Mbox alternatives

[bradeinhorn]

looking to do some home recording on garage band. don't want to fork over the 400+ for mbox and protools. any suggestions. not trying to make a gold record, just want to have some fun.

Don't really need info on mics, just the audio preamp/interface.

[swinginmandolins]

Brad,
I don't use a Mac, but for my pc I use my old 4 track tape recorder into my audio in, like a mixer. It's only really good for 2 tracking as you only have left and right pan, otherwise you can have up to 4 mikes if you get creative. I use it to record solo or at most a duo so it's not an issue. Then you can use your software to do the rest. That was my solution to not having the $$ to spend on an interface. You could probably use a mixer to do the same thing.

[J.Albert]

From my own experience, I'd recommend the Presonus Firebox, either new ($299) or used (you can find them relatively cheap on Ebay, check link I've included).

The Firebox is ideal for the Mac, because it utilizes the "CORE audio" drivers built directly into OS X (10.3.7 or later required). This means no "3rd party" drivers are necessary. You just plug in the Firebox via Firewire, open the "Audio/MIDI Setup" application (included with OS X), choose the Firebox as your sound device, then open the application you need to use.

The Firebox has 2 XLR mic inputs with 48v phantom power, can also accept "direct" input from electric instruments, it also has 2 aux inputs and 2 digital/SPDIF inputs as well (6 total inputs simulaneously). Also has MIDI if you need it (I don't).

It works fine with either GarageBand or the Cubase LE software that is a part of the Firebox package. Actually, if you take a little time to learn Cubase LE, you'll find it _FAR_ more useful than GarageBand, relatively full-featured (of course, it lacks the power of ProTools), and quite easy to learn and use.

You can run the Firebox off either Firewire "bus power" or from its own power supply block.

Within ten minutes of taking the Firebox out of its packaging, I had it up and running doing some test recordings with GarageBand. it was literally _that easy_ to set up and use.

Here's the ebay link I used to research used pricing:
http://search.ebay.com/presonu....ZSearch (http://search.ebay.com/presonus-firebox_W0QQfromZR8QQfsooZ2QQfsopZ3QQsbrsrtZdQQsub mitsearchZSearch)
(no financial interest in any of the items for sale there)

I'm very happy with mine after a year+ of use. There are some newer interfaces out there, but haven't seen anything so far that would make me want to try something else. For about $150-175 used, it's a sweet deal (considering I paid $400 when it was relatively new to the market).

- John
(nowhereradio.com/johnalbert/singles)

[steve V. johnson]

There is a -lot- of stuff out there now, interfaces are everywhere and inexpensive, too.

Ones that use USB 2.0 connections to the computer are less expensive, the ones that use FireWire are a bit more.
I like firewire better, but that's just me, both connex seem to work well.

I use site of the retailer Musicians Friend as a reference, they have about everything and the site is organized pretty well for research and comparison. I'm not necessarily recommending that you buy from them, it's just a good place to start because they have a lot of stuff. I always check prices and warranties, etc., all over the web before buying from any retailer.
Also, in this sort of thing, used gear can be a great value. There's not much that can go wrong, as long as the software has all it's security and access codes.

Having said all that, I recently did a project with a kid and his dad who had bought a Lexicon interface and it sounded great.
I think it came with Cubase software and as I recall they said it was dead cheap.

Sorry, none of this is directly about GarageBand, but I think that GB will open files from almost any interface...

Good luck,

stv

[bradeinhorn]

thanks - any experience with m audio box?

[Stillpicking]

Audacity is freeware and works OK on my Mac but for more intense projects I use Peak Lite which I paid around $150 for.
Both of the above can be used for direct recording to your laptop and also for post track editing.

[steve V. johnson]

I bought an M-Audio box for a fiddler pal, but I have yet to get any tracks from him made with it. I can't remember just what model it was, but I got it for about $129 from MusFriend. He uses a fast PC laptop, and he said that he had some software that could catch the audio from the box. I think M-Audio makes real good stuff. I'm sure that the mic preamps and analog-to-digital converters won't be as good as those from veteran audio pioneer Lexicon, but I'm not certain that that's a critical difference, per dollar.

I have Audacity and I use it to edit mp3's because all the other pgms I could find (for Mac) open the mp3 data compression and make full-bandwidth files from them, which uses a whole lot more hard drive space. After years of using ProTools, I find
Audacity functional, but clunky. Audio quality is fine, but the the effects have really crude controls, so it's tough to use them
to achieve truly subtle uses. But for simple editing, it's fine. One thing that happens with Audacity (correct me if I'm using it wrong, here) is that the longer it is open, say editing a long (an hour) mp3, is that it takes longer and longer for the buffers to reset after you stop a playback. So I wait for the green lines on the meter to go away before it will take another command of any sort. So, to edit an hour-long mp3, I usually have to do a quarter of that file at a time, then save and quit Audacity and come back to it later. Also, the Audacity 'saves' are huge, often over a gig for editing a 150mb mp3 file.

But I still use it. <GG> I would think that recording -to- Audacity would make me nuts, but as I said, I'm an old PT veteran, so just because I'm conditioned/spoiled/trained to that and for good or ill, that's my standard.

I also have a Peak 5 LE that I got from Bias on sale for $80. It's ok, but I thought it would open mp3s as such, but it converts them to larger files, too. It's a lot easier to do more subtle edits on this than on Audacity. I think it would be easier to record to Peak, but I haven't tried it. I know that Peak 'understands' Mac Audio Units...

stv

[sean808080]

i've had my eye on the mackie spike combo. i've used tracktion and really like its simplicity for audio recording. you can usually get a bundle with the spike interface and the tracktion software for a lot less than the mbox dealio.