re-noob here.

[graveleye]

Greetings and long time-no see. I've missed the DUC and my how things have changed. I don't recognize a soul here but it's been about 6 years since I've posted anything!!

Would you believe I'm still chugging along on my 001 and it's still working fine. Of course I am planning a major upgrade in the future, but funds are tight now.
Not tight enough for me to want an mbox though for my living room PC. I've been wanting something to fool around with upstairs, rather than down in the studio, where I can work on small projects and still use PTLE.

I have a simple question - is the mbox as picky about system requirements as the 001s, 002s and 003s or is it plug and play? If it is, then that sucks. I really just want something that I can run down a lick here or there or program some drums without having to go fire up the studio downstairs. The thing is I don't want to have to build an Allenstein machine for something simple like that.

In a nutshell, I just want a simple workstation that's in easy access to my living quarters for convenience of noodling, writing and working on the mundane. The main studio downstairs for the serious stuff.

If it is as picky, then can anyone suggest an easy to use rig and software that can be converted easily back and forth to PTLE?

Thanks for the help.

[Meads]

What machine are you planning to use it on?
Is it a Mac? Then I'd give you a go with no buts.
If it's a PC, you might run into troubles, might not.
And I'm stating that from own experience, not from disliking PC (actually I like working with PC). It's just that depending on the hardware within your PC it might have chips on it, the MBox doesn't correspond with. I had my share of annoyance with this, until I switched to Mac.

So, either get a certified PC and an MBox, that should be fine. Or get any Mac and an MBox, which will also make you happy (maybe even more).

[albee1952]

Well said above. And it matters which Mbox you are thinking about. Be aware that the original Mbox with the Focusrite preamps is no longer supported and does not work on Windows7, Snow Leopard or on Pro Tools newer than 8.0.1. Mbox 2 and 3 variants are all good and safe, but they are as finicky as anything else from Digi/Avid.