Mbox info appreciated

[dylan1950]

I'm just new here and am amazed at the help that people provide so I thought I would throw in a question (or 2) and see where it gets me.

I'm considering buying an mbox to do some home recording. I do have a few questions.

1) drums - do you need a drummer or drum machine to record from or are there plug ins that will provide the necessary track(s)?

2) firewire - why do they recommend a firewire device for storage? Why is it different from a USB connected storage device.

3) Pro tools - can someone with absolutely no recording knowledge use the program effectively. (I do know computers and I'm not completely stupid.)

Any feedback on the above would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[AlexW]

The biggest thing to understand about the Mbox is that it only allows you to record two channels simultaneously. And there's no way to expand it or plug in other devices to increase that. If that suits your needs then it's actually a nice little unit.

As far as drums go, if you're recording a live drummer you'll need to mix everything down to 2-tracks outside the Mbox and then record then on two channels. I'm not aware of any plug-ins that spit out drum beats; but there are CDs and DVDs available with different programmed beats and different tempos, etc. that you can import as .wav files that might work for you.

As far as firewire drives go--the important thing is that you have a seperate hard drive dedicated to your audio sessions. This will work with two or more internal drive or external firewire/USB drives. The newer USB drives I think are as fast as the firewire drives. The deal as I understand it though is that the firewire protocol involves some form of error checking/regulation of the data stream coming across, while USB does not. If your computer doesn't have a firewire port there are PCI cards that you can install that are pretty affordable.

Protools has two main windows--an edit window and a mix window. The mix window is laid out like an analog mixer. If you're familiar with them at all the interface should be pretty intuitive. The edit window shows the track files as wave forms and/or volume envelopes on an x-y scale. Once you understand the layout it's pretty easy to go in and edit the files.

Bear in mind that there are myriad other alternatives and interfaces. You may do well to evaluate your needs (how many sources do you want to be able to record at once, etc.) and maybe visit a local shop to see the software programs (PT and others) installed and running.

 

[dylan1950]

Thanks, I'll keep browsing the forums. There seems to be lot's of info there. I'm looking to do basic tracks - sort of a sketch pad for songs I've written, not looking for finished product or anything fancy.