What's the deal with inputs ?

[doley50]

Hello ,
I've been using an M-box for quite sometime . Selling My Black Face
A-DAT and 24 x 8 bus mixing board. I through I would never need them
because I mostly record just myself. Well that's changed .

I love working with Pro-Tools but I don't understand why the don't
make a LE interface that has at least 8 channels of Mic inputs.

It seems that with in the last 5 to 10 years the lanuage for input channels
has changed .

Does any one record live drum sets anymore ?
What about a live band ?

How can you do this with 2 or 4 mic inputs ?

It's seems that these interfaces are design to be used with mixing boards
or recordings that are done track by track with drums coming from a loop or drum program .

I guess In short I need to buy a mixing board .
Man how things change so fast .
How do you keep up ?

just some thoughts.

Anyone eles make the mistake of selling equiment that they now find they
need ?

[tech1]

On eoption that most people take is to get an external, 8 channel preamp that has an opticl ADAT output. You just run that into a Digi002 (or 003!) ADAT input, and you're off an away. As far as included preamps with Digidesign products, the Control24 has 16 preamps built in.

[5454stevef]

Hello ,
I've been using an M-box for quite sometime . Selling My Black Face
A-DAT and 24 x 8 bus mixing board. I through I would never need them
because I mostly record just myself. Well that's changed .

I love working with Pro-Tools but I don't understand why the don't
make a LE interface that has at least 8 channels of Mic inputs.

It seems that with in the last 5 to 10 years the lanuage for input channels
has changed .

Does any one record live drum sets anymore ?
What about a live band ?

How can you do this with 2 or 4 mic inputs ?

It's seems that these interfaces are design to be used with mixing boards
or recordings that are done track by track with drums coming from a loop or drum program .

I guess In short I need to buy a mixing board .
Man how things change so fast .
How do you keep up ?

just some thoughts.

Anyone eles make the mistake of selling equiment that they now find they
need ?

Yep... I'm in an almost identical boat. I bought my Mbox with the intention of doing guitar/vocal stuff, a few overdubs, now of course things have evolved to the point where I'm needing to record drums on multi-track. Fortunately I didn't sell any of my old stuff - when I need to track drums, I record them on my Roland VS-1680 thru my old board and dump the tracks into ProTools two at a time. It's tedious but it is a lot more flexible than recording the drums on two tracks.

I've tried it both ways, even though it's a pain, I still prefer the multi-track method.

Could be the reason digi doesn't make LE systems with more mic inputs is because it might cut into the sales of HD setups. The Mbox and LE is a wonderful system when you stay within its intended application, but I have
to admit I feel boxed in on hardware. If I were on another platform, expansion would be a much simpler matter.

Steve F

[doley50]

Thanks Guy's
I don't feel so alone now.
I like the Idea of the 8 pre into the Digi 02,

And yes the Contol 24 is just what I need I just can't swing the 8 k

I'm thinking the MOTU 8pre may be by best bet

The softwear that comes with the MOTU are you familar with it ?
I wonder if I can inport a MOTU session into PRO-TOOLS ?

[Keniko]

I bought the 002 and a Octopre with the Adat optical card when the 002 first hit the streets. It's definetly the way to go and it works like a charm. You also have 4, 1/4" inputs you can get connectors for for a total of 8 XLR inputs. Plus the flexibilities of the 002 controller in the Pro Tools inviroment out weigh any digital board you can buy in this price range. You can pick up Octopre's on eBay for like $500 - $600. I would strongly advise this. What's nice about the Octopre is Ch. 1 and Ch.2 have 1/4" instrument inputs for Bass, guitar, or keys. It's like having a high tech direct box. It's sweet. I'm buying another one plus the Alesis HD24 for live recording. Another sweet set up.

Edit.....
The softwear that comes with the MOTU are you familar with it ?
I wonder if I can inport a MOTU session into PRO-TOOLS ?

Dude, YOU HAVE PRO TOOLS LE !!!!! Why would you want to deal with MOTU? Buy an Octopre. With this it will give you 12 XLR inputs and 4, 1/4" inputs for a total of 16 mic inputs. That's all you'll need.

[tech1]

Not quite. Those extra 4 inputs are for line-level signals, and are NOT suitable for microphone connection. Unless, of course, they run through a preamp beforehand.

As far as session interchangability with Pro Tools and other software, you have two options:
1. Make sure the non-Pro Tools session has every single audio file begin at the exact same time, then import them one by one into pro Tools.
2. Use this: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DigiTranslator/

[Audioholic]

The Mbox is really tailored to not needing many inputs at once, for feild work, laptop work etc. I use mine on my extra computer to run more VI's. The 002 and now 003 are designed with more inputs in mind, in fact you can have 18 at once. I am not at all dissapointed in only having 4 included pre's, because I much rather use external pre's anyway, run that via adat, so now instead of 4, I have at least 12 right there. Your best bet would be to upgrade your hardware and get an extra external 8 mic pre that will run adat into pro tools.

[Keniko]

Tech 1,

Thanks for pointing this out. I thought there were transfomer connectors available to go from mic XLR female to line male 1/4" for signal matching. That what I ment by stating proper connectors.

[doley50]

It seems that there are a ton of option , but it all boils down to $ surprise.
If I want to stay with Pro-Tools it's going to cost Me at least 3x as much
as purchasing the MOTU 8pre.

Digi 02 $1000.00 ( there was a price drop since the introduction of the 03 )
8 PRE w ADAT $500.00 ( this price range is alitle hard to keep with but it may be possiable )

Or I could go with the MOTU 8pre for $550.00

Digi Translater I can't see why anyone would spend $500.00 on this softwear
for what it seems to do to me it's only worth about 50 bucks if that.
It should come free with Pro-Tools.

Pro-Tools is so much like Apple. once you start using them you can't possiably
use anything eles because nothing works as well.

But Man do they want to get paid for all there hard work. :D

Is Pro-Tools that good ?
I've never used anything eles except for Apple's Garage Band and while GB
might be cool for some things. I find I never use it .Pro-Tools Smokes it.

I know what I need to do I just need to spend the cash or Credit ?

Thanks for you input it's alway nice to hear from others.

John

[jpleong]

That's kind of the thing, too, about proprietary software and hardware. You end up guaranteeing the quality of the stuff you work with. I am not a Pro Tools user at all (but I have used Avid) so I've experienced the great frustration of having interfaces not work with software, not work with certain firewire chipsets, etc... and it can be really annoying. To switch over to something that guarantees (to a certain extent -nothing is perfect!) hardware and software compatibility is, for creative professionals, huge! Not having to deal with interfacing issues is usually worth the extra thousand dollars -especially if you're working for someone else. The added benefit of being relegated to three interfaces, as opposed to one thousand, is that when something does go wrong there's only one (maybe two) company you call to get things right.

JP