Where can I get an mbox driver for Windows Vista?

July 25, 2009 4:40 PM

Is it possible to get an mbox (not mbox 2) to work in Vista without ProTools LE? Is it possible to find a USB driver for this mbox and Vista?

I've used ProTools and hate it with a white-hot hate. I'd like to use this mbox (made in 2001) with Vista 64. Am I SOL?

posted by KevinSkomsvold to computers & internet (8 comments total)

This is the mbox in question.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 4:42 PM on July 25

This is a non-answer answer, but I used to hate pro tools with the same white-hot hate that you currently have. I overcame that hate by having a pro tools expert friend of mine spend a few hours showing me how he does it. Since then, I love it with only the occasional frustrating thing (like why is it that, when he shows me how to use busses, it totally makes sense and works, but when I try to do it on my system, doing what he did, it does nothing? Why?!?! Blassssst!!!).

As far as getting it to work in Vista, I have no idea. On my mac, I can use the MBox 2 as an audio interface for non-Pro Tools programs no problem, though. So I have to think that such a thing could be possible on a Windows machine--except that Vista came out a long time after the original MBox and Pro Tools is always a bit wonky on Windows machines.
posted by The World Famous at 5:05 PM on July 25

There's an XP ASIO driver, but I don't know if that will work on Vista, especially Vista 64. There's nothing noted about Vista on their site, so I think that they may just have decided not to support it as a platform.

Digidesign was always fairly picky about the platforms (hardware + OS versions) that they considered "supported." Their attitude seems to be that they'll support new OS versions as they damn well please, and you'll refrain from upgrading ahead of time if you know what's good for you. (Case in point: they have drivers for Mac OS 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4, but not 10.5; they have Windows drivers for XP but not Vista. I think the understanding is: don't use 10.5 or Vista.)

Since ProTools is a "killer app" for a lot of people, to the point where the computer is just a device for running it on, I guess I can understand their attitude.
posted by Kadin2048 at 5:18 PM on July 25

In Digidesign's defense, driver support for 64-bit versions of XP and Vista are not an automatic proposition to begin with — from any vendor, mbox notwithstanding.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:28 PM on July 25

Not to hijack your question, but I'd appreciate any info for the mbox 2.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:41 PM on July 25

Kadin2048: "There's an XP ASIO driver, but I don't know if that will work on Vista, especially Vista 64."

Thanks. I did try these drivers and Vista barfed on them. With the USB device being recognized, I'm kind of dead in the water.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:06 PM on July 25

I think it's the 64-bit part that's the killer. From here:

Not Supported: Windows Vista 64-bit (any version)

It looks like they just flat-out don't support 64-bit Vista. Actually it looks like they don't do 64b XP either; if you want to run it on Windows, you're going to do it with 32 bits or not at all.

So I guess your options at this point are: downgrade your computer to 32b Windows (32b XP would be the safe bet, although you could try 32b Vista and see if the driver works), get a different interface and just ditch the MBox, or get a dedicated PC for the task. If it were me, I'd probably go for the last option, but I have an embarrassing number of borderline-obsolete computers sitting around.

If you decide to go for option 2, several friends of mine have various M-Audio products (although I will put out that they are predominantly Mac users) and they seem to like them a lot. Definitely anecdotal/YMMV but might be worth a look.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:40 PM on July 25

Thanks for the link Kadin2048. Not sure how I missed that the first time around. From that link, it appears I can try to dual boot with WinXP. I'm going to give that a shot and see what happens.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 6:54 AM on July 26