draynes said:
I don't have the money for that right now. But am looking into being about to parallel units. Like 2 fire box's or get a fire pod later and I will have my more inputs I will need. But I need to start somewhere for now learn software and recording technices. Presonus says you car parallel firepods and the inspire with the firebox soon to come I am awating an email from them on that subject. what are some good monitors and mics. Around $150 for monitiors and A $100 for a condensor mic. Any help would be great thanks
Go with the FireBox. IMHO, it isn't even a contest.
If you go with Pro Tools LE, your projects are basically locked into Pro Tools LE, as it does not have a way to export its project files as OMF to import into other DAWs. Not sure about Cubase, but at least you can upgrade to Cubase SX (which exports OMF). With LE, you'd have to find somebody with a full blown Digi setup, since even the LE version can't do OMF export, AFAIK.
With LE, you're stuck permanently at 32 tracks. There's no place to go, as AFAIK, they don't have any beefier versions of PT available that don't require bigger hardware. Very costly to feel like your only choices are dumping your existing DAW or doing a $20k "upgrade" to finish a project.... With Cubase, you have a 48 track maximum, and you can upgrade to SX (which I don't think has a track limit) for not too much money.
The MBox 2 is USB, which due to a number of fundamental flaws in the design of the USB audio transport layer (and the underlying transport layer, for that matter), is significantly more prone to random glitches than FireWire. The FireBox, of course, is FireWire.
Finally, Pro Tools is very picky about compatibility. I've heard stories of compatibility breakage from OS updates/service packs. Not sure how often they have problems, though. I've never felt a need to use Pro Tools, personally....
Like I said. It isn't even a contest.