tmcw

I'm really interested in using Max/MSP or Processing with my guitar for live & recorded performances, but I can't find much information on audio interfaces. Do you think that the M-Audio Black Box (

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MAudioBlackBox-main.h

 tml) would be suitable for taking audio into Max/MSP and outputting it to an amp? I'm a college student, and therefore less $ is better.

I'm really interested in using Max/MSP or Processing with my guitar for live & recorded performances, but I can't find much information on audio interfaces. Do you think that the M-Audio Black Box  (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MAudioBlackBox-main.h tml) would be suitable for taking audio into Max/MSP and outputting it to an amp? I'm a college student, and therefore less $ is better.

m-audio-black-box-w-maxmsp-etc

I've experienced quality control issues with M-Audio.

For cheap, I might look at the PreSonus inspire. What platform are you running?

(Most of my practical experience is with MOTU products, which are great but a little more expensive.)

For cheap, I might look at the PreSonus inspire.  What platform are you running?

Sorry, that wouln't work. My current platform (not entirely of my own choosing) is an IBM T42, so I don't have Firewire. What kind of problems have you had with M-Audio products?

Quote: tmcw wrote on Wed, 12 April 2006 13:06

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

> Sorry, that wouln't work. My current platform (not entirely of my own choosing) is an IBM T42, so I don't have Firewire. What kind of problems have you had with M-Audio products?

Actually, the worst was a very bad keyboard controller. Bad feel, inconsistant velocity reporting, cheaply made...

I think others on the list can speak to the audio interfaces. Digidesign has consistantly gotten a bad rap for drivers, and I don't know if M-Audio has inherited that problem.

Quote: tmcw wrote on Wed, 12 April 2006 13:06
----------------------------------------------------
> Sorry, that wouln't work. My current platform (not entirely of my own choosing) is an IBM T42, so I don't have Firewire. What kind of problems have you had with M-Audio products?
----------------------------------------------------

Actually, the worst was a very bad keyboard controller.  Bad feel, inconsistant velocity reporting, cheaply made...

I think others on the list can speak to the audio interfaces.  Digidesign has consistantly gotten a bad rap for drivers, and I don't know if M-Audio has inherited that problem.

Yeah, you're right - reviews look very inconsistent - 

http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/M_Audio/Black_Bo

Yeah, you're right - reviews look very inconsistent -  http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/M_Audio/Black_Bo x-01.html


i've gone through a ton of different interfaces for live stuff, 

bought and sold. every m-audio thing was problematic, some apps 

worked with them, some didn't, their software interface mixer was 

buggy. i haven;t had problems with their keyboard (oxygen8) or the 

the presonus stuff is really good, too bad about that lack of 

firewire. i had a firebox and it is great, good preamps, solid 

controls, etc. i sold it due to weight (and it's edges would scratch 

tabletops!) and downsized to the inspire for quick'n'easy i/o from a 

guitar, out to sound system. super light and simple, no problems 

ever. plus it's cheap so i'm not worried about it on tour.

echo works well too. the indigoIO ones are great and small, but you 

need to get down to mini-plug stereo ins and outs.

rme, of course, the best sound. on par with metric halo maybe? great 

matrix mixing capabilities with the rme software.

i use a digi mbox alot as well, which is good but yes the drivers are 

touchy, especially with max. if you don't launch the digi coreaudio 

manager before opening max and max (msp actually) has to open it 

itself, it generally won't work. one that i find extremely useful 

about the mbox (old version) is that it has trs inserts, which i use 

to send whatever signals are going in to it elsewhere and back again, 

like mzed said, motu seem good, i have no experience with them but 

many say their products work well. (ok i take that back i tried to 

use some motu items in grad school for people concerts and couldn't 

get the routing right....probably ignorance on my part)

the main issue i have with using any of these items as an instrument 

input to the computer is the direct sound! yuck. your original idea 

of the black box i guess covers that? it has amp modelers or 

something? i've been using a v-stack tweedy guitar pre-amp (they 

claim this emulates a fender deluxe amp, old version, for use in 

direct guitar recording.) but i modded it with an extra resistor 

across the gain stage pot to lesson some of the pre-amp distortion. i 

use it for guitar and violin in to computer and it does pretty well...

anybody else have ideas for instrument input?

Jonathan Segel 4014 Brookdale Ave. Oakland, CA 94619

jsegel@magneticmotorworks.com magsatellite@yahoo.com

i've gone through a ton of different interfaces for live stuff,  
bought and sold. every m-audio thing was problematic, some apps  
worked with them, some didn't, their software interface mixer was  
buggy. i haven;t had problems with their keyboard (oxygen8) or the  
microtrack recorder.
the presonus stuff is really good, too bad about that lack of  
firewire. i had a firebox and it is great, good preamps, solid  
controls, etc. i sold it due to weight (and it's edges would scratch  
tabletops!) and downsized to the inspire for quick'n'easy i/o from a  
guitar, out to sound system. super light and simple, no problems  
ever. plus it's cheap so i'm not worried about it on tour.

echo works well too. the indigoIO ones are great and small, but you  
need to get down to mini-plug stereo ins and outs.

rme, of course, the best sound. on par with metric halo maybe? great  
matrix mixing capabilities with the rme software.

i use a digi mbox alot as well, which is good but yes the drivers are  
touchy, especially with max. if you don't launch the digi coreaudio  
manager before opening max and max (msp actually) has to open it  
itself, it generally won't work. one that i find extremely useful  
about the mbox (old version) is that it has trs inserts, which i use  
to send whatever signals are going in to it elsewhere and back again,  
for others to manipulate.

like mzed said, motu seem good, i have no experience with them but  
many say their products work well. (ok i take that back i tried to  
use some motu items in grad school for people concerts and couldn't  
get the routing right....probably ignorance on my part)

the main issue i have with using any of these items as an instrument  
input to the computer is the direct sound! yuck. your original idea  
of the black box i guess covers that? it has amp modelers or  
something?  i've been using a v-stack tweedy guitar pre-amp (they  
claim this emulates a fender deluxe amp, old version, for use in  
direct guitar recording.) but i modded it with an extra resistor  
across the gain stage pot to lesson some of the pre-amp distortion. i  
use it for guitar and violin in to computer and it does pretty well...
anybody else have ideas for instrument input?

Jonathan Segel                 4014 Brookdale Ave. Oakland, CA 94619
jsegel@magneticmotorworks.com  magsatellite@yahoo.com


Hmm... I could probably get a cheap firewire PC card - but I need to output to an amp, and the inspire only has RCA & headphone outs... I guess I'll check out the Black Box further.

radio shack! anyway, cables exist for converting rca to 1/4" or what 

have you. that's what i usually send to direct boxes from the 

i would also look into the Echo Indigo IO, a cardbus converter. it 

does come with a set of 1/8" stereo to two 1/4" cables. unless you 

radio shack! anyway, cables exist for converting rca to 1/4" or what  
have you. that's what i usually send to direct boxes from the  
inspire, a set of hosa rca-1/4" cables.
i would also look into the Echo Indigo IO, a cardbus converter. it  
does come with a set of 1/8" stereo to two 1/4" cables. unless you  
need the amp-modeling of the black box.

An advantage of M-audio cards are that you can always get protools M-powered. Clever old digidesign, eh? Long live the day a version of Protools can run on a laptop with no external hardware!

Hmm... really, a tough decision. The Echo is really nice, and might work pretty well - I'm bummed that you can't turn off the amp models in the Black Box.

So basically, it's either sacrificing some driver compatibility, sound quality, etc. or sacrificing in-show changes, recording capabilities, etc.

The problems I had might not be as bad for you as they were for me,

since you're running that other platform. ;-) However, the OS X

drivers for m-audio were/are worse than horrible. I made the mistake

of buying one of them for an old machine at home (most of my gear is

MOTU), and it has been mostly nothing but crap. For the longest time

the drivers would lock up the machine hard (nice kernel there Apple),

at least now they're somewhat useable. However, I won't upgrade that

box to 10.4.6 until it's 'M-Audio' santioned. Then I'll sacrifice an

appropriate number of chickens and make the leap.

On 4/12/06, Tom MacWright  wrote:
> Sorry, that wouln't work. My current platform (not entirely of my own choosing) is an IBM T42, so I don't have Firewire. What kind of problems have you had with M-Audio products?

 The problems I had might not be as bad for you as they were for me,
since you're running that other platform. ;-) However, the OS X
drivers for m-audio were/are worse than horrible. I made the mistake
of buying one of them for an old machine at home (most of my gear is
MOTU), and it has been mostly nothing but crap. For the longest time
the drivers would lock up the machine hard (nice kernel there Apple),
at least now they're somewhat useable. However, I won't upgrade that
box to 10.4.6 until it's 'M-Audio' santioned. Then I'll sacrifice an
appropriate number of chickens and make the leap.

> An advantage of M-audio cards are that you can always get protools

> M-powered. Clever old digidesign, eh? Long live the day a version of

> Protools can run on a laptop with no external hardware!

Long live the day an alternative to ProTools will run with any standard 

driver on any hardware. (I should start to patch one... ;-)

dave whiting wrote:
> An advantage of M-audio cards are that you can always get protools
> M-powered. Clever old digidesign, eh? Long live the day a version of
> Protools can run on a laptop with no external hardware!

Long live the day an alternative to ProTools will run with any standard 
driver on any hardware. (I should start to patch one... ;-)

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         Klanggestalter
     Electronic Composition
               &
         Improvisation

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maybe ardour? its getting more and more interesting...

maybe ardour? its getting more and more interesting...
http://ardour.org/

hans w. koch
im krahnenhof 11
d-50668 koeln
+49-221-554902
www.hans-w-koch.net


> maybe ardour? its getting more and more interesting...

Yes its certainly the candidate, but probably needs some more time as 

My expierience with open source is, as soon its becoming a crossplatform 

project it starts to turn into something usable in the end. Beside the 

known examples of OpenOffice, Mozilla Stuff, Gimp etc: there is Audacity 

almost on the same level (and beyond at the same time) as Sounddesigner 

and Peak, and Pd made a big jump since the introduction of Mac 

Installers (though at the moment it can't really catch up with the rapid 

I haven't seen any seriously usable score editor or Midi sequencer yet. 

(Please do not point to lillypond or rosegarden, they are both in a 

highly professional toy stadium, which means you need to be a 

professional nerd to use them, nothing for musicians...(yet)

hans w. koch wrote:
> maybe ardour? its getting more and more interesting...
> http://ardour.org/

Yes its certainly the candidate, but probably needs some more time as 
crossplatform project.
My expierience with open source is, as soon its becoming a crossplatform 
project it starts to turn into something usable in the end. Beside the 
known examples of OpenOffice, Mozilla Stuff, Gimp etc: there is Audacity 
almost on the same level (and beyond at the same time) as Sounddesigner 
and Peak, and Pd made a big jump since the introduction of Mac 
Installers (though at the moment it can't really catch up with the rapid 
developement of Max... ;-).

I haven't seen any seriously usable score editor or Midi sequencer yet. 
(Please do not point to lillypond or rosegarden, they are both in a 
highly professional toy stadium, which means you need to be a 
professional nerd to use them, nothing for musicians...(yet)

yeah, i use ardour in linux but when using os x, i pay to have the 

the os x version of ardour is cool, but it's x11 based still. it's 

just not the editor it could be yet. in that regard, i still prefer 

the look and feel of protools (and sounddesigner) for editing audio 

over peak, peak seems not-very-exact in the micro levels. and 

i never really used openoffice much until neooffice abandoned the x11 

need and hooked it to java. now i never use ms office anymore.

yeah, i use ardour in linux but when using os x, i pay to have the  
functionality of protools. (dearly).
the os x version of ardour is cool, but it's x11 based still. it's  
just not the editor it could be yet. in that regard, i still prefer  
the look and feel of protools (and sounddesigner) for editing audio  
over peak, peak seems not-very-exact in the micro levels. and  
audacity is using its own file format.
i never really used openoffice much until neooffice abandoned the x11  
need and hooked it to java. now i never use ms office anymore.

M-Audio Black Box w/ Max/MSP, etc.