Two Questions

[Wolfram]

Two Questions;

1) I currently have a ProTools MBox 2 setup. From the MBox 2 I run in to a Soundcraft Spirit E6 mixer L & R. I use a Shure SM57, Shure SM58 and a Behringer C1 in to the board. My computer is a P4 3.01GHz, 1 GB RAM dual screen machine.

I get an annoying hiss when I pay stuff back. When I record directly from the MBox 2 with the mics plugged directly in to the rear I get no hiss. I figure it is is the soundboard. Is this normal and is there away to get around the hiss?

2) As per my setup above I can only play for about 2 minutes before I get playback/recording errors and the recording stops. As you can imagine, this is very annoying. Is this just the MBox 2 and the limitation is from the USB 2.0 cabling? If I was to by a DIGI 002 and have firewire would this remedy the problem?

These two issues are killing my creative flow. Please help.

Wolfram

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Wolfram

I get an annoying hiss when I pay stuff back. When I record directly from the MBox 2 with the mics plugged directly in to the rear I get no hiss. I figure it is is the soundboard.

Please explain this a bit better. The exact signal chain with hiss vs. w/o hiss. As is it's hard to tell exactly what you're saying; "in the back" of what? what "soundboard"?

Originally Posted by Wolfram

2) As per my setup above I can only play for about 2 minutes before I get playback/recording errors and the recording stops. As you can imagine, this is very annoying. Is this just the MBox 2 and the limitation is from the USB 2.0 cabling? If I was to by a DIGI 002 and have firewire would this remedy the problem?

The interface type itself has nothing to do with it; USB can handle two channels of audio without problem with a whole world of room to spare. If, however, you are recording to an external USB drive or burning to a USB disc burner at the same time as you are bringing your stuff in, that could potentially - though honestly, not likely - give you some glitches.

Far more likely your errors are coming from problems with the data flow inside your PC.

- Run all virus and spyware scans on your PC first to make sure you get rid of all that crap that can get in the way.

- Run full Scandisk and Defrag on your hard drives (important).

- If you have more than one *physical* hard drive on your system (partitions on a single drive don't count), try to record to your non-system (not C: ) drive.

- Turn off all unnecessary processes on your computer while recording. Get it off the Internet, close TSRs like virus scanners if necessary, cloe all other applications (there's no need to be doing anything else while you're recording.)

G.

[Wolfram]

Glen,

Thank you for your help.

I hope this provides a better explanation.

SM57 -> Input 1/2 Mbox -> PC (via USB)= No Hiss

SM57 -> Input 1/2/3/4 Mixer (Out through Mix L and Mix R)-> (In Input 1 and Input 2) Mbox 2 -> PC (Via USB) = Hiss

If this doesnt help I will try and take some photos.

Thank you again.

Wolfram.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Wolfram

SM57 -> Input 1/2/3/4 Mixer (Out through Mix L and Mix R)-> (In Input 1 and Input 2) Mbox 2 -> PC (Via USB) = Hiss

1. Make sure that the lines from your mixer to your MBox are plugged into Line In jacks and not Mic In jacks. If you are running the line level signals out of your mixer into the mic pres on your MBox, you're over-amplifing your signal and probably generating too much hiss.

2. If that's not it, then try swapping the cables out between the mixer and the MBox to see of maybe they might be noisy.

3. If it is neither of those, then your Spirit is noisy.

Personally my money is on #1, with a hedge bet on #3.

HTH,

G.