Mbox Goodbye

[bilco]

Other than having to watch for headroom issues when using the DI on bass or wishing they had a little more gain for an SM7b, I think the preamps on the Mbox 1 sound pretty good. I can work around their limitations just fine.

I don't get errors thrown until I get into > 10 tracks with multiple plugins. More than one instance of Melodyne or 2-3 reverbs spells trouble. But for acoustic singer/songwriter based sessions, anything > 10 tracks means I am overproducing anyway. Since I made the decision to let real engineers do the mixing from now on, I don't really bother with plugins that much, just try to get good clean tracks that they can work with.

For a songwriter who needs to spend more time writing and less time troubleshooting gear and learning how to use it, I could really get by with just this: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/0...e-big-picture/

Lots of howling about it going on here!! :) http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?p=1457853

I started with a version of Cakewalk Music Creator that had a GUI based on a Portastudio. I love and miss the intuitive simplicity of that DAW. Maybe PT Essentials is all I need. If the preamp in the Fasttrack has more gain than the Mbox 1 and sounds as good, that may be a good solution for a bandmate who is really technology challenged but a great guitar player who wants to record.

It got really trendy to talk about bypassing the Mbox preamps with other front ends (like dropping a Corvaire engine in a VW Beetle, yeah it can be done......but why?), but that little box really does everything I need, stock ...... sniff

bilco

[mamacita]

Bummer, can't say that I'm all that surprised. With my discount it'd be way cheaper for me to go and buy Logic Studio than to get a new Digi interface, seems like a good time to take the plunge!

[sunburst79]

The original MBox was designed to stream audio under PT 5.3 and OS9 and Windows 98 which were strictly 32bit systems. Digi obviously feels that its no longer worth the time or effort to maintain the driver code or that doing so would hinder future PT development. The USB MBox2 series share a more modern code base and the MBox does not.

Despite the fact that the MBox2 series and the MBox share a common interconnect (USB1.1) the resemblance ends there. It's a audio interface thats made to be connected to a realtime audio streaming system which is far more demanding than say something like a USB printer. The fact that the MBox and the MBox2 share the same interconnect is irrelevant in this case.

The good news is that they are probably moving forward into a area thats proven to be problematic to the original MBox. Or they just decided to drop it-it is seven years old at this point. Only time will tell.

[getz76]

Originally Posted by GMP

Yes. But I do realize that it's just a matter of a few years before the MBox2 and MBox2Pro will be obsolete. I was under the impression that this was a rock solid stable platform and now I gotta contend with MBox not being around one day so it's just frustrating.

If you are worried about obsolescence with DAWs and digital audio, get out now. How about those guys who spent $50k on project studios with 16-bit Alesis ADAT decks and outboard gear back in the early 90s? You can outclass that with $5k these days.

[accession]

Originally Posted by stonehenge

...and apple is the one who cut off ppc starting with snow leopard, you might wanna talk to them instead.

If that's where it's at, then exactly.

This ain't exactly a Digi issue.

If the computer won't run the current OS, one can't complain about it not running the current applications, IMO.

Oh wait, you're talking hardware. What's the difference?

Remember the Digi001? But that's a PCI card device.

Ok, so what exactly is the issue within the original Mbox and its drivers so as to not be forward compatible I wonder? Presuming the drivers are significantly different from the rest of the Mbox range?

Either way, I don't think it's too unreasonable for the entry level box from 7 years ago to be shortly unsupported. And it'll still do PT 8.0.1, which is pretty damn slick. Think of where the Digi001 owners are stranded at.

Will be a sad day when my Digi002 Rack doesn't make the grade.

[timmy4402]

So, is there any kind of upgrade program for us MBox users? I don't want to have to pay retail when a portion of the cost covers the software which I already own.

[juca2929]

Originally Posted by rainsong

You do realize your interface (the MBox2) is still supported, right?

The original MBox was a USB1 device and it's not very surprising that its time is over. I used to have one. It sounded good, but it had major throughput issues compared to the MBox2 devices, and it is definitely old technology today.

I'm pretty sure the MBox2 interfaces are in use by *way* more people than the original MBoxes, and I think worrying about your product becoming obsolete is a bit premature on your part.

The MBox 2 is still USB 1.1...