Help With Mac Settings/motu 828 & Audio Options

[clearNET]

Hi All!

I just purchased my 828 mkii after setting it up making the "noobie" mistake of not setting up my Mac pref. output to that of the 828 ... I was wondering, I'm using this wonderful piece of equip for basically remixing.

Please if someone can advise what software is best for my need in terms of trying to do the following: I would like to for example play an mp3 file or track from cd on the my Mac through itunes and have the ability to capture a snippet so I can loop it and lay it down on a audio track...in a program say like AudioDesk (which is what I have right now which came with my Motu 828 mkii) but am open to other packages if they suite me needs better... i cannot find out a way to do this in AudioDesk... the manual focuses alot on caputing sound from external instruments etcs... please forgive me in advance if my answer is already posted.. I tried searching.

When I play an audio mp3 in itunes or a cd the output is coming out my monitos connected to the Motu 828mkii ..what I wanna do is take what I'm hearing an be abled to loop some beats in audio packages... whenever I try to use the monitoring function of the applications the meters don't move... as if its silent.. I also dloaded peak 4.xx and it had an option of changing the input for hardware within the program.. when I do this and goto record... the meters light up ... etc.. but there is distortion..as if the sound is being "fed" back into the system in a loop.. I hope I'm kaing sense


Current setup for now is a PowerBook g4 1.33 w/ 512mb ram and external firewire 80gb 7200rpm 8meg cache HD.. since this particular PBook Mac im on has only 1 FW port... the 828 mkii is linked to extra firwire port on the external HD which connected to the FW port on the Mac.... I'm doing it this way currently as my internal drive is fried .. thank god for CCC!

Any help is greatly appreciated...

cheers!

-clearNET

I've also posted this on unicornation.... to no avail so far..