Recent content by bilco

USB 1.1 is severely limited for bandwidth. ESPECIALLY compared to PCI. The most stable, lowest latency PT rigs I ever had were the Audiomedia III card and the Digi 001, which were both PCI. I let them go and bought a variety of USB and Firewire interfaces that run PTLE. Currently I am using...

I went down the rabbit hole of gear lust for 5 years, working all the way up to API and Great River preamps, a decent mic locker and tons of hardware and plugins.....none of which helped me sing better, play guitar any better or write a better song. I realized that, at least for me, the gear...

Are you on a PC or a Mac? If a Mac, use the Garage Band that comes with it and just get an inexpensive USB 2.0 or Firewire interface and that will give you a good start. I personally love Pro Tools as a program and I have had most of the interfaces that come with LE. I like the original Mbox...

The rotary pan was just hard to manipulate with a mouse when recording automation. The L/R slider was easier to work with a mouse, but with the Alpha Track that is a non-issue now. bilco

I had the Mbox Mini and though its preamp had more gain than the original Mbox, I liked the sound of the original Mbox preamps better, especially when using the DI for bass. I think the original Mbox preamps sound better than the preamps in my Digi002 Rack, although they have a LOT less gain...

PT LE 8 all the way I prefer the look of the classic GUI better, but I am getting used to it. I hated the pan until I got an Alpha Track and now I am fine with it. For some reason, it seems to use less resources than 7.3 did, which is great for my tired old ibook. The virtual instruments are...

It will work for country/southern rock or any genre if you can: 1. work one track at a time against a click track or drum loops or 2. record your band's rhythm section live into a mixer with the mixer outputting in stereo to the 2 inputs of the Mbox, then overdub solos and vocals a track at...

I don't know why I like it so much, I guess it is the simplicity of just having to setup the Mbox 1, ibook and a set of headphones. Then either a mic or the bass in direct. I have also gotten it to work with MIDI by just plugging my M-Audio USB keyboard straight into the other USB slot on the...

Old thread alert - Just an update for those trying to find out about Mbox 1, Leopard and PT LE 8. I am running that combination on an 1.2 GHz 12" ibook with 1.2 Meg of RAM and it works great. I tracked vocals, bass and acoustic guitar the other day and it never gave any kind of error message...

That's true and I have not had an opportunity to use a Digi 003, which is supposed to have the best preamps yet. I don't swoon over the Mbox, but I also don't summarily dismiss them when they have fallen out of vogue. They do what they do fairly well. I have never had the opportunity to use...

That has not been my experience. I have been doing A/B tests between the different Digi preamps for several years now, 001, 002 Rack, Mbox 1 and Mbox 2 Mini. I don't really have anything good to say about the preamps in the 001, although it was a great box, very stable, low latency. Worked...

One technique I learned out of a book called "The Artist's Way" that I had forgotten about is to cut out all tv, radio, internet, whatever for one whole week. It really does work. It is way harder for me to give up browsing forums that it is to give up tv. Also, I have burned up weeks of my...

The thing that got this whole new batch of songs started was dedicating myself to an 8 hour day of doing nothing but writing. I used drum loops and forced myself to use rhythms outside of my normal comfort zone, like the Bernard Purdie shuffle used on Toto's "Rosanna", train beats, latin beats...

Try co-writing with someone else with what you have started or just finish them as quickly as you can, with whatever comes to mind, then rewrite if needed or finish them out as conversation or narrative, like telling a story without having to worry about the rhythm or the rhyme restrictions...

It is funny - they sure get the hate on forums, but I think it was an amazing piece of gear for $500 new, and at ~ $150 used, it is a no brainer.