Q. Will my Digi 001 work with my new PC?

By Chris Mayes-Wright

I have a Digidesign Digi 001 interface, which I have been using for some time. But I recently purchased a new PC with an Intel Pentium-D dual-core CPU, 4GB of RAM and loads of hard disk space, and I was wondering if my 001 card will work with my new machine, as it has heaps more processing power. It looks like it should fit in the PCI slot but I don't want to go too far until I know a few more details. I don't think Digidesign support the 001 systems any more, so any help will be appreciated.

Beau Bennett

The Digi 001 kick-started Digidesign's expansion into the project-studio market, with the cut-down Pro Tools LE software.

News Editor Chris Mayes-Wright replies: You're right in thinking that Digidesign don't support the 001 systems any more, but their web site still has some useful information, hidden away in the archive section, at archive.digidesign.com/support. Here, you'll find an 'answerbase archive', containing the answers to hundreds of frequently asked questions, and a downloads section, where you can get the latest drivers for your hardware and links to technical white papers and specifications.

On the hardware side of things, your motherboard will probably be the key. Some new motherboards only offer PCI Express (PCIe) slots, which won't work with the 001; others combine PCIe slots with an 'old-style' PCI socket or two. If yours is one of the latter, you should be OK.

However, you may run into problems with your operating system. As your new machine is based on a dual-core Pentium-D setup (which is a relatively new chip), I'm assuming that you're running Microsoft's most recent operating system (until Vista takes hold, that is): Windows XP SP2. On their web site, Digidesign state "although you may be able to use Service Pack 2 with Digi 001, it has not been tested and is therefore not officially qualified with Digi 001". Instead, they recommend that you use Service Pack 1.

This means that, in short, they probably didn't test it, but there's a good chance that it will work so, personally, I'd tentatively try the 001 with XP Service Pack 2 first, and only step down to Service Pack 1 if completely necessary.

You didn't state which operating system you have on your old machine, but if you are running Windows 98SE or Me, you will have been using no higher than version 5.1.1 of Pro Tools LE. For use with Windows XP, you'll need to upgrade to v5.3.1, which you can do from the archive web site, or, if you have a later version, you can go as far as v6.4 until Digi 001 support dries up.

Published February 2007