Request for info: Mbox/Mbox2 noise bursts

[vodafunk]

Hi,

- Apple Mac mini
- 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo
- 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
- Mac OSX 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE 7.1.1
- Mbox 2
- Connected to one of Mac USB ports
- 1x80 Gig (original drive) and external 1x250 Lacie firewire triple conection (firewire 400, firewire 800, and USB)
- No expansion cards
- PT LE used on post production and musical projects , all ProTools tracks written to the Lacie external drive, at 48khz/24 bits

Noise occurs when launching Pro tools or itunes.This is terrible, because now I have an important project and is very frustrating
Please Digidesign, you are a serious company.We want a soon fix for this problem,


Thanks,

Luis

[Carlos Ebers]

Same problems here!

I have bought a MBox2. The MBox2 produces a strange noise when monitoring over the outputs. That noise starts whenever PT7.3 or an CoreAudio-App is lanched. The only situation where the noise stops (while PT is open) is when editing the Playback-Engine-Settings in ProTools. After closing the dialog, the noise is back again. I have tried every tip suggested here (switched USB-Driver with experimental one, changed H/W Buffer Size, Processors and CPU Usage) with no success at all. The headphone-Port of the MBox is working without any problem.

I'm on a iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 with 2 GBs of RAM.
While testing with an PowerPC iBook G4 there was no noise!!

- iMac Intel Core 2 Duo
- 2 CPUs
- 2.16 GHz
- 2 GB RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE 7.3
- Mbox2
- connected to any of the USB-Ports, same results
- Internal ATA-HDD 232.89 GB, ST3250824AS Q
- constant noise occurs whenever opening any audio-software using the mbox-interface (incl. ProTools 7.3)

At the moment, and there seems to be no solution at all, i'm considering giving the mbox back. Its not working for me.

[summersleep]

Hi this is my third post here, but I think it's worth documenting....

I had another painful burst of noise last night when I tried to copy a D-Verb plug - using "option+click drag" (onto a second AUX track). The session included three acoustic audio tracks (i.e., recorded via microphone via original Mbox), with two of the tracks bussed (one each) to the two D-Verb plugs.

Good luck getting this fixed.

[they call me bruce]

I have the same problem with Mbox2 Please help!!
I switch to PT from Sonar and the noise is real bad in PT
athon 64 2800+
1 gb ram
250 gb wd drive
winxp sp2

[pegleg7]

- MacPro
- 4
- 2.66 GHz
- 3GB
- OS 10.4.7
- PTLE 7.3
- Original MBox
- have tried on two of the rear and one of the front USB ports, with same 'white noise' problem resulting
- system drive - Seagate 250GB (stock), audio drives- 3 additional Seagate 500GB Internal SATAs
- no expansion cards
- no video stuff
- I have encountered the problem playing back sessions from the 'audio' drive. I have tried 2 different sessions that have 16 tracks of audio and multiple takes. I have tried 2 different sessions that have one stereo track. At first, it seemed like the problem happened most often when a new take (ie - a different set of audio files) was accessed. That is not always the case.

Once the 'white noise' appears, pressing stop and play again merely stops then plays the 'white noise'. The 'white noise' has been continuous, though does make some odd sounds - perhaps fragments of the audio tracks - when I hit stop.

I have discovered that going into the 'Setup' Menu, selecting 'Hardware', and toggling from analog to SPDIF and back, does make the 'white noise' go away, and normal playback resume (though sometimes only for a little while).

I have been able to duplicate the problem several times with iTunes playing back through the MBox, though it seems to be less frequent running iTunes than PTLE. Obviously, when iTunes was running, PTLE had been 'Quit'. iTunes was playing back off the System Drive.

As many other users have stated, I also emplore that a solution be found. I was extremely lucky in that I happened to be monitoring quietly when this first happened. There is certainly a threat of hearing damage with this problem, especially if one was wearing headphones. The noise comes at a very high output level.

For what it's worth, this same MBox works without any problems on my G4 1.25GHz, Mirror Driver Door, OS 10.3.2., PTLE 6.4.

[MixerGuy]

- (snip) .....
I have discovered that going into the 'Setup' Menu, selecting 'Hardware', and toggling from analog to SPDIF and back, does make the 'white noise' go away, and normal playback resume (though sometimes only for a little while).

(snip)...

Brilliant! THANKS! This works here as well - all the time. This helps...... till there is a fix.

[babelfish42]

Hi Guys,

I just upgraded to 7.3 and it's continued, worse if anything.

- Mac Pro
- 4 CPUs
- 2.6 GHz
- 1 GB RAM
- Mac OS X 10.4.8
- Pro Tools LE 7.3
- Mbox 1
- connected to rear right USB port
- 3 x Internal SATA HDD 200GB and 2 x 300GB, 1 x firewire 400 HDD 300GB connected to rear FW400 port

- problem occurs every ten minutes, while editing, or playing back in Pro Tools while useing any configuration of drives.

Nerves destroyed, but the show must go on.

[nimasounds]

i used protools off an external hd lacie250g. i read somewhere protools doesnt like working off external hard drives for what ever reason??

everytime i turn my computer on(macpro 2.66g 1g ram) i put the session i want on the desktop and disconnect the external.. i have only had i occasion where there has been an outburst of white noise in the past 2 weeks (instead of everytime i use it). and had another outburst when i ejected the hd while i had reason open.

this has seemed to fix the problem for me so far by making sure there is no external hd connected.
but im sure there is more to it..

if you havnt tried it then do, and if you dont use external hd and still have issues hope digi sort it out soon. hope this continues to work..

[Coolchris77]

Macbook Pro

Intel 2,16 GHz

Mac OS X 10.4.8

100GB HD

2 GB RAM

PTLE 7.3

Got really bad not ending Noise bursts no matter which Audio Signal i play or record.
I´ve tried iTunes Logic Pro 7 and PTLE 7.3 also Guitar Rig 2,Battery 3 etc. in Standalone Mode shows CPU Peaks (from 1% to 100%) periodicaly nearly every Second.

Chris

P.S.: Sorry for my bad english i´m from Germany

[pegleg7]

I purchased and installed a quality PCI card USB. Having the MBox on the PCI card USB did not get rid of the problem; the 'white noise' happened within 30 minutes.

Help...