crashes, but freezes audio IO until you quit all Digi Coreadudio-using apps and restart them it seems) if you put your mac to sleep while accessing the driver.

Another annoying thing I noticed, to be picky, is that whenever i restart, the Digi Coreaudio manager resets the buffer from 512 where I like it to 1024, disregarding my previous preference. As a fix I have written a simple applescript that uses UI scripting to open the Digi Coreaudio manager, switch to 512 and quit, and I have added it to my startup items. (I can post it on my site if anyone else has this issue and wants the script) That seems to do that trick, except sometimes (very rarely) it seems to randomly switch to 1024 when the driver is not used for a while and then used again. I haven't yet figured out what triggers that.

Good luck to all. The mbox may spend more years on my desk than I thought. Thanks Digi for getting it close to right this time.

[MrDee]

Yay! Digidesign has moved to the year 1999! How bout 2004 guys!?

The monoclient issue, although a welcome revision, is only the icing on the cake. They still have many things to look at before it's level with other devices. (One can always put the output of the mac and mbox into a little mixer, and have that go to the speakers - thus it wouldn't really bother you which system was using the audio for general use).

I haven't experienced the problem of latency reverting back to 1024 samples, perhaps its something in your preferences file?

Lol common digi... you can do it... 2ms latency.... common!