Mbox 2 Mini Setup

[yake12]

I bought an mbox 2 mini and some condenser mics, one for recording vocals and a pencil style one for recording guitar. I am having trouble getting anything to work with the mbox. I installed protools and plugged the mbox into a usb port directly on my computer when prompted, and the light comes on on the mbox, however if i plug a mic into it, condenser or dynamic, nothing happens. I get no reading on the software. I made sure phantom power was on with the condenser mic and still nothing. Also, i cant get any sound out of my monitors through it. I know the monitors work because they are hooked up to my computer also. I was using an XLR cable to go into the Mbox, and my monitors are hooked up with 2 quarter inch cables.

if anyone has any info or a video or something that explains how to hook this up, or knows what im doing wrong... please let me know...

thanks very much and sorry for the long post but i just wanted to make sure you knew all the details

 

[philbagg]

I bought an mbox 2 mini and some condenser mics, one for recording vocals and a pencil style one for recording guitar. I am having trouble getting anything to work with the mbox. I installed protools and plugged the mbox into a usb port directly on my computer when prompted, and the light comes on on the mbox, however if i plug a mic into it, condenser or dynamic, nothing happens. I get no reading on the software. I made sure phantom power was on with the condenser mic and still nothing. Also, i cant get any sound out of my monitors through it. I know the monitors work because they are hooked up to my computer also. I was using an XLR cable to go into the Mbox, and my monitors are hooked up with 2 quarter inch cables.

if anyone has any info or a video or something that explains how to hook this up, or knows what im doing wrong... please let me know...

thanks very much and sorry for the long post but i just wanted to make sure you knew all the details

Have you gained it in? Try messing with the "mix knob"... If the mix knob is all the way left and you're still not hearing anything even after gaining it in (to the max), then the problem isn't the software anyway.

Have you record armed the track in pro tools and are you sure your I/O setup is done correctly?

 

[yake12]

Have you gained it in? Try messing with the "mix knob"... If the mix knob is all the way left and you're still not hearing anything even after gaining it in (to the max), then the problem isn't the software anyway.

Have you record armed the track in pro tools and are you sure your I/O setup is done correctly?

thank you so much for the comment i gained it in all the way and i got some reading of protools... but it still didnt record... but when i switched XLR cables to a shorter one with a female XLR and a male 1/4 inch and plugged it into Line 2 i actually got a recording. However it was very quiet and it only works with my dynamic mic... my condensers still wont give me anything.. and i made sure phantom power was on... any ideas on that?

 

[philbagg]

thank you so much for the comment i gained it in all the way and i got some reading of protools... but it still didnt record... but when i switched XLR cables to a shorter one with a female XLR and a male 1/4 inch and plugged it into Line 2 i actually got a recording. However it was very quiet and it only works with my dynamic mic... my condensers still wont give me anything.. and i made sure phantom power was on... any ideas on that?

Have you set the input of the track to input 1 when using the xlr?

Input 2 won't work with your condenser because you can't run phantom power through a quarter inch jack. Then again, I may be completely wrong there

Are you using XLR to TRS, or XLR to TS? (TRS = two rings on the jack, TS = one ring)

Oh, and that "small reading" when you gained it up was the noise of the preamp, not mic signal. So the signal is going to pro tools anyway. It's either a mic or a cable problem I reckon.

 

[gecko zzed]

thank you so much for the comment i gained it in all the way and i got some reading of protools... but it still didnt record... but when i switched XLR cables to a shorter one with a female XLR and a male 1/4 inch and plugged it into Line 2 i actually got a recording. However it was very quiet and it only works with my dynamic mic... my condensers still wont give me anything.. and i made sure phantom power was on... any ideas on that?

if you are using XLR to 1/4", it sounds like you are going into the line input, which won't work with the low level output of the mikes. The phantom power is only delivered through the XLR input, so you need to use your mikes with XLR to XLR cables.

 

[yake12]

thank you both very much... i had to pack all my stuff up to move across town but when i get it unpacked i will try out the suggestions