As soon as I’m able to I will be investing in new hardware and processing power in the form of a brand-new Mac. Most probably a MacBook Pro. However I don’t know how long that will be.

This is why I am excited about the latest product from Avid/Digidesign:
The Mbox 2 Micro.

It comes with the latest version of Protools LE software and is about the same size as a USB memory stick. It has no inputs, only a mini-jack stereo out and a thumbwheel to control volume. It doesn’t support 96KHz sample rate, but it is a very portable and cost effective way for me to become compatible with using Protools on OS X.

There is just one unknown factor so far for me. How well will it work with my G4 Powerbook. I’m sure it will run OK. My old G3 Pismo ran Protools LE 6 on an Mbox 1, but did not have the power to successfully bounce to disk, so I need to find out how well the G4 will perform with this gadget. If it works OK then I’ll be really happy!

I still have a great audio input via the Apogee Mini-Me & VX Pocket into Protools Free. In fact I think that the quality of this still exceeds the entire Digidesign LE range of products, albeit limited to only 44.1KHz, which is fine for me right now anyway.

The MBox 2 Micro would allow me the option to mix with more than 8 tracks. Of course an old G4 isn’t going to do well running 48 tracks of audio, but even if I am able to run 12-16 tracks and have the ability to run some new plugins and instrument tracks then PowerBook Studio can be very much more feature laden without bankrupting me!

Exciting stuff. If I get one soon I’ll do a full review of it here…