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  #1  
Old 09-20-2020, 10:16 AM
zedkah london noise zedkah london noise is offline
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Default Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

After an old pc dying on me I am building a new pc and belatedly moving to windows 10.

So I have the Mbox pro 3 with firewire attachment. And looking around here i can see it now has a lot of issues.

But I like the mbox and found it very solid and reliable on windows 7 but I gather its a bit of a legacy device now- firewire certainly is. but I see people still have them and a lot of driver issues etc being reported. whats the opinion in here is it still a viable piece of kit?
do i need to get a firewire port card for my pc- any recommendations or do firewire to usb3 adapters work?
I'm thinking i will play around sticking to the mbox for a bit longer if I can ...or is the advice to move on and get a new interface now.

my last protools version was 11 which did everything i needed. do you think I will be needing to update here as well?

any opinions welcome,

thanks,

richard
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  #2  
Old 09-20-2020, 05:26 PM
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albee1952 albee1952 is offline
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Default Re: Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

No firewire-USB adapter will work. A compatible firewire card is pretty easy, just get one that fits an open slot in your machine, AND make sure it uses a T.I. chipset(though this is not as crucial as it used to be).

PT11 on Windows 10? Not sure its supported, but it may still work. "Not supported" means it is untested and you may not be able to get help from Avid in case it doesn't work(but it may work anyway).

Be prepared to fuss with things and keep your fingers crossed(but also, be aware that you may end up needing to upgrade both PT and the interface). The good news there is that A-the current version of PT adds several features that you don't have now(like more tracks, VCA's, Folder Tracks...). And B-there are several good interfaces that can replace the Mbox 3 pro(and will sound as good and may cost a lot less). In a real pinch(as a last-ditch experiment), you could try using ASIO4ALL instead of Avid's Mbox driver(this would be a total "hail Mary" and if it didn't work, I would immediately uninstall ASIO4ALL)
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Old 09-21-2020, 11:30 AM
zedkah london noise zedkah london noise is offline
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Default Re: Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

Thanks Dave,

this is helpful. You have potentially stopped me putting too much energy into dead ends... and sort of what I was expecting / dreading. I have an old firewire card from my last build but they seem to have changed the format of the pci slots on motherboards so the old one doesnt fit.

I would just have loved to stagger some of the expenses a bit. (fat chance!)

Too much to research all at once...and looking at PT upgrade options makes my heart sink a bit. Yeah you never know what new features might help lift your game...

Two months ago I had a workflow, software/hardware I understood and I was creative.....(hits the wall)


richard
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Old 09-21-2020, 01:01 PM
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albee1952 albee1952 is offline
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Default Re: Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

FWIW, I'm quite happy with a Presonus Studio 1810c connected via USB3(can also do USB-c). They have several models in the range with more or fewer IO, so you might find one that suits your needs without busting your wallet.

Re the PCI slot, the old PCI protocol is pretty much dead and buried and we now get PCI-e(way faster and better, but not compatible with PCI).
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Old 10-03-2020, 03:42 AM
zedkah london noise zedkah london noise is offline
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Default Re: Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

The presonus range is a good call- My motherboard has a nice usb c on its in/outs ,so I went this route as well- out of a kind of tidyness as much as anything.
PT11 seems to work ok on W10 for me. I did have that funnybusiness loading it up with the ilok loader being too old but the threads on here helped me through that. The drivers that came with the presonus worked well.

Thanks for your help.
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  #6  
Old 01-26-2021, 10:30 AM
Max Br Max Br is offline
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Default Re: Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

Hi, everyone!

I used to have a Hackintosh , but now I upgrade to a new pc that have w10 pro and cant be able to configure my mbox pro 3 , i have a firewire pci card with texas chip. window seems to find it and install it. also i downloaded the mbox pro3 drivers but cannot find it or selected as the default audio interface to use it on my pro tools. Will appreciate your help!
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  #7  
Old 01-26-2021, 10:53 AM
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albee1952 albee1952 is offline
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Default Re: Mbox 3 pro and windows 10 pc

2 things come to mind:
1-make sure that Windows is NOT using the Mbox as its default playback device(set that to the on-board sound card)
2-it may not work at all(certainly a bummer, but it is not a supported combination) so you may be stuck buying another interface
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