Mbox & Final Cut Pro

[Linda L]

Wondering if anyone out there is using Mbox & Final Cut Pro together (silent scream) with any success? I'm a newbie who spent a lot of money on a "dream come true" home recording system that has subsequently broken my heart.

On advice from an "expert" salesman, I bought a G4 Dual Gig Power Mac with enormous ram, several hard drives, video cards, etc., and teamed this with a MBox Digi 001 and Final Cut Pro (on OS 9.2).

Over past months, the "expert" has been back to my house some four times in an attempt to isolate the cause of the constant system crashes. He's completely wiped the hard drive and started again, replaced the ram (in case it was faulty) and even accused us of deleting files. All to no avail.

This morning, I couldn't even get the DVD player to work without crashing.

If this was a PC I might have a chance of working some things out for myself, but since this is my first Mac and a bit alien to me, I don't know what to do.

The "expert" swears he's put together many systems combining Digi 001 and Final Cut Pro - but this is his first utilising the MBox.

I'm developing a "gut feel" that the MBox and Final Cut just shouldn't be on the same computer together. Either that or the computer is a turkey.

Has anyone any suggestions (other than putting an axe through that lovely grey veneer)?

Thanks!
LINDA

[guisquil]

It would help me if you list all your hardware and software configuration?

what are you trying to do with Pro Tools and Final
Cut?

Nestor

[lexicon5]

You could try turning off all the Digi System INITS and extensions, remove the M-Box and run FCP for a while alone using the built-in audio connections.

If you have not done so already, get DiskWarrior, TechTool Pro or Nortons Disk Utilities and run that on the system. If for no other reason, these utilities will keep your system happy. There are also utilities for diagnosing Extension conflicts.....Conflict Catcher comes to mind.

On Macs.....these issues are usually quickly resolved since we can turn Extensions on and off at will to isolate a problem.
I'm running FCP2 and Pro Tools together very happily on a chrome face Mac so the M-Box and the version of PTLE that comes with it may be causing the issue but you need to get the M-Box out of the system to verify.

[pmklein]

Hey,
I had a Dual 1 gig Mac that was bad right out of the box. It kept crashing no matter what I did. Turns out the processors were bad. If you're still under warranty, take it in for a look. Mine was fixed for free under the warranty. Apparrently this is a known Mac problem according to the service guy I took it to.

[DesertDude]

I am running the Mbox PT LE with no conflicts along with FCP 3.0. But you cannot bring audio into FCP through the Mbox or audio out of FCP into the Mbox.
I agree with the poster above take the Mbox out of the chain first do a search for anything digidesign/protools trash it all, set the extensions manager to mac OS all, then see how the computer runs. Do youself a favor get someone near your area to help you who is mac savy and not the salesman...

[img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[marklee5]

I have been running FCP 3 and ProTools with a 001 on a 733 without significant problems. I run them under the same extension set and have them saving data to 2 partitions of the same drive. I haven't had crashes.

I am using TechTool to check the system out periodically and defragment the drives. I think that has been helpful.

I would suggest that you post also at the Apple Discussion board for FCP. There are a few really helpful folks there who might offer some useful advice. Go to the Apple site, support, and discussions. to find the FCP board.

It also seems like I read that people were turning off the second processor if they had problems and that eliminated them. Soon you will be able to run both ProTools and FCP under OSX, which will be able to use the second processor.

By the way, you have a dream system. Just persist until you find the culprit. Once it is working well you will see just how much fun these two programs are.

Good luck and soon.

[Firewire]

We're running mbox on g4350, imac 500 and a digi 001 on DP533 with FCP on same extension set. No problems at all. Never crashes. Go to extensions manager> ma cos all >duplicate> turn on digi extensions> restart. If you still get crashes I'd definitely get your cpu checked.

[mBoxLuvr]

running FCP3 on OSX never on OS9.
that fixes one problem for me.
I run my mBox on OS9 (cmon Digi..get OSX PTLE out soon) and dont have probs with this G4 933.
what I dont understand is that you have a Digi001 and an mBox?
whats the benefit on that?
Im curious cause if there is one then a Digi002 will be on my next wish list:O)

[seandaly]

Hi, I have a G4-533, 1.12 GB RAM, OS 9.2.2 FR, Digi 001, PTLE v5.1.1, FCP v2.02, Matrox RTMac realtime card running a second monitor and Contour ShuttlePro (both very useful for both FCP and PTLE), 40 GB IBM HDD system & apps, 60 GB Seagate Barracuda for capture/scratch disk, 60 GB Seagate Barracuda for backup of same.

Since you just got your machine I suppose you have FCP v3.0 - however if you have FCP v2.0 I recommend the v2.02 patch.

I had crashes under FCP (especially when scrubbing rushes over 5 GB) until I flashed the RTMac card with the new firmware v3.0.1. Much more stable now.

FCP v2 crashes almost immediately if a DV video device appears or disappears while FCP is running. Start FCP with the camera/deck either connected or not, but stick with that during your FCP session.

I also have occasional crashes in FCP which I have traced to Cleaner EZ v5.0 - this software is as unstable on startup as it is useful for web video encoding.

PTLE on the other hand is very stable, one crash I think which may have been the day I installed the ShuttlePro - a controller I couldn't live without at this point.

I assume your expert allocated memory over the default values to FCP and PTLE and DAE?

Hang in there, I agree as soon as you isolate the cause and arrive at a stable machine you'll have a blast

- Sean