The "M Box," a low-cost/high-performance workstation front end with USB interfacing to PCs or Macs. Co-developed by Digidesign & Focusrite, the 2-in/out M Box has two mic/line inputs (with 48VDC phantom power and insert points), two analog line outs, stereo S/PDIF I/O and is powered via the USB port (no wallwart!). M Box is bundled with Pro Tools LE software, and will retail at $495.

A tidbit only I know...

:)

More later...

:D

Beautiful! I've been looking for a portable sound card & mic pre for the laptop, this looks perfect.

Any ideas on a quiet laptop hard drive (preferably internal)?

I have been told by someone that has one that the internal digital architecture of the next generation PT has been overhauled to be on a par with the best out there (Sony Oxford, SSL Axiom etc)

This cheared me up A LOT the rest below is rumour only:

96k?
192K?
New Hardware = a must?
No help being given to Apogee & Prism who make PT interfaces - they may have to 'reverse engineer' (figure it out themselves) their boxes to connect with the new PT hardware. (they have done it before)
Among first interfaces = a digital i/o box?
32 bit floating point - all through the system?
RTAS plug ins take over from TDM in the future?
Trade in? (I f**ing hope so!!)
Firewire? (scsi is getting old!)

So once again the first paragraph I belive to be fact, the rest = unconfirmed but I belive to be 'on target'.

More as it comes in. Post up if you know stuff.

:)

Some of the price tags being thrown around are pretty scarey....I've heard $27k up to $50k, with NO trade in.

Seems awfully expensive for a system where RTAS might be the future.

I also wouldn't understand just going to 32 bit, that would put them on par with every native app out there....and I can just hear the native users screaming now, "We told you it was better!"

I am probably wrong, but a Digi rep and dealer told me that while they're going to 96K, they were going to stay at 24 bit fixed processing, which seems pretty stupid to me.

posted December 17, 2001 04:07 PM                      
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Beautiful! I've been looking for a portable sound card & mic pre for the laptop, this looks perfect.

Any ideas on a quiet laptop hard drive (preferably internal)?
----------------------------
This is a subject I've done a lot of research on. USB can only handle a limited amount of data. Firewire and cardbus are much better. RME's Multiface and Digiface, with the Hammerfall DSP cardbus card, is well worth investigating. I'm using Digiface with a laptop and getting good results.
Motu just came out with the 896, an 8 channel 24:96 firewire interface (you can daisy-chain 'em for more channels, supposed to support 4 by firewire). This piece has built in mic pres with phantom power. Tidy, and should be good quality ADA, don't know about the pres. But I'm dragging around laptop, Digiface, ADI-8-DS converters, and several mic pres. Multiface saves a rack piece compared to this, but the Motu has it all in one firewire box. Tidy.
There's also a thing called the Digigram, which I may be under-rating, but I think the RME and Motu laptop routes are well worth a look.
Ted

Well come Namm time - internet audio newsgroups and forums are going to go into orbit with chatter!

:)

P.S. I 'm sorry..... the gossip was 48bit floating point ALL THROUGH the system (not 32) (like an SSL Axion or Oxford) anyhow, I really don't know about the maths stuff - just reporting what I heard, badly!

Well, it's not that easy for me to laugh. I still have to witness the carnage... grown men crying and whatnot, after I tell them what their preferred system is going to cost, and how long before it becomes obsolete. And after that having to work on a system that they "can get away with". I always warn them that one compromise buys you two more down the road, but they never seem to hear that bit.

On the plus side, anyone wanting to buy a Mix, Mix+, or Mix3 system right now is in a pretty good position. I understand it's dropping a couple grand, as are the farm cards.

I think they beam them back up to the mother ship.
Oops, wrong movie. :D

Good question...

Jules

Could this be the end for Digi? What will the new PT do that a native DAW can't at exactly (or better) the quality and less than half the price?

Studios used to get business on the strength of owning PT ... this is changing and so even that reason is slipping away.

I'm not bashing Digi here but I am curious :)

to further fuel the fire :)

i'm not a protolls-guy, but i check out duc from time to time-here is what i found:

protools mix : 24/32 bit, 48/96 khz
new 888/32 bit, 48/96 khz
1 core: 12 dsp
128 track sequence
1 pci 32 channel in
88io midi interface digidesign
device for c/24 surround whit 2 move-joistick
NEW GRAPHIC INTERFACE

HEHEHEHE!

I was JUST about to paste that up here too!

It is, of course NOT from Digidesign, but is a posted up "tip off" by someone who beilives they know what is comming out next....

Interesting..

Digi would be very clever to bundle Sony plug ins with it..

Wonder what I would need to = the power of my 5 card system at the moment. (works fine I rarely max out)

I am on an over 64 track session at the moment... NEED MORE TRACKS!!!!

:)

I keep doing these r&b sessions with 40+ tracks of bgv's. More than 64 would be a good thing.

Hey Ang, welcome to the club. This year I mixed so many songs with 96 tracks Pop/rnb(48-56 were just vocals). At times we had (2) protools rigs going at the same time.

Geez... don't you guys bounce??

Shit! I swear it took me a few mins to realize what 'bounce' in that post meant!

OH THAT!

Er... I have to I suppose, I think I have 74 tracks on the go presently, perhaps more, I can't hear em all at the moment..

Bounce? That was something we had to do back in the Beatles days, wasn't it? hehe

bounce? that's something i do after too much coffee