I bought these purely to get into Pro TOols at a cheap price, and now I am hooked. I use a Celereon with one gig of ram, not a powerhouse, but it works well for my production studio.

The manual, as with most Digidesign things, was hard to read, thankfully the unit installed with no issues the first time I loaded it.

The last version of Pro Tools supported is 6.4 and so far I have not had any issues with it, latency is fairly high if monitoring with effects and I have been able to use twenty four tracks at a time with my surrent setup.

DIGIDESIGN PRO TOOLS CUSTOM KEYBOARD - STICKERS

Until you actually use a set of keyboard short cuts for the Pro Tools recording environment, you have NO idea how fast you can be when it comes to laying down and editing your audio tracks.

You are most likely like everyone else and using the mouse to go to the tool bar, hitting the drop down menu and then finding your desired option and clicking on it and then going through another sub menu to get to the choice you really wanted.

If you have a lot of disposable income, you may have purchased the actual Digidesign keyboard that sells for the over $100 U.S. Dollar range and are quite happy with that. If you are an average musician, you opted for the stickers that then get placed on your existing keyboard and do the same thing for fewer than twenty bucks.

I fall into the second category. I am now on my second set of these things. Second set? You ask. Why in the world are you on your second set of stickers? Have you worn them out?

Well, no. Not exactly.

The first set actually ended up peeling off the keyboard after about six months of fairly heavy use. The second set, ordered from the same company, has lasted over a year and is still going strong.

What is my recommendation for the longer life? Do yourself a favor, go to an electronics superstore and but a NEW keyboard, use a cotton swap with alcohol and wipe off the keys BEFORE applying the stickers.

It seems that on my first set, I just applied them on my existing keyboard and the oil from my fingers caused a less than good bond and hence the pre-mature lifting of the stickers.

That’s my observation, not that of the manufacturer. But a new keyboard, alcohol, swabs and stickers set me back a whole twenty-seven bucks, I can deal with that.

Digidesign Pro Tools 7 LE was really easy to install and set up with my Mbox. I have it installed on my PC laptop and there haven't been any compatibility issues to date. I just really followed the steps that came with Pro Tools and it should be easy to get going if you follow the manual.

I have a Hewlett Packard laptop with a 3.0 Ghz processor and 1 GB Ram and I haven't had too many problems running Pro Tools LE. However, I have a friend who runs it on a mac and it seems to run much better on there. I can record 2 tracks at once with my Mbox and I have had no problems doing that.

I've had my iLok for a few years now. Its really more of an essential than a necessity as it is required for most of my plug-ins with Pro Tools 7 LE. Its great to have all of my authorizations in one spot and to be able to carry them around with me from my studio to other studios. However, if I were to lose it it would certainly be a hassle to be without my plug-ins for that amount of time. Its also a bit of a hassle to register and to set up all of the plug-ins with the iLok, but once it is done, it is done. There are no other models of the iLok that I know about, as Digidesign really sort of has a monopoly on it. Its pretty cheap and is definitely worth the money if you have a bunch of plug-ins that you need to travel with, or if it is required with plug-ins that you purchase. I couldn't function without mine simply because I need my plug-ins whenever I am doing work.

Getting set up with the Digidesign Smack LE plug-in couldn't have been easier. I bought it with an iLok, so it was already synced to that. You need to install the iLok driver to your computer and then there should be no problems. I would recommend following the steps in the manual that come with it, they are very simple.

I run this plug-in with Pro Tools 7 LE software on my Hewlett Packard computer with a 3.0 Ghz processor and 1 GB Ram. I haven't had any problems running this plug-in with my set up and it has been very stable. It runs quicker than I thought it was going to, but that could be due to my computer, among other things.

I've been using the Control 24 on and off for about 2 years. Its a great controller for Pro Tools software, but that is about all it is good for. If you are looking to have some real life faders and controls for your DAW, this is a great board. There are endless features on this board, most of which I have not even ventured into and probably never will. But it is easy enough to figure out the basic functions and can be a lot of fun to play with. I'm not a huge fan of the Focusrite built in preamps and would suggest having some outboard pres before you buy this. The price is certainly a big obstacle for most on this, which is probably why you only really see them in bigger studios. If you have a small project studio and want some real faders to work with, I would suggest looking into a smaller digital board. However, for what this really is (a big toy that controls things in Pro Tools without having to use a mouse), it certainly does its job. Its always nice to have some real faders when mixing and editing and I enjoying using many of the shortcut buttons this thing has on it, not to mention it will certainly impress the clients just from the look of it.

The Mbox 2 Micro is great for anyone who has a laptop and likes to do work on the go. It allows you to run Pro Tools without having the burden of carrying around a big interface. I use it all the time to do edits and mixing on the go with my Macbook Pro (2.2 Ghz, 2 GB Ram).

I have had no problems at all with installing or setting up my Mbox 2 micro, although I do sometimes have some issues with the Pro Tools software. It was really easy to set up and get going so I didn't need to use the manual at all. All I really had to do was plug it in and run Pro Tools because I already had Pro Tools installed. However, just running the Pro Tools installation disc will run you through the easy steps of installing Pro Tools.

I've had no latency with the Mbox 2 Micro, but it really depends on what machine you are running it with. There are no inputs, so you must have some sort of other interface, like an Mbox or a Digi 002 or 003 if you wish to track with Pro Tools.

Basically, I bought the 002 rack so that I could run Pro Tools. I use it with Pro Tools 7.4 with a Macbook Pro (2.2 Ghz Processor, 2 Ghz Ram) and use the ADAT feature to send it to a Behringer ADA8000 for more inputs. I used to have a MOTU 896HD and while I liked that more as an interface, I needed to start using Pro Tools.

It's pretty easy to set up depending on what other things you are using it with. I haven't had any compatibility issues with the interface, although I do have occasional issues with the Pro Tools software. The interface layout really couldn't be easier, plenty of monitoring options. I haven't had a need to ever look at the manual as it was easy enough to figure out.

Using the 002, I've had no issues with latency, but it depends what kind of machine you are running it with. I have heard it doesn't work as well with a PC, but I have no experience with that. As the 002 only runs with Pro Tools, I have had no option of trying it with another type of software. I can run 16 tracks at once, using the 4 built in preamps, the 4 1/4'' inserts and my ADAT external 8 channel preamp.