Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

So after much debate, I decided to invest in a pro-tools setup. I picked up the Mbox 2 Pro firewire. Lets just say it's been nothing but headaches. I am still not up and running. Digidesign customer support are complete buffoons. Told me to buy a new firewire card when I had sound coming out, just no inputs. Came to find out on accident, it was their stupid WinXP optimization that screwed it up. Not to mention that the firewire cable that came with the thing was dead.

Well to say the least, I'm not up and running yet. I've gotten so frustrated I went back to my old faithful Tascam DP-02 digital 8 track.

Check out "Hate Me" and "All My Life" on my profile. I think they sound pretty darn good! Lets just hope I can get as familiar with protools as I am with that Tascam.

As always I appreciate the feedback on the music!

Sadly Eseime this is concurrent with what I hear too from different places. There used to be a time when you got what you paid for but to be completely honest and as I think (At least I hope) I said? You don't have to pay too much and that what you were already doing sounded well.....

Just fantastic so why change?

It's alright musing when looking back but most people do get it to work for them. It's a massive learning curve however. 'Plug 'n' Play' is the analogue way. Digital fig-ital the other.

I've found that recording forums are the #1 place for info, I've just joined a linux platform place and am sure I'll need to learn more there too.

Don't give up. Do some reading on it but get back to what you know best in the meantime too. sometimes walking away and coming back will help a great deal.

Wishing you luck eseime

Thanks for the words of encouragement Chippy. It IS rather frustrating when you drop $600 on some diva program that works when it wants to. The whole reason why I decided to go into the pro-tools realm is that I write so many songs and I'm working with a fellow songwriter/producer to put together catalogs for submission. I'd love to start the new "learning curve" but when the stupid program doesn't even function, it's kind of hard to.

I wish I could get as comfortable with pro-tools as I am with this Tascam...

Hi Eseime.

You know what I'm going to say but I'll say it in any case. That will take time depending on how much you can take in and remember?

What is going wrong with it in any case? Specifics?

eseime wrote:I wish I could get as comfortable with pro-tools as I am with this Tascam...

"Hate Me" sounds pretty damned good, ess. This is a cover, right?

"All My Life" is way good, too. You use some great tones, man!

Our recent studio demos were done on SAW Studio. It's very much like protools IMO, and seemed extremely versatile. I guess you are vested in protools at this point, but just wanted to throw that out there for anyone else thinking about making the plunge.

eseime wrote:So after much debate, I decided to invest in a pro-tools setup. I picked up the Mbox 2 Pro firewire. Lets just say it's been nothing but headaches. I am still not up and running. Digidesign customer support are complete buffoons. Told me to buy a new firewire card when I had sound coming out, just no inputs. Came to find out on accident, it was their stupid WinXP optimization that screwed it up. Not to mention that the firewire cable that came with the thing was dead.

Well to say the least, I'm not up and running yet. I've gotten so frustrated I went back to my old faithful Tascam DP-02 digital 8 track.

Check out "Hate Me" and "All My Life" on my profile. I think they sound pretty darn good! Lets just hope I can get as familiar with protools as I am with that Tascam.

As always I appreciate the feedback on the music!

I know the feeling mate, believe me.

Anyway, it is leaving and learning.

Protools is nice in my opinion, not my prefered but nice.

I think that are better DAWs for quite less money btw.

Not worth the investment nowadays.

For me , protools is dead

Build it a track at a time and compile it.

Cakewalk Sonar >>> make sure you have a good sound card and don't use VISTA or WIN 7. (sonar 6 for older machines, higher version if you have a good, newer system that can handle resource intensive apps)

Helps to have an external sound card like the one in the foot pedal of Guitar Rig (any version).

Record live? Use the mic off of laptop, plugged into foot pedal interface.
(works fine)

"Hate Me" sounds too much like "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. I mean, it's great, but it just sounds too close.

But dude, your recordings sound fabulous. And you can write; clearly.

Love me some Pro Tools! We use both versions 9 and 10 on a Mac. Usually works fine but occasionally gets flaky like all software.

I keep getting an error when I try to record with a click track. I'll have to write it down next time but it suggested tweaking the buffer size. I did and still no dice. I have a dedicated drive for protools. I have more than enough system memory and processing power to handle it all. Not sure at this point.

You sound like me when I first started digital.

Yes the exact error message would be of great help. Also type that into a search engine you'll no doubt find similar problems from other users too.

eseime wrote:I keep getting an error when I try to record with a click track. I'll have to write it down next time but it suggested tweaking the buffer size. I did and still no dice. I have a dedicated drive for protools. I have more than enough system memory and processing power to handle it all. Not sure at this point.

Ive got an old Roland unit around the house to drop ideas on but my bassist has Pro Tools and knows how to use it so when I want to do it right I just pay him to do it. I think when you do this make sure you have your ideas ready to go. Theres nothing more frustrating to me than to have a musical Idea and then get bogged down with a program.

I just say drop the money on someone with the gear that can get it done in a hurry. I dont have time to learn all these new programs I just want to play and write.

hey man ...if you need help i will help you ..