protools mbox, only 2 inputs?

[jmorris]

Could'nt an mbox,mbox 2 to be specific, accept 16 inputs at a time when used with something like a Mackie 1640 firewire mixer. I read somewhere here that there inputs are limited but I am not sure if that is due to the mbox only having 2 inputs or more a software,protools le thing. Anyone know?

[bennychico11]

it's both
Pro Tools LE only allows one interface at a time (and their own brand of interfaces only)...while the Mbox 2 is a USB 1.1 device which simply can't handle the bandwidth of 16 I/O

[deejaytrixx]

yup what he said..but of course you can expand the number of i/o using the s/pdif

[pezking]

not on the original mbox you can't.

it's either the anaologue or the digital, not both

[deejaytrixx]

Originally Posted by pezking

not on the original mbox you can't.

it's either the anaologue or the digital, not both

Are you referring to my post? If you are the original Mbox comes with a S/PDIF I/O. If you connect that to a A/D converter that also has S/PDIF you can increase the number of I/O. I've done it myself and seen it done many times...The most problems you might have is world clock, which I have never actually seen been a problem

Edit:
Of course this depends on how you want to use your system. By the increase in the number of I/O, I am referring to how many analog tracks that can be recorded simulatenoulsy by adding another device that is S/PDIF capable and still staying in the Mbox price range.

[pezking]

Originally Posted by deejaytrixx

Are you referring to my post? If you are the original Mbox comes with a S/PDIF I/O. If you connect that to a A/D converter that also has S/PDIF you can increase the number of I/O. I've done it myself and seen it done many times...The most problems you might have is world clock, which I have never actually seen been a problem

Edit:
Of course this depends on how you want to use your system. By the increase in the number of I/O, I am referring to how many analog tracks that can be recorded simulatenoulsy by adding another device that is S/PDIF capable and still staying in the Mbox price range.

Yes I was referring to your post.

With the original Mbox, you could only use 2 channels I/O at a time. Either the analogue or the digital.

With the Mbox 2 you can have 4 simultaneous ins, 2 analogue and 2 digital. However you could only have 2 channels of output but across the digital and analogue. I.e. the outputs are mirrored. So Left Analogue=Left Digital and Right Analogue=Right Digital.

[deejaytrixx]

I understand what you're saying, but this doesn't exactly deal with the point I'm trying to make. He can still use for instance, an A/D converter with lets say, 16 I/O's and presumably extend his I/O count to 17 with the original Mbox.

I believe you are referring to the actual Mbox unit not being able to accept more than two inputs on it's own, without a S/PDIF extension.

No doubt you are correct, but S/PDIF offers you a workable work around.

[bennychico11]

Originally Posted by deejaytrixx

I understand what you're saying, but this doesn't exactly deal with the point I'm trying to make. He can still use for instance, an A/D converter with lets say, 16 I/O's and presumably extend his I/O count to 17 with the original Mbox.

I believe you are referring to the actual Mbox unit not being able to accept more than two inputs on it's own, without a S/PDIF extension.

No doubt you are correct, but S/PDIF offers you a workable work around.

no you can't have 16 I/O with the Mbox. First off, S/PDIF is limited by it's own design to a max of a four channel protocol (although the most you more commonly see is only two channel devices). Second, again, the USB 1.1 protocol also limits the amount of simultaneous I/O you can have with an interface. Since the Mbox is a USB 1.1 interface, it only allows you two channels. The Mbox 2 came out and pushed the USB to allow 4 channels. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a USB interface that allows much more. The max I've seen is 6 channels of I/O simultaneously on one. Most companies use firewire for more than that.

[pezking]

Originally Posted by deejaytrixx

I understand what you're saying, but this doesn't exactly deal with the point I'm trying to make. He can still use for instance, an A/D converter with lets say, 16 I/O's and presumably extend his I/O count to 17 with the original Mbox.

I believe you are referring to the actual Mbox unit not being able to accept more than two inputs on it's own, without a S/PDIF extension.

No doubt you are correct, but S/PDIF offers you a workable work around.

Further to what Benny has said, even with an SPDIF converter, you can only have 2 channels of input and output for the Mbox.

In addition to that, as he pointed out SPDIF tends to be a stereo connection.

Originally Posted by bennychico11

no you can't have 16 I/O with the Mbox. First off, S/PDIF is limited by it's own design to a max of a four channel protocol (although the most you more commonly see is only two channel devices). Second, again, the USB 1.1 protocol also limits the amount of simultaneous I/O you can have with an interface. Since the Mbox is a USB 1.1 interface, it only allows you two channels. The Mbox 2 came out and pushed the USB to allow 4 channels. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a USB interface that allows much more. The max I've seen is 6 channels of I/O simultaneously on one. Most companies use firewire for more than that.

SPDIF with 4 channels? Can you point me in the direction of some info on this? I didn't know it existed. Are there any devices that support it?

[jmorris]

Thanks everyone. I was aware of the " have to have a protools/m audio piece of hardware" thing but I wondered if there is a piece of protools hardware connected, would it then allow a non protools piece of hardware in. Figured not. Thats dumb!But it is what it is..

[deejaytrixx]

Originally Posted by pezking

Further to what Benny has said, even with an SPDIF converter, you can only have 2 channels of input and output for the Mbox.

In addition to that, as he pointed out SPDIF tends to be a stereo connection.



SPDIF with 4 channels? Can you point me in the direction of some info on this? I didn't know it existed. Are there any devices that support it?

dude, I'm not saying that you will be able to record onto 16 individual tracks into pro tools, I'm saying that if you wanted to, you can use S/PDIF as an extender..that is y I said it DEPENDS on how you want to use your system..It's the same as if I take an analogue board with 48 inputs, run it into one channel of my mbox, and record. Will it be one track in PT, of course! but can I record more than one track at a time..sure..

And if you think this is a crazy way of working, that argument definitely has merits. But do some dudes do it, obviously.

It has obvious advantages for ppl who are sure of what they are recording and just want a stereo mix from many mono takes....like a drum set for instance..

[bennychico11]

Originally Posted by deejaytrixx

dude, I'm not saying that you will be able to record onto 16 individual tracks into pro tools, I'm saying that if you wanted to, you can use S/PDIF as an extender..that is y I said it DEPENDS on how you want to use your system..It's the same as if I take an analogue board with 48 inputs, run it into one channel of my mbox, and record. Will it be one track in PT, of course! but can I record more than one track at a time..sure..

when you are talking about I/O count people usually assume you mean simultaneous I/O. When you said "He can still use for instance, an A/D converter with lets say, 16 I/O's and presumably extend his I/O count to 17 with the original Mbox," we all assumed you were meaning simultaneous I/O. Because I=input and O=output. So extending the I/O would mean adding more in and outputs to the original Mbox. Which is not possible.

Yes, you can take a 36,549 channel mixer, sum it down to two channels and kick those out S/PDIF and into the Mbox....but the resulting input is STILL only two channels. It'd be the same thing if you had 36,549 musicians in a room all playing at the same time into two microphones that were plugged into the Mbox. You only get two channels.

I think we were just confused as to what you were getting at.

SPDIF with 4 channels? Can you point me in the direction of some info on this? I didn't know it existed. Are there any devices that support it?

an example of a multichannel S/PDIF device you might be familiar with, your consumer DVD player. I have mine hooked up to my receiver via S/PDIF. The multichannel DTS codec is transferred to my surround receiver and decoded so I can have 5.1

I'm not aware of any recording industry devices that allow you to transfer 4 channels though...but I think it's very possible one could be out there. The channel status bit in the S/PDIF protocol is what determines how many channels of audio is to be used. Two channels is just the most common usage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDIF
http://www.minidisc.org/spdif_c_channel.html

[pezking]

Originally Posted by deejaytrixx

dude, I'm not saying that you will be able to record onto 16 individual tracks into pro tools, I'm saying that if you wanted to, you can use S/PDIF as an extender..that is y I said it DEPENDS on how you want to use your system..It's the same as if I take an analogue board with 48 inputs, run it into one channel of my mbox, and record. Will it be one track in PT, of course! but can I record more than one track at a time..sure..

And if you think this is a crazy way of working, that argument definitely has merits. But do some dudes do it, obviously.

It has obvious advantages for ppl who are sure of what they are recording and just want a stereo mix from many mono takes....like a drum set for instance..

I guess what I don't get is what difference it makes using it with SPDIF or analogue. I also didn't really make sense of what you wrote previously.

Originally Posted by bennychico11

an example of a multichannel S/PDIF device you might be familiar with, your consumer DVD player. I have mine hooked up to my receiver via S/PDIF. The multichannel DTS codec is transferred to my surround receiver and decoded so I can have 5.1

I'm not aware of any recording industry devices that allow you to transfer 4 channels though...but I think it's very possible one could be out there. The channel status bit in the S/PDIF protocol is what determines how many channels of audio is to be used. Two channels is just the most common usage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDIF
http://www.minidisc.org/spdif_c_channel.html

Unfortunately those links don't really answer my question (or at least what I meant )

As far as I knew the 4 channel capability was actually redundant and was added, during SPDIFs inception, as a solution for quadrophonic sound as Sony and Philips still thought it was going to take off.

From what I remember of DTS, it's an encoding of multiple channels, to two, so that the same signal can be replayed whether it has been decoded or not. So it's like a pseudo multi-channel coding, rather than providing multiple discreet channels.

I do hope that makes sense