M-Audio Fast Track Pro Reviews

[brandondrury]

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Is The M-Audio Fast Track Pro The Right Audio Interface For You?
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M-Audio Fast Track Pro Description
The M-Audio Fast Track Pro Mobile USB Audio/MIDI Interface is loaded with professional features for optimal mobile recording flexibility. You get 2 front-panel mic/line inputs complete with phantom power for condenser microphones, inserts for outboard effects, balanced and unbalanced analog outputs, S/PDIF digital I/O, MIDI I/O, and more. The Fast Track Pro also features near-zero latency direct hardware monitoring and low-latency ASIO software monitoring, plus an A/B source switch and dual output pairs for DJ-style cueing. Compatible with most popular PC and Mac music software. USB connection and bus power along with class compliancy for Mac OS X* make it a breeze to set up.


Professional Recording Anywhere, Anytime
With the Fast Track Pro, you'll get professional results whenever and wherever you want to record. A single USB connection gives you access to all the I/O you need for microphones and instruments like guitars, as well as MIDI- and S/PDIF-equipped digital audio gear. The microphone inputs are even phantom powered to accommodate the studio-quality condenser microphones. M-Audio's acclaimed driver software gives you total routing control over the 4 x 4 I/O including setting up an effects loop with external devices.

[Sadgrinner]

Just purchased this item, and I'm wondering if any of you have experience using it.
Since this is an interface, I need to completely disable my current soundcard to use it, right?

Currently I am struggling to get this to play nicely with my computer. Drivers are updated and the control panel says it is "connected". Yet I am unable to do two things:

1. I can't plug a mic in, or a guitar, and record any sound.
2. I can't seem to play any sound through this. IE: is there a way to play music on the computer, and then listen to it through this device? I would love to be able to play a CD or something and then plug my headphones into the Fast Track Pro's headphone slot and HEAR something.

Eager to get started recording, but getting a wee bit frustrated... Please help if you can!

[TonyB]

I have one of these, but only use it for DJ purposes; although I used it a while back for mobile recording with my DAW (laptop running Sonar0). I can tell it's a finnicky piece of equipment (or the laptop liked losing the Fast Track configuration).

1. I can't plug a mic in, or a guitar, and record any sound.
What are you using to record it with (i.e., DAW?). Your DAW needs to be set with the Fast Track as the input devices.

2. I can't seem to play any sound through this. IE: is there a way to play music on the computer, and then listen to it through this device?
YES, you need to set the playback device to use Fast Track as your Output device. Disable your internal audio card.
Make sure the Master Volumer/Output knob on the front of the Fast Track is turned up (gradually turn it up). [I fell for this one a few times]

[Sadgrinner]

I appreciate the quick response! In maybe six hours I can head home and try again.

The first DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, I presume) I tried came with this product, called Ableton 7 Lite.

I was unable to record any sound through this program, and I figured it was one of two things: either A) my unfamiliarity with the program was causing problems, or B) because it was the "Lite" version of the software it didn't actually have recording functionality.

So I switched to a free and really simple program called Audacity to try further recording. I might simplify yet again and see if the Windows-recording stuff can record anything. Anyway, I had set Audacity to use Fast Track as the input device without any luck. However... I have to go home and see if the "Manage Audio Devices" is set correctly - to double check, as you suggest, that I have completely disabled my internal audio card and that it is set as the master for both input and output.

I would love to listen to the music WHILE I record, and more than that I would like to even record in the first place. Once again, I appreciate the response and will update later with how things are going.

[4Speed]

Quality: 8
I give it an 8 - plastic, gotta hold on to it to plug stuff in and out. Had to download latest drivers to get it to work right. Still causes my laptop w/Vista/Cubase 4 to jump/skip/crash. I now only use the laptop for mixing and do all recording on the desktop, I also use the Fast Track Ultra. Both M-Audio units work great.

Reliability: 9
Great! use the latest driver from website.

Overall Rating: 8
Pre-amps are a bit anemic. I generally do one track at a time - vocals, acoustic guitar, miked amp, line in bass, using an AKG 414. Have to really crank up the M-Audio to get decent levels. Recently dug the Aphex 107 Tubessence pre-amp out and go thru that first. Perfect.
I'd recommend this unit to others. Not the best unit in the world, but a good value and gets the job done.

[Sadgrinner]

Personally I had to completely disable my current sound card to get this to work. On the positive side, it seems to be pretty decent so far and does provide an easy interface to the computer that I did not have before.

I definitely need to do something to improve the latency though, because there is a very noticeable delay between playing an instrument and hearing it after it is routed through the computer and back to the headphones. Hopefully it can be adjusted via some settings and it is not the fault of poor CPU performance.

[Noelers]

I'm trying to decide what audio interface to go for, this one seems to have everything I need but as with pretty much every other interface I've checked out there are a bunch of reviews slating it for it's unreliability.

Are there any relatively cheap ones that won't go dodgy after a couple of months?

To call myself a noobie at recording would be understating it, my big concern is that I'm technologically retarded so if it doesn't work as it should I wont have the slightest idea how to get around it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks