I'm close to ordering an M Box as an introduction to Pro Tools and recording in general. I see that the M Box does not come with a midi interface. Is it still possible to hook a keyboard/ controller up to it and play a soft-synth sampler? Is this what the interface is for? What kind of connections? How do you go from keyboard USB to the interface, or maybe it's the keyboard directly to the computer? And some keyboards have midi out too? So many questions and no dealer within a hundred miles.

With the M Box, can you use studio monitors, or just earphones?

What brand of interface would anyone recommend (assuming that's what is needed)?

What controller? I'm a guitar guy, so will be doing the hunt and peek method of playing. The Edirol PCR 50 has caught my eye, but as I say, I don't know what I'm looking at.

Help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Equipment so far:
G5 dual 2.0
Rode NTK
TC Helicon preamp

Thanks,

Boo

booinec. if your keybord has USB ,then you good to go , you dont need the interface , a lot a people have probs whit the M box ,i will go whit a motu 828 or a M audio FW 410 , and get Logic 6 or DP4 , i have the fw 410 and ,Rason 2.5 and have try Logic , and love it .

Thank you for the reply dasasoul, Have you heard good things about the Digi 002, or 002 Rack?
Boo

Boo i dont know the Digi Racks sorry , but i have heard that logic pro can do ,the same plus much more .and is apple, so if you are a mac user, it may be better.

I use an M-Box on a Powerbook with an Emagic MT4 and it all seems to work well. The 2 in 4 out means I can use MIDI to sync to other devices as well as for note i/o.

B,I had trouble with the 002 rack (power supply fault)and at the same time all the units bought from the same store had to be fixed for the same reason.But sayin that i upgraded from g4 733 and digi001 to g5 1.6 to 002 rack.I always use logic pro and have never looked back.No latancy,firewire connections the midi is rock solid(jv 2080 and mpcs).But ive heard from a good source that the m box is excellent aswell.

hi, I have a powerbook G4 1GHz with an MBox and an evolution mk249e usb keyboard ... No problem with the Mbox, protools and midi i/o !! the only things that make PT crash sometimes are the freeware plugins I use .

I use dynaudio active monitors with the mbox - great!

Why don't you just do a search on the web for pdfs of the various equipment?

I see you've just got one mic. Have you ever tried recording with two mics - stereo? It's so much better for audio in a good acoustic environment. (What sort of noise does your G5 make?)

I just bought a edirol pcr-30 and im having trouble using it with pro tools. Can i plug my pcr-30 straight into the usb and record it with protools, coz when i tried that im not getting any sounds; the track indicates the volume but there is no actual sound, does protools have its own soundbanks or will i have to link reason into protools. Plz help me

Recon, the pcr-30 is a midi keyboard controller. MIDI is not audio so your keyboard gives instructions on how to play sampled sounds. However, you haven't got any sounds. You can only record midi instructions from your keyboard. You'll have to take your keyboard back or get some sampled sounds on your hard disk. I've not used protools for midi instructions but it is possible - do a search.

Boo, the Mbox is an audio interface (mic, guitar ...). It will only deal with audio signals, and not midi instructions

You should really say what it is you want to do with your set-up before anybody can advise you seriously. The problem is that before trying things out, you don't know what can be done, so you don't know what questions to ask. Catch 22 We also never know what the technical words mean at first so we don't understand most advice anyway