Who uses an M-Audio 410 and PT M-Powered?

[holyspicoli]

For my main system, I've got an 002 rack and G5, but for my alternate "editing" system I've been using an Mbox 1 with PTLE 7.1 on a G4 Powerbook, 1.5G cpu, 1.25G RAM. However, ever since upgrading to PT 7, I keep getting -9136 "USB" error messages which result from CPU spikes, even when the CPU usage hovers around 35%.

I recently bought an M-Audio Firewire 410 interface for use with Reason at live performances (basically so I can send multiple outs to the front-of-house mixer). So now I'm wondering: should I ditch the Mbox, get PT M-Powered use it with the 410 unit as my alternate system? Who else uses this system? Any problems? I know someone mentioned that it seems sluggish; has that been fixed? Just want to know if this is a stable, functional setup and what the potential problems are. Thanks

[fantompowr]

I've been running the FW410 with my powerbook 1.67 for several months now. It's great- way more tracks than the mbox at smaller buffer sizes. I got so sick of the mbox, I thought the FW410 couldn't be any worse and I needed to stay portable. There's no comparison. The MBox 1 and 2 are such a joke. I'd totally recommend anyone with Mboxes to switch to the FW m-audio interfaces. Mine's not sluggish at all...yet

-scott

[mbauer1]

hi Scott,
i wrote a post recently about my laptop system being sluggish and slow to respond.

if you've got a minute free, could you please list your settings for me? ie, dae playback buffer, hardware buffer, CPU usage etc.etc. because my system is still slow and i'm a bit frustrated cause i don't know what to try to improve it.

thank-you kindly.
Matt.
p.s. to answer the question at the start of this thread, as an interface, the firewire 410 is fantastic.
only thing i've learnt is you should always power down your machine before connecting or disconnecting the interface.
even though it's firewire, hot plugging the interface sometimes causes the computer to crash.
i think from memory, the installation instructions does make mention of this. but the interface is great.

[Anotherstate]

interesting..... I posted a new question about..IF, I should go w/M-Powered using one of M-Audio's interfaces. I DO have the orignal MBox... (works fine) and yes I read the horror stories with the new MBox2 w/USB power problems.
I like the options (8 ins and outs with the FW 1814), would you suggest that? I use a Mackie VLZ Pro 1604 mixer, for direct "outs" now for my Mbox1 ... and I get the good clean "gain" I need.... But upgrading to Firewire... along with my Glyph 250Gig Ex. Firewire HD, I would think it would be better set-up, than going MBox2.
Here's part 2 of a question: S/PDIF interfaces, do they carry ALL the signals (like all 8 ins signals) tp and from each interface to each interface using a special fiber cord... ? And I have a older Fostex VF160 HD recorder... which does have that type of S/PDIF "out/in"... could I go directly into the VF160's S/PDIF connection of my MBox1? Thanks everyone.... for your input and suggestions...

[mcvicar]

I use the M-Audio 410 with M-Powered Pro Tools on my Powerbook and G5 Quad (as a second studio workstation). At first the drivers were horrid, but in April they were updated and seem to work fine on the PB. The new drivers were working ok on the Quad but now it can't see the box -- so I'm struggling a bit with lots of rebooting trying to figure out what's up with it.

Also, the M-Audio drivers, last time I checked, will not work with Firewire 800 storage devices -- even if they're just attached. I've read about this elsewhere, so it's not just me having this problem.