Request for info: Mbox/Mbox2 noise bursts

[Digi Engineering]

Update: Feb 1, 2007 - A firmware update for the original Mbox has been posted to our website in Mbox Support > Downloads.
Thank you for your patience and for the detailed feedback that helped us track the problem down and fix it!
To go directly to the article, click here
- Digidesign Customer Support
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Hi Folks,
This is Eric from Digidesign engineering. I'm posting to request information from Mbox / Mbox 2 users who are experiencing "noise bursts" or "white noise." This problem has been discussed extensively here on the DUC, and we at Digi take it very seriously. However, I ask that you read this post carefully and only respond if you're experiencing the problem as described, AND your hardware configuration matches the description as well.

HARDWARE:
Macintosh, running Mac OS X (any model, PowerPC- and Intel-based macs)
Mbox or Mbox 2: USB interfaces only (do NOT respond if you're using 002 or Mbox 2 Pro)

SYMPTOM:
Full-code or white noise which occurs seemingly at random during playback and/or recording. Sometimes just a small burst of noise or short sequence of bursts; can also occur as a long burst. Usually requires a restart of Pro Tools to recover. In the case of Mbox (the original, as opposed to Mbox 2), the problem can also occur when using the device via CoreAudio Manager.

REQUESTED INFORMATION:
If you're experiencing the problem described here, please respond to this thread with the following requested information. You can use System Profiler to collect a lot of this information:
/Applications/Utilities/System Profiler.app

- Machine model
- Number of CPUs
- CPU Speed
- Memory
- OS version
- Pro Tools LE version
- What kind of Mbox: original or Mbox 2?
- Which USB port is Mbox / Mbox 2 connected to?
- List all installed Hard Drives, along with their capacity and how they're connected
- List all installed expansion cards: includes PCI, PCI-X, PCIe, CardBus, and ExpressCard slots
- Concise description of your setup: which hard drive(s) do you use for playback/record? How many audio tracks (mono/stereo? sample rate?) do you typically have in your session(s)? Do you have video hardware in your system, and/or video tracks in your session? How frequently do you encounter the noise problem? Have you noticed any patterns or have ideas about something you're doing that triggers the problem? Any other relevant details? Again, please attempt to be as concise as possible.

Here are a couple examples of the kind of responses I hope to get:

- PowerBook G4
- 1 CPU
- 867 MHz
- 768MB RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.7
- Pro Tools LE 7.1
- Mbox (original)
- connected to left USB port (if looking at the system from the back)
- Internal ATA HDD 60GB, firewire 400 HDD 80GB connected to CardBus firewire interface
- CardBus firewire 400 interface
- Noise bursts occur when recording about 10 or more 48KHz stereo tracks to firewire HDD. Also occurs when using Logic via CoreAudio Manager.

Another example:

- PowerMac G5 Quad
- 4 CPUs
- 2.5 GHz
- 2GB RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE 7.0
- Mbox 2
- connected to front panel USB port
- 2 x Internal SATA HDD 160GB, 2 x firewire 400 HDD 200GB connected to rear FW400 port
- PCI firewire adapter, no devices attached
- problem occurs infrequently, about once a day or so, while recording in Pro Tools using firewire record volumes. Does not occur when recording to internal SATA drive.

BONUS POINTS:
We've found that, in the cases where we've been able to reproduce this problem, it can be solved by installing a PCI USB adapter, and plugging the Mbox / Mbox 2 into the PCI USB adapter rather than using the built-in USB ports. PCI/CardBus/ExpressCard USB adapters can be had for less than $20 these days. If you'd like to try this out, we'd love to hear whether it solves the problem on your config. However, please be aware that we can give absolutely no guarantees that this will be a solution.

Thanks in advance to those who are able to help out with this. With your help, hopefully we can get to the bottom of this issue and put it to rest.

-EricM, DAE Software Engineer

[Da' Cono Men]

- Mac Pro
- 2 CPUs
- 2.66 GHz
- Mac OS X 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE 7.1.1cs1
- MBox (original)
- tried connecting to all USB ports on machine, both front and back
- SATA 250GB (internal), SATA 320GB (internal), FireWire 800 250GB (external, rear)
- To this date I have not used my Pro Tools with my Mac Pro because I initially got the white burst while listening to songs on iTunes, so I'm afraid to use Pro Tools. My use of the MBox with this new machine has been only with iTunes and CoreAudio manager. The burst shows up at different times. It can be 5 minutes after launching iTunes or it can be 30 minutes. I did not have this problem on my PowerMac G4 933MHz.
I hope the problem is solved soon. Thanks!

[Roey]

- Mac Pro
- 2 CPU
- 2.66 GHz
- Same problem when I had 1GB and after upgrading 2GB RAM (all memory is original Apple)
- Mac OS X 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE 7.1.1 cs2
- Mbox (original)
- connected to middle rear USB port (same problem occured with the bottom front USB port)
- Internal SATA HDD 60GB, Internal SATA 250GB HDD
- No additional PCIe cards installed.

Additional description:

- Noise bursts occur every 10 minutes or so, and for me changing the H/W buffer size always solves the problem (until the next brust).
- Sometimes brusts happen as quickly as 6 seconds into playback.
- There are two hard drives: system (60GB) and audio (250GB), all audio files are read from the audio drive.
- This machine is purely for mixing, therefore I have never even pressed record within Pro Tools.
- The noise occurs during normal playback at 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.
- Normally session files have between 20-40 tracks, hybrid mono/stereo (Music Production Tool Kit installed). However, I've managed to reproduce this problem with no external USB devices connected to machine (apart from the Mbox, keyboard and mouse) and a 44.1/16 session with a single stereo track.
- There isn't any video hardware installed, nothing is connected to the machine via Firewire.
- If any reverb plugin is installed - you can hear the white noise on the reverb tail once playback stops, which suggest that the white noise is generated from within Pro Tools before the plugins.
- It occurs when using Logic via CoreAudio Manager.
- Also, for a week now I've been running the same setup with the MBox 2 (USB) and I never experienced the same problem with it (no drivers were installed when I changed to the MBox 2).

Thank you for addressing this issue.

Roey

[dj t]

So here's my situation. I just got the New Mac Pro / Intel / 2.66GHz / 2 Processors / 4 Cores / 2 GiG Memory / 1.33 GHz Bus Speed.
I use the OG (original) M-Box / Pro Tools 7.1.1.

This white noise kicks in every time I am in a Session, getting my groove on, and scares the Hell outa me! It happens when I am either
(a) Recording a instrument, then I use the space bar to stop record mode, use the space bar to listen to what was just recorded,
BAM! the Stupid White Noise!!!
(b) I will use the space bar to playback my work. It seems to be working fine for sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 25 minutes, then
outa nowhere I get hit again! Yes, the mysterious white noise...
But, it only happens when I am Playing Back and once the white noise starts happening, I will have to close out of Pro Tools and re open it for the white noise to stop.

Now, after all this has happened time and time again and I have run outa clean shorts I went through the General Trouble Shooting instructions. Everything seems to be fine from there. Then, I tried taking out all of my Plug-Ins from HD / Applications / Digidesign / Plug-Ins alias
Nope, the White Noise kicked in wether I had my Plug-Ins in or out.
I am not sure what else to try. If anyone out there has found a solution to this problem please hit me.
Thanks and good luck to all of you!

[jes]

i think you have my info already, but:

quicksilver macintosh
dual 1ghz g4
1.5gb ram
os 10.4.7- 10.4.8
protools 7.0 (or 7.1)
mbox original
matters not which port
three or four internal ata drives,
chain one, 75gb boot disk then 200gb media drive
chain two dvd-r 75gb media drive
ata pci card - one 120gb drive

also a pci card with firewire and usb2
ati radeon 9700

like the above guy, when i hit the spacebar to play it's a gamble whether i get noise or the recorded sound. i flinch. when it goes to noise, it just plays back noise until i stop it playing or reboot.

[faultyfamilyrecords]

- Mac Pro Quad
- 4 CPUs
- 2.66 GHz
- 1GB RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.7
- Pro Tools LE 7.1.1
- (original) Mbox with music production toolkit upgrade
- Doesn't matter which USB port
- 1 x Internal SATA HDD 250GB, 1 x firewire 250 gb 7200 rpm wd
- problem occurs all the time, with or without plugins have to restart computer to fix the problem. Then when I restart and re-open session (or new) it does it agian. It doesn't matter which hard drive I use. Any help would be great.

[uptown]

- Machine model - Mac Pro
- Number of CPUs - 2
- CPU Speed - 2.66
- Memory - 1 GB
- OS version - 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE version - 7.1.1 cs2
- What kind of Mbox: original or Mbox 2? - Original
- Which USB port is Mbox / Mbox 2 connected to? - Tried front and back
- List all installed Hard Drives, 2 x internal SATA 250GB (1 x system and 1 x audio), 1 x Firewire 250 GB for samples
- List all installed expansion cards: none
- Concise description of your setup: - Internal SATA for audio only; up to 30 tracks 24 bit; no video hardware; every 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes longer; no pattern discernable

Regards

Murray Anderson
Milestone Studios
Cape Town

[summersleep]

Machine Name: Power Mac G5 Quad
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 4
CPU Speed: 2.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 4.5 GB
OS X 10.4.6
Pro Tools 7.1
Original Mbox
Connected to the top USB port (if looking at the back)
LaCie 250GB Firewire 800 - plugged into back
LaCie 250 GB Firewire 400 - plgged into back

I have had only intermittent noise burts. A few times during PT playback: closed session and re-booted; session then played normally. Also, it has happened during playback of iTunes: I'll quit and re-launch iTunes and playback returns normal.

Thanks.

[SeasonOfPain]

- MacPro Quad
- 4 CPUs
- 2.66 GHz
- 2GB RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.8, Quicktime 7.1.2
- Pro Tools LE 7.1.1 (non-cs)
- Mbox 1, connected to built-in center rear USB port
- 1 x Internal SATA HDD 250GB, 1 x Glyph FW 400 HDD 250GB connected to rear FW port
- Using Metric Halo ULN-2 daisy-chained from Glyph HD, connected via S/PDIF to MBox 1. System & other app's Core Audio routed through the ULN-2's firewire I/O, NOT the MBox.
- Put me down as another user who experiences this with iTunes launched (but not playing anything) at the same time as PT. The blast has happened several times now. Making sure iTunes is not running before launching PT seems to avoid the problem.
- Now it's happened to me twice without having a CoreAudio app running when PT is launched; both times happened when I tried to open or change screens on a virtual instrument (ToonTrack's DFHS) while it was loading up samples and PT was playing back. Neither case had any audio tracks with data (1 instrument track, 10 aux tracks, 5 empty audio tracks, 1 master fader). Besides the virtual instrument I had Waves SSL plugs on many channels and one aux track with a DVerb on it.

[dj t]

I think it has something to do in the Track Record Enable.
When I get White Noise I click on a Track record enable and that sets off the noise, in any track.
So, I have narrowed it down to the Record Enable in the track and Space bar to start playback or recording.
I have not had a problem with i-tunes and white noise only pro tools.
I am just trying to give as much information as I can so someone can help solve this problem.
I have not had any luck with the Phone Tech Support. Has anyone else?
This sucks!