Connecting G5 To Es Rack And Mbox, First time advice for G5 user Options

[huskyboy333]

Hi, this is my first post and I needed some help with my DAW that I'm almost finished with. I just got my G5 today and I just want to know exactly how I hook that up to my midi keyboard system that I already have. I have an 88keyboard controller going into the Yamaha ES rack, and my KRKv6II monitors going out of the ES Rack. Now that I have my MBox and G5, where do I put the monitors? Out of the MBox? and how do I get my keyboard midi into the MBox since there aren't any midi on the Mbox?

Also, I'm slowly learning about everything you need to make a good studio set up. But I was wondering if there was anything basic that I might have forgotten about(I'm thinking about things like rack mountable items that make life more simle, or rules of thumb when buying things like mics. certain things that you see when you look at your own studio and say, gee, I wish somebody had told me about THAT a lot earlier, it would have made a HECK of a difference.

Thanks

[banevt]

The way it looks from what I've read about the ES Rack you can either connect the USB port from the ES Rack to your computer and route the midi to Pro Tools from there unless you have a USB port on your midi controller in which case you can connect your midi controller to the computer. I don't know what kind of controller you have so you may or may not need to download drivers to use it this way. If your midi controller doesn't have a USB port you would just leave it connected to your ES Rack and connect the USB port from the Motif to your computer. I assume you are using Pro Tools so all you would need to do is create a midi track make sure the input and output are routed to the Motif and then record enable the midi track to get your midi going. I would probably connect the Motif to the Mbox digitally using the spdif connections out of the Motif and in to the Mbox. In Pro Tools you just need to open the IO setup menu and click the input tab and select digital or spdif input to record the audio from the Motif. That would leave your analog inputs open on the Mbox to connect another instrument like a guitar or bass and/or a microphone. You can use the analog audio inputs of the Mbox to connect your Motif audio to but then you will have to switch every time you want to record a different instrument. Granted you will have to go to the IO setup and change the input back to analog every time you want to record something besides the Motif if you connect it digitally. I just recommend using the digital inputs because the digital signal will be more pure and you can just leave your Motif hooked up all the time. On the Mbox you will get latency if you listen to the audio track you are recording to while you are recording. The way around this is to mute the audio track you are recording to in Pro Tools and use the input/playback knob on the Mbox to get a blend of the signal coming into the Mbox and anything already in your session like other instruments or a click. When you are done recording unmute the track you just recorded there you go. When you are not recording just turn the knob all the way to playback. This is Digi's "zero latency monitoring" which is really a pain in the ass but you can stlll record this way if you are not annoyed by it. Your speakers would of course be connected to the Mbox main outputs. I don't think the KRK's have a volume knob of any sort on them and the one on the Mbox only affects the heaphone volume and not the main output. To do this you should always make a stereo master fader in Pro Tools and bring the volume of the fader way down then hit play and adjust the volume to your liking. You can also get something like the mackie big knob to put in between the Mbox and speakers to control volume and connect external outputs like a cd player or whatever. The master fader thing will work and is a free solution. If you want to play CD's through your speakers without quiting Pro Tools to play it through iTunes with the core audio driver you just put the CD in your computer and use the import audio menu in Pro Tools and instead of importing any audio select the track number on the CD and just hit the play button on the bottom left hand of the import audio window. You will have to select the track you want it to play every time cause it won't play the CD continuously but it's a free solution to getting something like the mackie big knob. Sorry if this is a lot of info to absorb and I hope it helps you some at least. Good luck with your studio setup and have fun.

Valente

This post has been edited by banevt: Tue 6 Sep 2005, 00:17