M-Audio Fast Track USB

It uses USB 1.1.

XLR microphone input is fine. The guitar line in sucks. It's okay for clean and slightly overdriven presets. I like metal though, and when I use the heavy presets I get a bunch of unwanted noise.

USB powered.

Supports 44.1 / 48 16 to 24 bit. You can directly monitor. Sound quality is okay with this.

Comes with a demo of Ableton Live and some junk amp modeling software. Nothing special.

I have recorded a few tracks with this device. It's been OKAY, but the Achilles heel of this unit is the guitar line in for heavy presets.

I would NOT recommend this for other musicians. Steer clear from this thing.

If it was destroyed or stolen I would buy something else. As a matter of fact, after a year of use I have bought something else.

I wish it had the ability to handle heavy guitar tones without artifacts.

Just a simple plastic box at all. It has three knobs; Mic In, Mix, Output. You don't have input gain for Hi-Z input, the only gain control is Mic Input knob. Don't search for DSP or that kind of stuff, because the thing isi really cheap and simple. There is only clipping circuit just works for microphone input.

Though the material is plastic, I think it is solid enough to be used on road. Everything seems solid except knobs. Don't treat them badi or you will end up with three broken cheap plastic parts.

The connection is made through a USB 1.1 port.

Preamps on this thing are surprisingly great. I don't think they reflect the cheap concept of FTU. You have one XLR input and Hi-Z input. There are only RCA and headphone outputs. It sucks in this field.

It is bus-powered and doesn't contain +48V for mics. Again great sucking for this machine, but don't have high expectations for this price range.

There are two sample rates 44.1 and 48. There are plenty of drivers on it official site, but I can swear that there are no Vista support. Although it worked fine on my older laptop, it gave a sound which is full of distortion and crackles on my new laptop. I did everything to work this ******* little thing on Vista Home Premium, but ended up on the same outcome: A bag of ********!!! At last, upon somebody's recommedation, I downloaded a small software bit called AMD USB Driver Filter. The outcome is pretty good, but there are rarely crackles after even applying that. But ironically, technical support team only suggest installing new drivers! They are really good jokers. I couldn't expect them to do a better thing, fixing the bugs for example!!!

Ableton Live, PrpTools Demo, GT Player Express are bundled software. GT Player thing can't be operated. I couldn't understand what's going on eventhough I am an teacher of English. Just use the thing with Cubase and others.

I just bought this ******* thing to accomplish amp and cab, pedal simulations and hook up my bass without having much pain in my ass. It works pretty cool on Windows Xp, but when it comes to Vista it sucks, sucks even more than history of sucking!!! I would recommend it to XP users, but Vistaman shouldn't get close to this thing.

This is meant to be a basic recording device for guitar and vocals on a computer.

USB 2.0. I don't know if it works with USB 1.1.

Offers inputs for 1/4" and XLR. Includes one headphone and RCA out.

Bus-powered.

16 or 24 bit. Drivers update at M-AUDIO. See their site for more details.

Includes driver, a Pro-Tools demo, Ableton Lite v6.0 and GT Express.
The driver must be updated. The demo is irrelevant. Clicking on the Ableton icon does nothing. GT Express comes from Audiffex which recommends an update to InTone Express. InTone Express provides an error message and their website offers no help. This boils down to three CDs that do nothing and no way to get the hardware to run, though it does have a very nice power on blue light.

In the real world this is another piece of plastic that will wind up on the earth. I would recommend it to someone who would rather collect gadgets and spend hours trying to get software to work than play their instrument. If it were destroyed I wouldn't care because I would like to do that myself. If it were stolen I would enjoy the fact that the thief has gotten my revenge. In terms of what I wish it had, I wish it had worked! I wish the hardware had software!

This is a pretty basic little box, plastic casing but it seemed sturdy enough.

This is where Ive had problems. This box worked brilliantly for most of the 18 months Ive had it until the instrument line-in stopped working. There wasnt any warning and it hadnt been badly treated in any way (home and rehersal room use only), I just set it up one day and nothing! The XLR input works fine and Im still using this but Im pretty pissed off as the thing is now out of warranty.

Ive not tried to get technical support from M-Audio on this so it maybe fixable, but im not too happy that this happened after only 18 months normal use. Anyone else had these problems?

I've had this device (it appears to be a device although it has served no useful purpose to me) for over a year. Bought it then realized it wasn't compatible with Vista. Waited until new drivers were made available for Vista then downloaded. Nothing. Gave up for a few months, then tried again. Used the FAQ section on their website and the only advice was to 'download new drivers'. For some people this may be an excellent device. For me it just cost a hundred bucks and about a dozen hours of useless computer labor to no purpose. The software says it loaded but then it tells me no hardware is detected. Although the icons appear and everything seems ready to roll. The only help I've found tells me to download new drivers. I'm planning on tossing this into the fire pit at my next bbq and going back to Edisons wax cylinders to record stuff. I'm neanderthalian and that would much better suit my purpose.