Sonar 3 w/ MBox

I don't really know anything about the Mbox, but softsynths won't require any special routing since they're "in the box". The only thing your softsynths will use the Mbox for is monitoring.

If I were you I would stay away from the Mbox and go for Sonar. You would have to get an interface of some sort if you don't have one already. That route might cost you more upfront but I think you will be happy in the long run.

Pro Tools requires certain chipsets on the motherboard in order to run correctly and if I remember the Dell laptops have had trouble. Check the Digi site for approved setups. Also check the DUC for all the trouble the Mbox can cause. Who knows, you may be one of the lucky ones that wouldn't have trouble with the Mbox.

With Sonar you don't have to worry about the chipset. You have a Dell, it's a PC platform, and your running Windows. No Problem. Plop in the Sonar CD and go. As I said before, you'll be happy with Sonar.

Just saw this on the Digi forums:


My PT experience so far....

-Bought Mbox with PT5.3.3, seemed to have some cool features (AU$700 2nd hand)
-Incompatible with pretty much every other app I use, had to upgrade to 6.1.1 (AU$75). Still remained fairly incompatible
-Unbearable noise emitted, had to buy hum emliminator (AU$100 2nd hand)
-Strange noises still being emitted, had to upgrade USB card (AU$40). Nothing much changed...
-After several months of owning Mbox, finally started using PT
-Pathetic performance, tirelessly screwed around with tweaks, settings etc
-Found my motherboard had an incompatible integrated chip
-Line drawn, Mbox back to ebay

I'm not posting this out of spite, I'm just posting incase it will assist in making Pro Tools a better product. I can see the advantages in having Digi hardware so picky about it the system its being run on, but I felt mislead by the Mbox since I wasn't aware of any of this at the time of purchase. AU$700 second hand was a reasonable price to get a great program with a portable interface, but had I realised I would have to spend potentially hundreds more just to be able to use its most basic features I wouldn't have got it. Maybe I've just been unlucky? Anyway, without the DUC (which I think is fantastic btw) it would have been laughable to think I could have gotten the Mbox to work as much as I did (which was still less than tolerable as explained).

Incidentally, I just purchased an RME card and Nuendo. Runs like a dream on a system that couldn't simultaneously record two tracks for more than 5 mintues with PT...But if I did persist in perfecting my PT system, would the RME/Nuendo setup match it? Who knows, but I won't be spending anymore more time or money to find out.

For what its worth the Mbox Should work..you will have to download ASIO drivers from digidesign website so you can use it with Sonar...also be aware that since it is USB latency could be a problem... you never know until you try and see .I used mbox for quite a while with sonar on a pc finally upgraded to PCI card and it was the best decision so far. Hope this helps

I have used M-Box without issues for about a year now. I think the guy that posted was either trolling or inept. M-Box is rather simple to operate...well I should clarify that M-box was easy for me to operate.

Hi Nate,I am working on my friends laptop.He runs an mbox with p.t l.e 6.7.I have installed sonar4 demo on it as he would like to see what it can do.I cant get s4 to 'see' mbox.I gave downloaded and inst the asio 6.1 driver from digi and still no go.I opened device manager and see a yellow flag next to multimedia device."this device has no drivers installed"P.t works fine tho???

I have an MBox, but mostly use it with PT LE for live recording.
Cakewalk added ASIO support specifically for Digi products (including MBox) in a Sonar 3 point release. Just make sure to apply the appropriate Sonar update, and get current drivers from Digi.

I'm quite pleased with the audio quality of the MBox (very nice mic pres - but then, I've never used a high-end mic pre).
It has some quirks: occasionally, I get very bad stuttering/static (clock out of sync?) when I plug in the MBox before launching PT LE. My workaround is to first start PT LE, and only connect the MBox when prompted. That seems to fix the problem, but I always listen to the 'mix output' stream before I hit Record, just in case.

Latency is quite audible. Since I use the MBox for live stereo recording, it's not an issue for me.
If I was buying an interface now, I'd look at a Firewire product (or possibly the Edirol UA-1000, which is USB2).
M-Audio has a number of nice products; the Presonus Firebox (with 4 simultaneous analog ins) looks promising, and is very small, and the Tascam 1804 (4 mic pres, ADAT I/O, 2x4 MIDI ports) is also attractive, though a bit large (2-space rackmount). As always, check for driver issues before you buy.

Good hunting,

Jim