Our jumper replaces this logic, forcing pin 12 high all the time so audio is always on. Now your Mbox will run without a computer. Zach Poff. With a simple hack you can use your old Mbox 1 as a standalone analog mic preamp! I really wanted this tale of planned obsolescence to end happily, so I traced as much of the circuit as I could understand and discovered a very simple solution… Before modification, the Mbox has 3 basic modes: Connected to a computer with old supported OS and Pro Tools installed: Everything works already, so this mod is not for you.
Also, where did you get that time machine? Phantom power works. No digital audio connection to host computer. Connected to a USB power supply not a computer : Audio circuits disabled. No amount of trickery with resistors on the data lines will help. This is actually proper USB device behavior: The Mbox must wait for a computer to approve its request for full power before it can enable the audio portions of the circuitry.
It needs to be connected to a real computer to get permission, so it limps along forever when plugged into a USB charger. This mod is about standalone operation without a computer. But, you might have luck with the USB audio driver available from Ploytec.
Ask them about it, not me. Enter, stage left, the latest addition to the Digidesign product line: the Digi Rack. As the name suggests, it is housed in a very sturdy 2U rack case, making it easily portable. The recommended specifications for both Mac and PC are listed in the 'Hardware Requirements' box, but potential purchasers would also be advised to visit the Digidesign web site, as this contains further information on computer systems that have been tested with the Rack and are therefore known to be compatible.
In fact, as described below, I used two PC systems, a P4 desktop and a relatively new Dell laptop — the latter obviously of interest if the Rack is to be used as part of a mobile Pro Tools system. Pro Tools software is based around two main windows: this is the Edit window. Summary specifications of the Rack are provided in the ' Numbers Game ' box. However, if you compare the photographs of the Digi from the December review with those of the Rack here, the parentage of the Rack hardware is easy to see.
With the exception of a slight repositioning of the power supply, the rear-panel connectivity of the Rack would appear to be identical to that of the Digi , in terms of both specification and layout.
To the right are inputs , on both XLRs and quarter-inch balanced jacks. The upper left of the rear panel features all the analogue outputs: the Monitor Output pair, eight analogue outputs and an Alt Mon RCA pair for sending the main output to a cassette deck, for example. As the supplied Pro Tools LE does not support surround sound mixing which is a great shame , perhaps the most obvious application of the multiple outputs is as sends for integrating external hardware processors into a session.
The Getting Started manual is perhaps a little vague about the best sequence of daisy-chaining the Rack with other Firewire devices for data pass-through — but the hint is that any Firewire drive used for audio ought to be connected directly to the host computer, so presumably the Rack might have to be at the end of a chain on computers with only one Firewire port. The layout of the controls on the front panel of the Rack is very similar to those found along the top strip of the Digi To the left, this features four large Gain knobs used for inputs The right-hand side is dominated by output level controls for the main outputs and a headphone output — the only jack socket on the front panel.
Usefully, there are also Mute and Mono switches for the outputs. The Mono switch is an excellent touch, given how important mono compatibility still is in audio for broadcast.
Simon Price reviewed version 6 of Pro Tools in both its full and LE incarnations in the SOS May issue, so there is little point in revisiting that ground in too much detail here. Usefully, version 6 now allows up to audio tracks to be opened in an LE session, using a voicing system for selecting which 32 tracks are actually audible.
Other key features that appeared with v6 include some of the Digibase functions, providing improved project management facilities, and Groove Quantise for MIDI.
As Simon mentioned in his review, Rewire support was promised and, for music production, is perhaps the most significant addition to v6. While LE retains all the elegance of the Pro Tools user interface it does, of course, have some limitations when compared to a top-of-the-range Pro Tools system.
Aside from reduced audio track counts, one obvious limitation is the lack of surround sound support. Given that the likes of Logic and Cubase SX both now include good software support for surround sound mixing, I do wonder how much longer Digidesign will be able to leave this out of LE.
It would certainly make the multiple outputs of both the Digi and Rack desirable to a wider group of potential users. While LE installed and ran first time, it was soon pretty clear that something was not as it should be. I received a regular supply of errors with both the supplied demo Sessions and new Sessions created from scratch. This card is a couple of years old it was one of the early IEEE PCI add-on cards available and it is certainly not on the fairly limited 'approved' list given on Digidesign's web site.
I tried moving the card to a different PCI slot but this did not seem to improve matters. Fortunately, I happened to have available a relatively new, Firewire-equipped Dell laptop. This specific model the Inspiron , while not as well-specified as my desktop PC in terms of pure hardware grunt, did happen to be a model that Digidesign had tested and approved for use with the Rack. Repeating the install process with the Dell gave instant and trouble-free operation.
Even the busiest of the demo Sessions containing some 20 audio tracks, a few MIDI tracks and a dozen or so plug-ins played back without the machine breaking into a sweat. Unfortunately, I was not able to get hold of an alternative PCI Firewire card for the desktop PC, to confirm if this was the actual source of the problem.
Clearly the review unit itself was in perfect working order — but given how careful Digidesign are in publishing lists of 'approved' computer hardware for use with their systems and they are to be commended for doing so , it would perhaps be advisable for anyone whose hardware includes different components to try and arrange a suitable demo. I did all further testing on the laptop. Potential purchasers of the Rack will probably be most interested in four key areas of performance.
In looking at the first of these issues, I can only reinforce the views of Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser when they looked at the Digi in December Within this area of the market, I cannot see why anyone would have serious complaints about the audio quality of the Rack.
While I'm not a regular Pro Tools user, whenever I have used either Free, LE or the full version, I've always been impressed by the elegance of the interface. In one sense, the lack of clutter in terms of MIDI functionality contributes to this feeling.
With almost all editing and mixing jobs being done in either the Edit or Mix windows, the workflow never seems to get obstructed.
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