Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

i need more USB ports on my macbook pro

A "car battery" power supply is a terrible idea unless you are using one that is specifically designed for deep discharge applications. Optima Yellow top is one such battery.

A standard car battery is not at all like the battery in your MBP. The MBP battery is designed to give consistent voltage output from 100% all the way to near empty. It's designed to be completely discharged to 0 and then charged back up to 100% many hundreds of times.

A standard car battery on the other hand is not designed for deep-discharge usage. If you run it down to empty, then charge it back to 100%, you'll find you can only do this 2 or 3 times before it stops accepting a charge and it totally dead. Plus, each of those 2 or 3 times, it will accept less and less of a charge.

Further, the voltage output of a standard car battery is a good indicator of its overall health. 12.6 volts = fully charged and healthy. 12.2 volts = 50%, not so healthy. 11v = it's totally dead.

I hope you're using deep cycle batteries, and I hope you're disposing of these car batteries at the appropriate recycling facilities. They're full of heavy metals that are very toxic to the environment if you toss them in the trash.

Lastly, standard car batteries emit explosive hydrogen gas so it's quite a bad idea to use them indoors. Make sure you're checking your electrolyte levels and topping up as needed or you could have a battery explosion that will fling caustic and corrosive battery acid ALL over the place, damaging your home and causing chemical burns to anyone in the room.
 
Inutopia said:
You are also going to need to make sure whatever hub you buy gives the full 500mA on each port or you are SOL there too
Click to expand...
No such thing unless the hub itself has an A/C adapter. If the hub is not externally powered, then the total power available from the host USB port (500ma?) is shared across all the hub's ports.
 
quadG5guy said:
No such thing unless the hub itself has an A/C adapter. If the hub is not externally powered, then the total power available from the host USB port (500ma?) is shared across all the hub's ports.
Click to expand...

Then that is a no-go. Still the OP hasnt mentioned if he is using Phantom Powered Mics or not...

and if he isnt, why not tbh..

/agree with what was said about the car battery, you need the engine running for the inverter to work, but then you may as well just get a generator as this will be much more fuel efficient.

But, assuming you are not using toy mics for the recording you would need to put the car/generator about a mile away not to be picked up in the recording, hell my condensers pick up my Mac Pro running in the next room with the fans on low.

This sounds like a dodgy idea all round tbh
 
The first question is whether you're looking for an actual solution, or just wanted to blow off some steam. I don't say this to be snarky; it's honestly quite difficult to tell based on how this thread has gone so far.

That being said, and giving you the benefit of the doubt, here are some things you could try, in roughly ascending order of expense:

1) Is there ANY way that you can just use the MIDI functions on the Mbox instead of using a separate external controller? Obviously if you're using that MIDI controller because it has a built-in keyboard, this would be trickier, although in this case I guess it wouldn't be too crazy to try to power the MIDI controller using some kind of external battery with a USB port (like the Just Mobile Gum Pro or something). Of course you'd have to check the power requirements to see if this would even work.

2) Get an ExpressCard with only one or two USB ports. Now you've got two built-in ports (Mbox, MIDI controller), one for the speakers, and MAYBE one for the flash drive. But you've got enough free hard drive space that you can wait to plug in the flash drive and transfer files until you're done in Pro Tools, right?

3) Replace the speakers with headphones, which can plug into either the headphone jack on the Mbox or the headphone port on your MBP. Yes, I know you should never do mixing on headphones instead of monitors, but that assumes good monitors. There's almost no way your USB-powered speakers sound good enough that a decent set of studio headphones won't blow them out of the water. Then you only need USB ports for the Mbox, the MIDI controller, and the flash drive.

4) Upgrade to an Mbox 2 Pro. The USB Mboxes are pretty terrible pieces of hardware, and with the Pro you'll have a FireWire connection. Then you just add a FireWire ExpressCard to plug the external HD into and you're good to go. Again, you can't plug in the flash drive along with everything else, but do you REALLY need to keep the Mbox and MIDI controller plugged in while you're using the flash drive? Just store files on the external HDD until you're done with your session, then copy anything you need onto the flash drive.
 
The guy only wanted some help and I sense quite a bit of hostility in this thread.

You are in a pickle though, although you can often get amazing performances in these sorts of conditions (I think Bon Ivor recorded most of an album out in the woods somewhere).

I'd say that the express card is your best bet as well. Ideally though, a true portable recording rig would be best, then you can dump the stuff onto your macbook later.

Maybe ask in the audio forum or on gearslutz or something to see what they suggest there.

Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back