[Fred in NM]

I've had two major pro-audio focussed national music stores mislead me in the past week about something after following down the path of a Digi 002 with an XP laptop solution. I believe neither did it intentionally, but both claimed to be experts.

My question to them was simple:

"Ok, I want to be able to edit, mix, demonstrate etc while I'm traveling on unrelated business/pleasure trips with just my laptop and a firewire drive. Dragging around the digi 002 on trips and internationally isn't an option. What can I do?"

Their response:

"PT software requires some sort of Digidesign interface to be connected to it. Yes, the Digi 002 is big, but if you also buy the Mbox, it will be perfect for that. Track on the Digi 002 at home, and when you travel just throw in the Mbox in your laptop case instead and take some headphones. Lots of guys are doing that. blah blah blah. "

I was ready to plunk down my $$$ this week to buy both. I also needed a very portable (for international travel again) two channel laptop interface for various foreign language spoken-word projects/products I do as a business. The added Mbox seemed like the ultimate solution to that need as well - giving me everything I needed to do all my work under one software platform.

Ok, I now know from this site and the forums that LE 5.3.2 and 5.3.3 are required for the Digi 002 and Mbox respectively and that neither work with each other. Sigh.

Ok, now do I have to decide which one not to buy? Gosh!

I haven't called these salespeople back, but I'm sure they'll say "Digidesign's working on it."
Fred