Deevolution of the Mbox

[bilco]

I tried to like the Mbox 2 series, really I did. I had an Mbox 2 Mini that suffered from the intermittent distortion problem and I admit I didn't exactly follow the troubleshooting steps to the letter of the law, so maybe it would have been okay eventually. I got weary of it all and gave it to a friend with the warning that it could be troublesome and went back to my trusty Mbox I. No distortion problems ever, just the occasional high pitched whine, which I can work around.

Then I bought an Mbox Micro with PT LE 7.4, really just to get the free upgrade to LE 8 more than anything. I alternated between my Digi 002 Rack and the Mbox I for recording and rough mixes and the Micro went back in the original packaging and gathered dust.

When they announced the EOSS for Mbox I, I was bummed, but finally decided that I would take the plunge and upgrade to 8.0.3 and just use the Mbox Micro to edit and mix when I was away from the other rig. I haven't upgraded to Snow Leopard yet and tonight I wanted to listen to some recent song ideas captured on my G4 PPC iBook, Mbox I and PT LE 8.0.1.

I plugged in the Mbox Micro, powered up the iBook and opened a session. I can't believe it; the same intermittent distortion that plagued the Mini also occurs in the Micro. That and lots of errors thrown that I was running out of resources. I closed the session and tried other sessions with fewer tracks and ran into the same issue with distortion and errors. I powered down and plugged in the Mbox I and got the session up and running again.

No intermittent distortion, not a single error thrown, the Mbox I worked flawlessly. I played back 3 sessions from beginning to end without any problem at all.

The Mbox 2 series definitely has pluses, especially more gain in the preamps. But why on earth would it be more demanding than the original Mbox was? I don't get it.

bilco

[smasarsky]

I hear you bud. I my go to is a 002R and I bought a micro for the same reason as you, but there is something stable about the original Mbox. And is it just me or didn't the preamps sound better on the original. Can't sell it because it won't command much and can't really use it. Curious if it can be used as a preamp via spdif somehow.

Anyway, running all new intel mac...sticking with 8.01 on the laptop for a little but what to do, what to do...

[bilco]

I agree about the preamps on the old one sounding better, just not much gain. And the DI on the old Mbox sounds better on my Pbass than the Digi 002R DIs do. I am trying to figure out if it is possible to go get a new Macbook Pro,but have Leopard 10.5.5 loaded on instead of Snow Leopard and just stick with PTLE 8.0.1 for awhile.
bilco

[stiefelmusik]

I've been using an original Mbox since they first came on the market running PT LE 5.x and OS 9.2.2 (!) and later with just about every incarnation of PT LE up until 8.0.1. During that time, I also worked on a Digi001 and Digi002r, but I always thought the preamps on the original Mbox sounded better than either of them.

So, you can imagine how bummed I was when I read the original Mbox will no longer be supported after 8.0.1. Since then I've been kicking around the idea of buying an Mbox2 (Pro, Mini or Micro), but after doing lots of research I'm ruling it out. I will continue to use my original Mbox until Digidesign releases an Mbox 3 or something.

Other than that annoying high-pitched whine we all know and love (which comes and goes on my Mbox) I love that little box! It's just been perfect for my workflow over the years.

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by bilco

I tried to like the Mbox 2 series, really I did. I had an Mbox 2 Mini that suffered from the intermittent distortion problem and I admit I didn't exactly follow the troubleshooting steps to the letter of the law, so maybe it would have been okay eventually. I got weary of it all and gave it to a friend with the warning that it could be troublesome and went back to my trusty Mbox I. No distortion problems ever, just the occasional high pitched whine, which I can work around.

Then I bought an Mbox Micro with PT LE 7.4, really just to get the free upgrade to LE 8 more than anything. I alternated between my Digi 002 Rack and the Mbox I for recording and rough mixes and the Micro went back in the original packaging and gathered dust.

When they announced the EOSS for Mbox I, I was bummed, but finally decided that I would take the plunge and upgrade to 8.0.3 and just use the Mbox Micro to edit and mix when I was away from the other rig. I haven't upgraded to Snow Leopard yet and tonight I wanted to listen to some recent song ideas captured on my G4 PPC iBook, Mbox I and PT LE 8.0.1.

I plugged in the Mbox Micro, powered up the iBook and opened a session. I can't believe it; the same intermittent distortion that plagued the Mini also occurs in the Micro. That and lots of errors thrown that I was running out of resources. I closed the session and tried other sessions with fewer tracks and ran into the same issue with distortion and errors. I powered down and plugged in the Mbox I and got the session up and running again.

No intermittent distortion, not a single error thrown, the Mbox I worked flawlessly. I played back 3 sessions from beginning to end without any problem at all.

The Mbox 2 series definitely has pluses, especially more gain in the preamps. But why on earth would it be more demanding than the original Mbox was? I don't get it.

bilco

Something isn't right here and I don't think it's the Mbox 2 Micro.

There are differences between the two - Mbox 2 Micro supports multi-client Core Audio and uses a kernel level driver. There may be some kind of interaction going on there causing the problem.

What I need from you is a complete description of your system and the symptoms (error numbers, etc). The Help Us Help You thread details what we need to know - I would strongly encourage reading the entire post and providing the necessary info, as it will help us diagnose the problem.

[stiefelmusik]

Originally Posted by bilco

...
When they announced the EOSS for Mbox I, I was bummed, but finally decided that I would take the plunge and upgrade to 8.0.3 and just use the Mbox Micro to edit and mix when I was away from the other rig. I haven't upgraded to Snow Leopard yet and tonight I wanted to listen to some recent song ideas captured on my G4 PPC iBook, Mbox I and PT LE 8.0.1.

I plugged in the Mbox Micro, powered up the iBook and opened a session. I can't believe it; the same intermittent distortion that plagued the Mini also occurs in the Micro. That and lots of errors thrown that I was running out of resources. I closed the session and tried other sessions with fewer tracks and ran into the same issue with distortion and errors. I powered down and plugged in the Mbox I and got the session up and running again. ...

It could also be simply the combination of the iBook G4 with 8.0.1 and the Micro which is the problem. To be honest, I'm kinda surprised you're able to get PT 8 going at all on that rig! I don't have a compatibility chart handy, but I'm almost certain that's an unsupported configuration.

With that said, I've been running PT 7.4 on an unsupported 800 Mhz Powerbook G4 with the Mbox 1 for years. It is definitely a different animal from the later Mbox series though, which is probably why I've been able to get away with this.

Hope you get it sorted out!

[bilco]

Thanks for the replies stiefelmusik and Digi Tech Support.

I went out and bought a 17" MacBook Pro late in the afternoon on the same day I made the first post on this. I have a Fast Track USB Mk II that came with PT Essential (which is a GREAT simple songwriting tool for me!). It wouldn't run on the PPC ibook and I was tired of competing for time on the iMac with my wife.

I was thinking I could load PT E 8.0.3 and PT LE 8.0.3 on the MacBook because I was able to do it with Windows on the iMac Boot Camp Partition running XP. OSX won't let me load both though.

Anyway, while I did have PT LE 8.0.3 loaded on the MacBook, the Mbox Micro worked fine, no distortion, no whine, played back all the demos fine and the sessions I have recorded too.

So, the Mbox Micro (and maybe the Mbox Mini) problems I experienced had something to do with running PT 8 on the G4 PPC iBook. My apologies......

I still love the original Mbox though and am tempted to step down from Snow Leopard to Leopard 10.5.5 and PT LE 8.0.1 because it worked really well, even with the iBook.

If I run into more problems I will work through the troubleshooting thread and post a report.

bilco

[sunburst79]

I've never had any issues with my Micro or the 4 MBox2 Minis I've bought as far as hum or sound quality goes. I would have been leaning towards the iBook being the culprit also. Enjoy the Macbook Pro.