The Avid Mbox Mini ($299 direct) offers a neat way to get started with Pro Tools without any frills. The bundled Pro Tools Express software is a little too cut down—its eight-instrument track limit is particularly tight. But the Mbox Mini  hardware itself is sound, and it works great with other apps. Taken together, the package is perfect for budding musicians, producers, and post-production sound designers that want an easy way to record vocals or instruments, and monitor audio through studio speakers. Yet while the Mbox Mini offers great value if you're planning on using the bundled Pro Tools Express software, it's only an average value otherwise, thanks to its high price.

System Requirements, Design, and Ports
Avid specifies that you'll need either a Mac running OS X 10.6.8 or newer, or a PC running Windows 7 (either 32-bit or 64-bit), along with two free USB ports; one for the Mbox Mini interface, and one for the iLok copy protection dongle. The hardware itself is rock solid, with a hefty aluminum casing and textured matte black plastic front and rear panels. The Mbox Mini weighs roughly two pounds; you'll notice when carrying it around, but it's got a more substantial feel than the original, which is a good thing. It's fully USB powered, and the knobs and switches all work with precision. On the back, you get a pair of 1/4-inch output jacks, plus 1/4-inch direct and line inputs, a single XLR input with switchable 48v phantom power, and a mic/line button for the XLR input.

The front panel contains an oversized volume knob with a rubberized coating. There are individual gain controls for each of the two channels, including LEDs that light up green with signal and blink red to indicate clipping. The Mix control lets you monitor the input directly, listen only to audio through the PC, or a mixture of the two. There's one 1/4-inch headphone jack; two would have been better. A small blue power LED indicates everything is ready to go. And a button next to the power LED lets you mute the speakers, which is useful if you've got headphones plugged in, or if you just want to ensure no sound leaks into a nearby microphone.

Recording and Pro Tools Express
The Mbox Mini is limited to 48KHz resolution, but on a budget-priced interface, that's fine. You'll hear more improvement using 24-bit audio recording over 16-bit than you would going from, say, 44.1KHz to 96KHz. The Mbox Mini works with any Core Audio or ASIO-compatible application. I had no problem recording with Cubase 6.5 as well as the full version of Pro Tools 10.

Pro Tools Express works much like the full Pro Tools 10 application. Like the full version, Pro Tools Express features automatic delay compensation, as well as the Pro Tools MIDI Editor and Sibelius-powered Score editor. You also get a basic complement of virtual instrument plug-ins, including Boom, a sequencing drum machine; Structure Free, a sample player; and Xpand2, a multitimbral workstation, plus a set of AIR effects plug-ins, a few compressors, and D-Verb.

That said, Pro Tools Express is missing a lot of plug-ins, and the aforementioned eight instrument track limit is unfortunate. On the plus side, you can record and mix up to 16 stereo audio tracks for live instruments, which is more reasonable. Still, the limits are tight enough to push you into upgrading much faster than you would from, say, Sonar X1 Essentials to Sonar X1 Producer, or from Cubase Artist 6 to Cubase 6, as neither entry-level package is nearly so limiting. Worse, the upgrade from Pro Tools Express to the full Pro Tools 10 costs a staggering $399. Considering Pro Tools 10 by itself lists for $699, though, you'd essentially be getting the Mbox Mini free in the bargain.

Audio Quality, Latency, and Conclusions
In testing, the Mbox Mini acquitted itself well. In a variety of projects, I heard clean audio in and out. That's especially true of the mic preamps, which offer plenty of gain and noise-free sound when paired with a Rode NT-1A condenser mic, although the sound was a bit "sculpted," meaning there was a slight midrange dip. I also experienced appreciably low latency even at 512 samples, which left plenty of CPU headroom for dozens of plug-in instances while recording MIDI tracks. Latency was also low enough to record vocals with software reverb in the headphones, even without using direct monitoring.

Overall, the Avid Mbox Mini is a good buy if you're looking to break into Pro Tools recording and mixing, and want to get started with the same interface and workflow that professional recording and post-production studios use. If you're focused on music composition, though, and don't need Pro Tools software, a different interface—say, an M-Audio Fast Track ($149.99, 4 stars)—and an entry-level DAW like Cockos Reaper, FL Studio, SONAR X1 Essentials, or Cubase Artist 6 will get you many more features and higher track counts for similar or even less money. The plastic Fast Track feels flimsy next to the metal Mbox Mini, but that's not enough to pay double the price for the Mbox Mini alone. If you're a Reason fan, the Propellerhead Balance ($449.99, 3.5 stars) costs significantly more, but sounds just as good as the Mbox Mini and offers separate monitor and headphone knobs.

Finally, if you've got a Mac, it's tough to ignore Logic Pro 9, which is a stunning value at just $200—that leaves $100 for a bargain-priced interface. Otherwise, the Avid Mbox Mini does exactly what it claims to do; even if you outgrow the Pro Tools Express software, the hardware should serve you well for years to come.

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