theres a folder inside the digidesign folder on your HD that got installed called documentation or something. its al lin there. it should ahve come with a getting started guide

and as for choosing a preamp and software and shit, its all in this thread.

Thanks a lot man


Now i just gotta get that damn RAM upgrade lol

alright.


so pretty much its firepod vs mbox 2 mayhem in my household right now.

any thoughts?

i dont know about the mbox preamps, but the firepod's preamps are complete crap. i also hate cubase, all my friends that are getting into recording talk about how amazing cubase is when they are hardly even experienced. i use acid pro and can make better sounding songs than they can. they have all this equipment and dont even know how to use cubase. they also talk about how cubase is better than protools even though they have never even used protools or seen it used.
if you are going to fullout mic drums get the firepod, otherwise get the mbox since it has protools, get affiliated with the industries standard software instead of this joke called cubase.

you should probably go back and read the last few pages

Ive got an mbox and dig it

Where exactly can you send a recording to get mixed/mastered?

theres thousands of answers for that. it all depends on how much your willing to pay. if you want top notch mixing/mastering then you will pay top notch. when you say "send", it leads me to believe that you are giving up the right to be there during the mixing. this is, what i believe to be, a huge mistake. any idiot can "mix" or "master" a song. heres a few pointers

1) be there for the mixing or mastering. when i say be there, i mean be able to check up on the engineer and your songs to see what direction he/she is taking them in.

2) get samples of his/her work. see what this person has mixed/mastered. this is SO important. ask for aiff or wav files to make sure you get the best quality samples.

3)make sure you specify how YOU want your record to sound meaning if you want a raw, in your face feel, or a big, "overproduced" sound

4) mastering is iffy. most people who call themselves "mastering engineers" will throw a limiter on and smash it to shit to get the song louder(see the new thursday cd for an example of that). a real mastering engineer will have a "mastering house" which will be equipped with a few finely tuned rooms with several different monitoring options so they can really fine tune everything.

5) be smart about everything. make sure you research long and hard if you want the best job done at the best price

good luck

i consider myself a mixing engineer somewhat, so if you want something more on the cheaper side, send me an IM at godjuice666. ill send you over some samples. they arent the best, but i didnt record any of them (you cant polish shit) so hopefully you can get past that fact. the reason i say it will be cheap is because i dont work off of super expensive equipment. no SSL, no outboard gear, all that garbage. everything i do is in the box, meaning plugins as opposed to outboard gear. so yea, let me know if your interested. if your on a tight budget, im a good person to turn to. if you have good money to spend, then dont be afraid to look around everywhere (google, myspace, gearslutz.com)

sorry if it's been covered, but what are the differences between the mbox 2 and the mbox 2 pro?

the Acoustica programs are great for beginners. i still use Acoustica Mixcraft to record all my stuff. its very basic and easy to use. comes with effects and stuff. its just simple and rad.

to hear what ive done with Acoustica Mixcraft, go to www.myspace.com/bradsonemanband (acoustic stuff) or www.myspace.com/ohioohio (electronic stuff)

hope that helps

-----------------------------------

now i have a question...

are there any AutoTune programs i can use that dont need a corresponding program to run it?

i had one before, but i had to use it with Cubase and i really dont like using Cubase... as i said in the post before this one, i use Acoustica Mixcraft for my recordings.

i hope someone can help me!

So i just got my mbox2 mini hooked up about a week ago (finally), and fuck, it's gonna take some time to figure out pro tools.

But anyways, recording has been fine except for one thing really. When i try to record guitar, i plug it in directly to the mbox with a 1/4 inch input, but when i try and raise the amount of gain the volume gets too high and go's into the red, so i can never put the gain up too high. And even when it's at it's highest amount of gain with out going into the red, i have to lower the volume on my guitar and i can barely hear it through my monitors, if not at all.

So i was wondering if anyone could help. Should i be recording my guitar tracks by using a mic and amp? Or does anyone know of a way to fix my volume problem?

Also, would it help if i bought a small mixer to run my monitors through? One of the (like 50) user manuals it came with showed a picture of a set up like that. I've tried it with my PA system in place of the mixer, but that didn't seem to work, unless i wasn't doing it right.


So yea, if anyone here, who's familiar with pro tools and the mbox, has any suggestions or solutions to my problem, that would be great and highly appreciative, thanks.


Edit: Oh yeah, in that same picture that shows the setup of the mbox with the mixer, it shows something that says "fire wire" connected to the computer, what is this?

Firewire is a type of port/connection. Similar to USB, but insanely faster, and it doesn't have the "bottleneck" problems that USB does. Digi 002/3 and Digi 002/3 Racks use Firewire, as well as the M-Box 2 Pro.

Before I go any deeper in to this, is it an acoustic or an electric guitar, and what make/model?

i personally think the mic'd guitar amp sounds 100 times better than a direct recording, unless you are recording some classical music or something. You'll be surprised at the quality you can get from one mic infront of your amp...unlessing you have really shitty gear.

i have 2 condensors (the same one), and i like using them in stereo, putting them equidistant away from the amp on either side like a foot away. i've gotten some pretty sweet tones. but as most of this shit goes, it's pretty much all preference. fuck around alot until you find something you like.

and for the moniters, they are always nice...but kinda shitty unless you have an iso booth or whatever to record in. becuase if you are layering tracks you cannot listen to the already recorded tracks while recording in the same room. good headphones will give you pretty good quality while you are recording. and remember, your recordings will sound surprisingly different on different sets of speakers, so fuck around to see what you like.

unless he's using an acoustic electric, in which case he needs to get a D.I. box because M-Boxes only handle balanced signals. if he's not using a D.I. and plugging a 1/4" TRS into the box, it's not going to work.

the way he phrased sounds like he is running directly from the guitar output jack to the mbox input jack and is using either the mbox or recording software to peak to guitar into breaking up...
if so, he should definately atleast use a guitar preamp such as a pod or running direct or headphone out from the amp.

Thanks, and it's an electric guitar, Schecter Omen 6


And yea, i'm running the guitar directly to the mbox with a 1/4"-1/4" cable


I probably sound really stupid asking this question, but what exactly is a preamp?

what do you guys know about recording or making hip hop beats? i have fruity loops 4 and it has a lot of shit you can use for samples. can you hook up a midi keyboard to use with fruity loops?

it is what colors tones and adds distortion on most recent amplifiers.
every guitar amplifier out there has a preamp, almost all beginner and intermediate amps have line outs or headphone outs.
to have tone that doesnt cause a river of blood to flow from your listeners ears you must have something between the guitar and the recording device. whether it be a preamp, or a full amp with a mic on it.
the mbox has preamps on it but those are mic preamps and are designed for when using a mic only, whether it is picking up voice or an amp or instrument.

what kind of amp do you have? if i knew that i could help you get that in the chain.


yeah, you just have to get a device to transfer midi via usb or firewire.

Thanks, and i got a crappy amp, it's a peavy, but i'm pretty sure it's blown, i got another small one that came with my super cool estaban acoustic electric... ...it's got overdrive on it though

Besides those i just have the monitors that came with my PA System

dude, i dont know what you're buying all this stuff for when you dont have a decent amp. anyways, the speaker doesnt have to be functional for you to use the line out/headphone out

Do i really need an amp when i got the PA though? As you can tell i'm still new to all of this stuff, but i am eager to learn.

So, yea, how important is an amp when i have the PA?

guitar amps are designed for guitars, you cant just not have one. you tone is going to sound like shit if you run it through a PA even if you are using direct boxes. atleast you are going to need a preamp to put in the chain (like a pod or something).
anyways when you see bands live even though they are playing with monsterous PAs infront of them, they still use amps.

Oh, ok, and yea, i guess i never really wondered why that was (about bands using amps live)

So how would you suggest i set up my guitar for recording with the mbox and everything else?

get an amp, find your tone, mic it with a condenser, run it to the mbox and record as a mono audio track. make sure the phantom power is turned on the mbox, though or you won't get any response out of the mic.

Ok, thanks, thats what i tried before and it turned out pretty well


In what situation (and what gear would i use) would i plug my guitar directly into the mbox, or while it was running through a preamp?

the only time you would ever really plug the guitar straight into the box is if you were playing an acoustic and you used a DI box. every other case, you would run your guitar to the preamp, then to the mbox.

Ok, cool, thanks a lot


Hey, do any of you have any tips for figuring out pro tools and all the other MIDI programs it came with? Besides constantly messing with them and reading the manuals and stuff, and tips for learning how these things work?

pro tools has textbooks that go along with the training courses (101, 110, 201 210, etc), but pro tools should've come with a dvd that explains how to get crackin.

Yeah, it did, almost forgot about that, haha

But what about like all those other programs for MIDI drums and stuff...actually, it's probably better for me to become familiar with pro tools first, so I'll save questions concerning that stuff for another date

Thanks again everyone

yeah worry about reason later.

assuming he doesnt have that much money, just run line out since the speakers on most amps of these cheap amps kill the tone completely. take example the marshall MG, the speakers in that destroy its potential, the preamp in those amps isnt half as bad as you would think it to be.

Any suggestions for a decent amp i should keep an eye out for?

and yea, i'm not like rich, haha, but i recently got a job, so i can save money and stuff now, and alot of it's most likely going to music

how much money are you willing to spend, that is the most crucial factor.

Well at the moment i'm making about $100 a week cause i only work weekends, so i don't know really, what evers like gonna be worth it you know, like, if it's something important i should have like a condenser mic (which i still need to get one of these days) i wont cheap out on it

So what would you sugest for someone who is willing to spend some money and is trying to get much more into recording/playing? I'm also gonna go for a music major when i get into college, I've started taking piano and vocal lessons and stuff, so yea

monty may kill me for this, but the roland microcubes have great preamps and they're cheap. you can also run them line out to a recording interface or the another amp...

http://www.roland.com/demos/en/CUBE-Series_IT/index.html

Cool, those seem perfect with the recording out and stuff

I didn't see any prices or anything like that on the site, how do i get to that?


And why might monty kill you? haha

because he's a fan of really high end amps. roland cubes can't even compare to the caliber of equipment his rig consists of.

prices: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/home/navigation?q=roland+cube

and i recommend the microcube. it's got built in effects for when you aren't running it in pro tools.

do not EVER run effects before you record unless you are absolutely sure of what you want. it's so much easier and more efficient to side-chain the pro tools plug-ins to your tracks instead of possibly messing up the final recording. and not to mention the pro tools effects are better...

Oh, ok, and ok, thanks a lot man

Edit: Is this the biggest microcube there is? Now that i think about it, do i even really need a big one?

Size doesn't matter. It all depends on how you use it.

Thats funny, but it makes sense cause i guess i can always just out it to my PA right?

That's what I meant.

I really hope we're still talking about my guitar

in reality, if you're going to be running the amp out to your PA, it would be a waste of 200 bucks to buy the big one. and the microcube is best for recording...

for solid state, my favorite amps are the roland cube, the vox AD series, and the line 6 flextone III series.

monty, I'm on a budget and I'm looking for a decent condenser mic just to fuck around with and I read a few months back that you were recommending the AKG Perception 100. Is this still a good way to go?

if you can afford it, get the 200 instead of the 100. it's got a larger diaphragm and it comes with the shockmount. how much are you looking to spend?

At the moment, $300 tops.

buy a rode nt1-a...it's the quietest low-mid budget mic on the market, and it's crystal clear.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NT1A/

$229.99

My frist shot at recording anything.. I recorded out of my computer mic. Soon im getting an mbox mini so i can get some better mics up on this and better soft ware. I think it sounds good for what i used.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...endid=182544585

my band's been recording. it's sweet.

Yeah, thats what i was thinking about the amp and PA

So yea, i think i'm gonna be getting that once i get my bank account set up and stuff


And now to have fun figuring out pro tools!...
haha


Sounds cool