Original Mbox on the Mac

[Cartoonguy]

I have an original Mbox (hence the title!) and I want to know what version of Pro Tools will work with it on the Mac as I understand it is no longer supported. I currently have Snow Leopard.

Also, if I go and upgrade to OSX Lion, will my original Mbox ever work with any version of Pro Tools, or is the Mbox done?

[albee1952]

The old Mbox is done after Leopard and PT8.0.1, so Snow and Lion are likely never to work with the old blue box. Mbox2 still work fine and can be found pretty cheap these days(but my preference is still a used 003rack).

[nicktammer]

The old Mbox is done after Leopard and PT8.0.1, so Snow and Lion are likely never to work with the old blue box. Mbox2 still work fine and can be found pretty cheap these days(but my preference is still a used 003rack).

NOT QUITE TRUE !
My original Mbox works perfectly with the usb-audio.de (ploytec) driver, OS X Snow and Lion, Pro Tools 9/10.
Better stability than with digi core audio drivers and PT7/8.01.
The original Mbox has inserts (unlike mbox2 or 3) which allows me to completely bypass the internal pres or track with a compressor, which is pretty cool.
(Not that the internal Focusrite pres were that horrible, but I own a pair of Neves -1073 DPA)
I will probably change some day but for the moment Mbox1 still fits the bill for takes "on the go" and is not going anytime soon to the trash.
I already owned the PC ASIO usb-audio drivers (when they were called "propagamma", they were considerably better than digi's asios to use the mbox with Nuendo) so I only had to pay 30 bucks for the core audio version.
The normal price is 60 though, so you have to judge if it's still worth it to prolongate the life of your Mbox, or if you want to go for a new box to use with PT9/10.
(either a mbox3 if you haven't bought PT10 yet, or for example a focusrite scarlett 2i2 that can be had for 150, no inserts and Digital I/O though)

[pz4pete]

could you please explain what you did to get those .de drivers to work for the original Mbox in Lion? thanks

[leighthal73]

I am currently running my 1st Gen MBox on my 2.4 GHz Intel Core MacBook Pro. I am running OSX 10.6.8 and PT LE 7.1.1. From what I can gather it isn't supposed to work, but is currently working for me.

[GregV]

Hey nicktammer... I just went to Ploytec's website and couldn't find the driver...

Could you please offer up a link, and maybe some step-by-step instructions for this?
Also, is it easy/possible to switch back and forth? My MBox 2 Pro is quite reliable with my current set-up, but I would love to be able to use the original MBox on occasion, and for "on location" recordings.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks