using mbox 2 mini with ableton live 8

[ronzel]

Hi,
i recently received the mbox 2 mini as a birthday present.
great present but i am new to music production and would like to know if the is a good sound card to use with ableton live 8?
It comes with pro tools which i don't think i'll use but in the manual it bangs on about pro tools.
Is the mbox good value for ableton use or should i return it and get something better suited?

Any advice much appreciated..

[leedsquietman]

Mboxes are totally optimized for ProTools. You can run other software on them using the DAE driver from Digidesign but often have to trade off performance and latency compared to other 3rd party interfaces using ASIO/Core Audio drivers.

Even with Protools, the MBox is a very underwhelming piece of gear, very much focused on the budget end in terms of performance, pre amp quality and pre amp gain is mediocre, no +4dB options (only -10 dB line), latency under 256 samples usually not achievable, etc. It's OK as a noob entry level product but if you really get into production and desire better quality, you will outgrow the MBox quite quickly.

If you're going to get into Protools, you're better off with an M-Audio 2626 or Profire, which are decent interfaces and can be run with Live, Logic, Cubase etc under ASIO/Core Audio really well.

[joeyfivecents]

I use this with Live 8 and it works great. Try it before you dismiss it altogether. As long as you don't need a lot of inputs it does the job just fine.

[BBScience]

Mbox's use Core Audio inside Live/Logic/Whatever. DAE is the name of the audio engine in protools, not a driver

The Mbox is only underwhelming if you have a need for lots of in/out connections. If not, its a great peice of gear for the price tag, especially considering it comes with ProTools.

Also...I track stuff in both Live and Protools at 128 samples without any problems.

[leedsquietman]

The pres are not good, the s/n ratio is not good, (comparitively), it has no +4 dB mic line input mode, it's maximum gain is 10db below most other interfaces and most people I know cannot track sub 256 samples latency (esp on windows PC).

It still works better with Protools than other devices, not surprising given it is designed as a hardware dongle for PTLE.

In short - if you are not interested in Protools, you would be better off with mostly anything else.

True about DAE though - what I meant was that the M-Box is known to function better under the DAE driver for Protools than Core Audio, so apologies.

[nuxnamon]

my girlfriend uses the mbox mini as her audio interface but she uses live 8.. it's mainly a sketch pad for her and for any serious work, it gets done on my setup. so it does work but what leeds said is all probably true. she wasn't too fond of pro tools and is also a ableton fan boy.. but to reiterate, if your not going to be using pro tools, it would be best to get another audio interface..

[channelite]

I was using the Mbox2 for a while. Seemed pretty good as a 2 in 2 out sound card. Though, it wouldn't work when I upgraded to OSX 10.6 and I'm refusing to buy Pro Tools 8 which is what I would need, to get the driver. It worked well in 10.5. I got it because I was Pro Tools LE user since 2000 and I had alot of PT songs. Currently I'm using a motu 828mk3, since the drivers work with my system and Live 8.