MBox beginner seeking basic recording help!

[mezgo]

Please bear with me folks. I am a new user to my M-Box and have had difficulty finding answers to my questions in my reference manuals.

I am a Bassist. I'm technically challenged sometimes. I have learned how to record a drum track with my drum machine onto track one. It plays back beautifully. I am using near field monitors to playback my tracks.
I want to record a bass track on track two. What do I need to do in order to play back track one while simultaneously recording track two? When I roll the mix knob hard left (as I did for the drum track) I can hear my bass signal, although cannot hear the drum track. When I roll the mix knob right to gain a drum track signal, the bass track I record is distorted and cracking. This is probably really simple, but until I get some help I'm literally dead in my tracks... "Help!"

[Zave]

Hi- I'm a bass player/mbox beginner myself - you're not alone.
Anyway, with regard to your questions:
Firstly, about the "distorted and cracking" sound of your bass you describe - how are you plugged in? I'm assuming your taking the output of your bass straight into the mbox. If so, make sure it's set to the "inst" source setting and that the gain on that channel isn't too high - is the peak LED coming on when you play? If so, turn it down until it just barely flashes when you're playing hard.
Secondly, to record your bass track - in protools, mute the track you're going to be recording your bass to, so that you don't get the delayed signal while you're recording (latency). Then set the mix knob on the mbox so that you can hear both your "live" bass and the drum tracks from PT. Record arm the bass track, hit record in the transprt window, hit spacebar/play, and lay down your track.
Hope that helps.

Zave

[filosofem]

Or, roll your playback mix knob fully back round to playback and leave that. Plug your Bass into the back of the Mbox Source 1 and select "inst". Create a new mono track, name that track. Go to Setups>Playback Engine>Mbox settings, set the H/W Buffer Size to 128 Samples and set the CPU Usage Limit to between 75 and 85%. This will stop the latency. Than put your Transport in Input Monitor Mode OPTION+K or ALT+K if on windows, so to rehearse your part during playback prior to recording, the track you want to record on should be in Record-Ready, the R button is illuminated and Input mode, the Record button in the Transport window glows green. Than once this is done you can set your recording levels, try not to clip or peak your signal. Once your happy with your signal level take the transport out of Input mode OPTION+K or ALT+K if on windows, and your set to go. You should be able to hear the Drum track and also hear the Bass track at the same time.

[mezgo]

Zave,
Sorry for the delay. Thanks for your help!! I printed out your suggestion and followed it right through a recorded Bass track. Now I'm having a bit of trouble with the playback buffering setting. When my bass signal gets a little hot I get an error message on the screen that suggests that I reduce the buffer settings. After I reduce the setting, it suggests that I increase the setting.
I seem to fool with that a lot. Where do you keep yours set at?

Thanks again!

[mezgo]

Sorry for the delay. Thanks for your suggestion! I have only had the opportunity to try Zave's suggestions thus far, however will try your suggestion for comparison to get the best tracks. I greatly appreciate your suggestion and hope that sometime I can return the favor! You guys are awesome! Thanks again!

Mezgo

[Zave]

Hm. I'm a bit confused, actually - it seems strange to me that PT telling you to decrease the buffer size would have anything to do with the level of your bass signal - is this on recording or playback? For what it's worth, mine is set to 512 samples, and I rarely change it. What is it exactly that causes it to tell you to increase the buffer size? Also, out of curiosity, when you say your bass signal "gets a little hot," how hot do you mean? Audible distortion? Peak LEDs? More info on the situation might be useful in finding/solving the problem.

Zave