Mbox 2 Mini and Pro Tools LE 7.4

C

Chris Mulcahey

New member
What up people?

This is my first post.

I have a few questions about the Mbox 2 Mini and Pro Tools LE 7.4. I decided to buy a DAW and did some research. It seems that an Mbox with Pro Tools is a good option for starters. I got an electric guitar and bass and I plan to buy some headphones and a mic as soon as I get the DAW set up. I hope to be able to make beats (drums, bass, etc) and record any random sounds i think of. I'm not sure how much the Mbox 2 Mini will limit me with only 2 inputs. What do you think?

My main question is about compatability. It looks like Pro Tools 7.4 is the first Pro Tools that Digidesign says is compatible with Windows Vista. Digidesign.com also says they only support Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate. I have Home Premium.

Here are my system details:

Acer Aspire 5270 Laptop. Windows Vista Home Premium 2007 Service Pack 1. Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. T5250 @ 1.50 GHz 1.50 GHz. 2.0 GB RAM. 32-bit OS.

My hard drive is only 100GB and I'll be looking for an external hard drive as well.

Do any of you see any foreseeable problems hooking up the Mbox 2 Mini/Pro Tools and this system? Anything specific I should look out for?

Thanks for your help people. Please share any other details/opinions about this hardware/software. Going from knowing nothing to something about this recording stuff (and maybe computers in general!) is a challenge!

PEACE
 
I've been using this combo for nearly a year now and have been mostly happy with it. Pro Tools is terribly processor intensive and my little Dell laptop can't handle it (buffer errors all day :c), but the Mbox is just swell. The two inputs are just enough for my uses, doing pretty much the same you're wanting to do (replace guitar with turntables).

Do check the Digi forums to make sure your system is compatible, they'll give you plenty of insight on that.
 
Well a few things you should know.

1) [B]When pro-tools says use a certain thing (i.e.. an OS Type) you pretty much have to.[/B] They didn't support Windows XP "Media Center" OS period. The only thing to do is to strip your OS and load on whatever they say to use. Thats why many people kept using XP because Pro-Tools took so long to get on board with Vista. Besides for PT7 there are many plug-ins that don't run on vista so check that out too.

With the input output issue, yes only 2 ins and outs for someone actually planning on doing live recording may become an issue later. Not a major one if your only using two instruments and you can always add a mixer to your set up. You will eventually do this anyway so its not a bad move off top. The ins and outs honestly only have to come into effect when your trying to record more than 2 things at once, and how often are you going to do that? To some extent you never have to. You can track everything one by one. But in the event that you have a bass player, you on guitar and a vocalist at the same time, then yes your limitations will be clear and present - someone's not recording.

You didn't make a bad buy for starting out at all. Many people will say "well you should have bought this bigger item" that is debatable.

When you start out you may or may not use something and even if you go further it may not be something you need. So keep that in mind. Just look at how many people are on this forum with questions about gear they already own. That means they bought something with lots of functions that they currently are not using. Yet the are still recording, so those features may not be as much of a necessity as they thought it was when they first bought the product. For instance. "Time Stretch" and "Pitch Shifting" is not currently a part of my work flow. So while I have it in Pro-Tools I don't even use it. How many other plug-ins will you have that you wont use ? ? ? ? ?

So learn the M-Box. Use it and complete a full project of at least 5 songs head to toe. And then decide if you need to upgrade.

People that chase new gear and updates are probably those not getting much done, becasue they spend so much time reading manuals on on the forums and spending money upgrading rather than spending money on pressing disks, mastering or promotions.

Think about it.
 
Yeah the digi guidelines for hardware are lines in the sand pretty much. But that's a good thing cos you know it will be compatible or not. Not like other brands which you gotta hope for the best.
 
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