using Pro Tools Ultimate with Mbox?

[Viera]

Hi

I am going to buy a month subscription for PT Ultimate, and I wonder if my old Mbox is enough as a hardware for it. Is it going to work, or do I need those HDX/HD Native card to install and use Ultimate?

The reason why I want Ultimate is that I need to use much more than 128 tracks while editing...I think I dont need any other new features, which my current PT 10 dont have.

If Mbox is enough, do you know what is the best Mac OS for both Ultimate and Mbox to work properly?

Thanks a Lot!

[Darryl Ramm]

Welcome to DUC.

Ultimate has nothing to do with your interface. The interface provides no processing power to Ultimate. As long as it has enough physical IO for and can support the sample rate etc. for what you need to do.

What will bite you is software/driver compatibility. You need to make sure you can get drivers for your mbox that are supported on the same operating system that the version of ultimate you use will need to run on. And you should check that your plugins are also compatible. Hopefully you are already running Pro Tools standard 2020.x or close in that systems and can just add an Ultimate subscription easily. It may be you want to replace the Mbox to get driver support on a recent OS version.

You don't give any info about your OS and software versions you are running today but Pro Tools operating systems compatibility tables and Mbox driver compatibility information is all findable with Google. If you are using Pro Tools you need to get familiar with them.

Edit: here I'll save you the Google for comatbiiltiy table: https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...tibility-Chart

Can't help you with the Mbox. Not going to try to guess what "old Mbox" means. What generation? What exact model?

[Viera]

Thank you very much for answering,

and sorry for lack of specifications. Unfortunately, I am using PT10 from 2013, and therefore I am using prehistoric OS X 10.9.5. Together with Mbox 3rd gen.

I have a chance now to borrow another mac, where I can install whatever OS, but as I am looking it doesnt seem like Mbox3 and Ultimate will meet somewhere.

And just checking, Ultimate is the only way to get more than 128 tracks right?

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Viera

And just checking, Ultimate is the only way to get more than 128 tracks right?

Simultaneous tracks? Yes.

But, if you don’t need all the tracks audible at once, you can just make the ones not required inactive. For example. Your session has 150 tracks. They will all be visible, but you will only be able to hear 128 of those at the same time. The other 22 will not output audio.

Also, it’s 128 stereo or mono tracks. Standard version of PT counts them the same. So you could have 100 stereo tracks and 28 mono tracks playing simultaneously.


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[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Viera

Thank you very much for answering,

and sorry for lack of specifications. Unfortunately, I am using PT10 from 2013, and therefore I am using prehistoric OS X 10.9.5. Together with Mbox 3rd gen.

I have a chance now to borrow another mac, where I can install whatever OS, but as I am looking it doesnt seem like Mbox3 and Ultimate will meet somewhere.

And just checking, Ultimate is the only way to get more than 128 tracks right?

128 tracks? Audio tracks? MIDI tracks? The comparison is here: https://www.avid.com/pro-tools/comparison

If expect you need to find a new interface with recent macOS support. The Focusrite 2i2 is widely seen as an OK minimum interface. But do you even need one... if you are mixing with headphones or are OK with connecting monitors to the Mac you can use Built-In Output (or whatever it's called on that Mac) instead of a dedicated interface.

You can't always install "any" OS version on another mac. What exact model is the mac. that affects the earlier and latest macOS versions installable. All that info is likely most easily found on everymac. e.g. https://everymac.com/systems/by_capa...supported.html

[Viera]

Thank youu,

in the end I installed 10.15.7 on 2015 MBP 15 i7. I will buy another usb external sound card that is supported, or maybe I will do as you say, connect monitors directly to mac.