M-Audio FastTrack USB

I purchased M-Audio Session + Fast track USB for ??69 (inc. P&P). Set up was fairly simple - although I didn't read the manual correctly and tried to install session without downloading the updated drivers first! Once I realised my mistake it was really simple. Fast track USB overrides my PC's on board soundcard when plugged in (as expected) and does a great job of handling all audio data.

I'm using the audio interface with PC, XP Pro SP3, Pentium dual core 2 X 2.2GHZ, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD. I've tested my Cort electric, Epiphone electro-acoustic, and Shure mic. Everything works and sounds great. I recorded a simple guitar track 'clean' then spent a while trying out different effects and amp models on this track. Most of the effects sound brilliant, although I'll have to experiment with some to achieve the full potential. The recorded sound is crystal clear and plenty loud enough.

I've only been using the unit for a few days, but it hasn't let me down yet!

M-Audio has a comprenhensive FAQ section. I imagine that any problems users of this product experience would be rectified there - You can email them, too, which is reassuring. I registered my purchase with them and signed up for email alerts for any updates to the software that become available.

I'm an amatuer songwriter and have a lot of songs that I've written over the years but never thought I'd get them recorded. This seems like the perfect solution, for me - I like the fact I can set up a drum track to keep me in time, then record my guitar and vocals. I'll then experiment with adding other tracks, like a bass or keyboards etc. Should be fun. I was looking for a good quality, reasonably priced way to record my own compositions. I've also downloaded a DAW called 'Reaper' and have exported my Session tracks into that, so I can fine tune my music further, save them as MP3's and upload them to the net, myspace etc. If the unit ever got lost or stolen I'd have no hesitation in buying the exact same one.

You plug it in. A no brainer.

Sounds terrible, a complete piece of junk.

A piece of plastic junk--I have owned 2 of these and the unit is 0 for 2 as far as quality, You might say, "what do you expect for $80..."---this piece of crap is not worth 10 cents. OK, so it comes with a USB cable. Throw the unit away and you have purchased a USB cable for $80.

Who cares. M-Audio has burned every bridge as far as I'm concerned by charging money for this unit. The cardboard box it comes in is worth more. I will never ever buy anything else from M-Audio--this is an insult. BTW I did call customer service and was placed on hold for over an hour and never was allowed to talk to anyone for longer than 5 seconds. Not suprising, they are fully aware that this unit is garbage.

This unit is a complete piece of garbage. A smarter decision would be to flush your $80 down the toilet. There is not a rating low enough for this terrible product. M-Audio is a joke and when they go out of business, I will laugh. I know they have aligned themselves with pro-tools or whatever...like I said, when they go out of business....

Plug it in. It works.

Admittedly it didn't have a windows vista cd, so I needed to get the drivers off the M Audio website, but that took about 2 minutes. Then it was working.

Set it to 44.1Khz, 24 bit, the latency as down to 128 milliseconds (as low as it goes... thats 1 tenth of a second out of real time, so its damn quick). Open Cubase, device management, ASIO driver: M Audio USB, MIDI: Input - M Audio USB MIDI IN, Output - M Audio USB OUT.

And you only need to do that, if Cubase doesn't do it automatically.

People say there is alot of latency... for PCs, try and turn it down in the Control Panel ( don't know where to go with a MAC ) then it sorts out the latency. Quite Simple.

Inputs 1 and 2 on the front, 'MIX' so you can hear what you play, and what is playing back, and mix how much of each you want to hear, seperate headphone volume, very cool etc...

The only issue is the if you change anything! even just the usb cable you are using you start getting a 'TBIA Error: Access Denied'

To sort this out, (on Vista) turn off UAC (User Account Control), your computer will restart, when it logs back on, your Fast Track Pro will re-install the drivers, then you turn UAC back on, it will restart your computer again, then its fine.

So other than that, its great!

With the sound set to 44.1Khz at 24 bit... thats higher than standard CD quality... so I don't understand how people say the sound quality is bad.

... it sounds Great, especially back through KRK monitors out the TRS outputs!

Its fairly reliable, I've had to restart it a couple of times, so its not 100%, but 80% of the time, it works ALL the time! haha

Never had to talk to them. I can work it out.

Great for home studio use.

Probable a bit basic for anything more professional, but if you're going for more professional, go with Firewire interfaces, much more reliable.

This is a really simple unit to use it really is just plug and play. Just install the drivers and your away.

The only problem I had was with the mix knob as I had never used anything like this before.

Other than that sometimes the driver seems to knock itself out but thats simple to put right.

The sound form the 1/4" jack when clean is fine it sounds the same at is I was playing my guitar acoustically. But when using the effects (GTplayer) it wasn't that good I like all of the clean sounds but couldn't get a good overdriven tone. So I used my Marshall Jackhammer and it was fine.

I recently bought a Shure PG57 in order to just record my amp rather than going through the pretty crappy effects. The sound of the recording is the same as what come out the amp.

The only reason I gets a 8 is beacuse of the rubblish GTplayer effects

The guitar I use through this is a Hand Made Warmoth Strat with EMG active pickups.

No problems at all really.

Very quick replies from both the M-audio website and the Audioflex website (GTplayer)

Cosidering it only cost me ??59 its fantastic I have a freind with an M-box and Protools who is very impressed with the sounds i'm getting from it considering the very limited things I can do with the software.

Other than the minor problems stated I think its a brilliant bit of kit and if your looking just to record vocals and guitar and not having to put loads of loops and beats over it. This is a great peice.

I would not say this was the easiest piece of kit to get up and running- I seem to rememeber quite a lot of faffing about with the ASIO drivers: on duplex mode it was very crackly initially but eventually sorted it. Latency is the big problem- you just can't listen to what you're recording.....which is pretty crap. I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 lap-top, should be alright spec I would've thought. I use cubase, I gave the bundled software a go and the effects on GT express seemed ok, same latency, though.

I have only recorded my guitar DI'd or sometimes with my HBE power screamer. There are no decent bundled effects for using in Cubase, so thats pretty rubbish too. I recorded my band rehearsal using one mic, and it was ok I suppose. Latency, latency, latency: thats what ruins this thing

I imagine it will work to the same not very good standard.

Personally, I think if you spend ??79 on a product it should just bloody work! I'm going to try their website now, but I think they won't solve a damn thing

I play indie rock and have been playing the same rubbish for 12 years. I think I will buy a Line 6 product, as I have had good reports about a lack of latency and also ease of use. I hate this product- it bugs me that ??79 has basically been wasted. Can it really be that difficult to improve the latency?

If you have a clean PC system it's easy installation. If you have ASIO drivers on your system, you can get in trouble. When I installed it on my HP pavillion laptop it took me 3 hours. Finally after reboot and reboot it worked. When installed it later on a Compaq Armada M300 with clean OS it was done in a few minutes.
Like the integrated amp and headphone out volume.

Sound is great. I use it with my SONY CD7 headphones and it is just awesome considered the pricetag. !HOWEVER there are a lot of pittfals you need to olve first: 1) this unit don't use and external power source, but uses the USB to source the pre-amp of the guitar input!! This is great, but you NEED to have a clean PC 5v line otherwise you will have a lot of noise. 2) Also I found out that some USB-cables are more noisier than others 3) !! My Strat pickups are sensitive elements, so if you are 4 feet near the PC, my strat will pickup all electromagnetic radiation coming from my P4 2.8 GHz processor. So NO sitting around the PC while your guitar hangs around your neck!!

As it sources it power from the USB, My Armada M300 didn't liked the large powerdip at startup (USB error). I solved this bij putting a USB hub in between. You can use a AC powered version, but is not necessary. Secondly, if I run NI Guitar Rig (asio driver with only 3ms latency!) I cannot start fi band in a box (it crashes)

The website is poor. No propper FAQ or manuals. At installation it referred to a trouble shoot pdf; I could not find it on the CD, nor the website....

Played 10 years guitar, vary from classical to blues/pop. Recently picked up playing. I stopped playing when we got a kid (too loud to play with Amp and only at ties that I didnt feel like playing). Wish I had the m-audio back in those days. For me it is a new way of practicing my guitar. With PC and Guitar Rig it is great fun to jam along using the MP3 player in a loop

it was very straightforward with my OS X 3.9...pretty much plug and play, although i did have to change some preferences on garageband and on my computer. i would not rely on the manual for being able to address any troubleshooting issues at all.

the sound when the 1/8 jack was used was pretty poor - very noisy. i have a laptop and found the noise to be less when i unplugged the computer cord - this should not be something you need to do in order to get just adequate sound. the mic input works fine and i had much more success when i played through my amp (roland cube 15) and miced the speaker. if i decide do use any instrument that needs a 1/8 i'll use a direct box. the mic input is that much better. i noticed a lot of latency when i used effects with garage band. it's better to record without effects and then add later. no other latency problems yet.
overall not outstanding sound, but if you play with settings enough, it can get better.

i have not owned this unit long enough to have an opinion.

no need to contact support.

i love this unit's very affordable cost. it's great to use if you need something in order to get some ideas down. i have not used other recording interfaces. it should work fine on appropriate mac systems.

It is easy to use, there is a pathetic soft manual. It however works occasionally and the latency is the worst part.

I have a complete studio in the loft section of my house, but as you can imagine, it's a serious pain to turn everything on, get up and running, just to record a new little part or tweak to a song. I purchased the fasttrack so that I could plug it into my bedroom computer, record the tweak and then send it to the studio computer. The sound quality is pathetic, I have tried all sorts of different things plugged into it and it makes everything sound tinny, infact I compared it to plugging directly into a sound card (audigy2 with breakout box) and no tinny. I am extremely dissappointed as I was hoping to use it with my laptop as well. I don't give up easily on anything and have tried every possible combination to get an acceptable sound, no dice, it's better to go through a computer's sound card. As far as the bundled software (gt player), that's even more dissappointing and absolutely adds no value to the product itself.

Un-reliable, cuts out, both mac (various G4's with atleast 1.25Ghz & 1Gb ram) and PC (AMD and Intel, min. 3Ghz w/2Gb ram and 10k-rpm RAID-0 drives).. this unit is not meant to gig with, and if anyone tried, I would recommend discontinuing the use of blotter acid.

Have dealt with cutomer support, ohhh... so...happy, happy, nice, nice and friendly AND INCOMPETENT.

I play Metal, not 3chord NuMetal, this product is a bad idea, it will NOT track anything more than a 16th note at 120bpm, I suppose then it would work for nunmetal. Have also tried guitarport and toneport... they sound better, software is monumentally better, but technologically I don't think we're there yet...

I have had nothing but intallation problems with this product for 5 days now. It knocks out my sound card vol control, the system icon disappears apon reboot. Softwear install never tells when to reboot (like the manual says it will) I have had to unintall it 8 times now and then have to reinstall my sound drivers and my GuitarPort to get my sound up and working again. Tech support the last time (there have been several contacts) Suggested that my operating system is installed wrong?????? I am running XP have had my current computer for about 2 years and have no other problems with things that I have installed or used. I have found out by looking at several different websites that lots of people have trouble with this. So if you are one of the lucky ones who have actually got it working. Count your blessings.

Can't get a sound out of it, even though my system shows it is installed and working. Knocks my sound card out. Tech told me that my computer system is set up for Virtual IRC and that the best way to have an operating system on a desktop is to use Gen. Set up, suggested that I go into my BIOS and switch my operating system over, well there is no place in my BIOS for switching it over. What a joke

never worked,

could do just as well, by guessing and just going around uninstalling things and switching things around. I have requested a different tech.

I would avoid buying this and look around for a better interface. My guitarport worked perfectly from the first install.

Super Easy to install. Took a bit of mucking around with the controls to get a good sound but it only has three knobs. In the end it was a no brainer. Had good sound in under five minutes.

As far as manuals - why? Why would anyone need a manual for the unit itself? If you can't figure this thing out maybe you should reconsider recording music yourself and let soneone else do it for you.

The bundled GT Player is neat to fart around with, but I doubt I will be putting it to use.

For a cheap-o unit the recording does what it is supposed to. It's not 100% studio quality but, then again, it only costs $135 cdn.

So far I have installed the drivers on both my main workstation and my laptop. Sound is excellent on both; records well on both and I am currently using the Fasttrack to listen to tunes on my laptop. If anything it's a very decent alternative to the crappy, on board sound on my laptop without having to spend big bucks on a Creative USB unit.

For recording I have tried clean guitar, bass and some vocals and the performance is good, if a little on the queit end - but I'm still playing with the settings in n-Track Studio.

Just got it so I cant really say. So far it's very portable, takes up NO desk space. I'm sure I'll be taking it places with me - fits nicely in my laptop case.

-shrug- If it falls apart by the end of the week then I'll be pissed but I treat my stuff with kid gloves so it should be ok.

Downloaded the newest drivers from the website - navigating the support pages to find the latest software was very easy.

Didn't have to contact support. Didn't have to. Didn't even need the manual.

The unit does what it says: plug it in and play. Very compact and super easy to use.

So far no complaints. Very, very good recorder for the price.

just an update as i forgot a couple of important things.

the latency on this thing is also god awful.

when recording in cubase i had to set a recording latency of +300 samples to make my recordings in time with the rest of the songs. i have a really nice p4-3Ghz so i couldnt explain why it was doing this, i dont have this trouble with my pci m-audio audiophile (in the same pc). for someone trying to use another proggie (like garageband) where you cant set a recording latency, this would be a major problem.

also the drivers dont let you select the latency in miliseconds directly. you have a slider for latency and you set the slider between MORE and LESS, it doesnt tell you what the latency is miliseconds which is pretty annoying. i guess they thought it would be a good idea to dumb it down for the intended audience.

once in a host app using asio i was unable to change the latency. i had to close all apps and then change the latency.

very easy to install drivers on xp.
started working in asio apps immediatly.

I was using a standard Epiphone Casino and a Gibson LP Standard.

I didn't install the bundled software (GT Express or something) as it looked like rubbish, i have no doubt it would sound like rubbish too.

I immediatly fired it up in stand alone Guitar Rig. I cleared the presets to get a clean sound. It sounded so dull that i thought the guitar/line switch was broken. I played an open E and pressed the Guitar/Line switch on and off. There was minimal difference, having the button set to line cut off some of the higher freq. (much like plugging your guitar into a balanced line-in).

I fired it up in cubase, same problem. it just doesnt record guitar in at all.

I made an attempt to correct the dull sound by significantly boosting the freq at 4000k (emulating a presence switch on an amp), this worked quite well, but i dont want to have to eq everything i record, i expect it to work well.

If you are thinking about buying this device to record guitar, think again. this is not the device for you. you wouldn't be much worse off buying a phone to rca cable from your local guitar store and running your guitar into your sound card then boosting the freq with an eq.

I would have given this catagory 1/10 except the mic input does work as you would expect, so 3/10 just for the mic input.

i only used it for 1 day before i returned it so i could say if it was reliable. it worked fine for the day i had it :)

didn't contact them. i spoke to several guitar gurus who advised i just get it replaced with a different product.

avoiding this one is a no-brainer.

i wish i had read the reviews here before purchasing.

it is very easy to use!!! i called m -audio toll free no. and i talked to a guy and to cut the storey short, its a good entry level interface, i like it u just have to call the guys if you dont understand the manual

dont bother with the free gt crap software, tis not gonna do you any good. use your own rig or whatever, and youll get the exact same sound recorded

i use this thing for home recording, to make demos... and i just got it 2 weeks ago, so i cant say nothin here

they answered my questions and theyre patient wid me.. very helpful

if youre looking for a compact interface without bullsh**ing.. get this one.. an entry level interface doesnt have to cost a lot!

Just an update on the release of my fury in the post below ... the store I bought it at has a pretty good return policy. Although I was hesistant to give M-Audio another try, I upped my budget by $70 and got the M-Audio Firewire Solo ($199).

Now the Solo is a thing of beauty ... the sound I hear coming out of my guitar when playing, is exactly what I hear when I play back a recording. For recording acoustic/electrics, it works amazing pluging my Takamine straight into the unit.

If you don't have the extra $$ to go from the Fastrack USB to the Firewire Solo, just keep saving your money until you can!!

Easy to connect and get going, but as for a manual ... forget it. I'm experienced in using home recording equipment, and I was at a lost trying to figure out where to start.

Well, of course, this was the whole point of me buying it. Previously, I simply plugged directly into my soundcard from the headphone jack in my amp using a 1/8 adapter plug. I figured this had to be an improvement. WRONG!!!! This things muffles my guitar's natural tone, and I'm far better off recording my old way.

Realize that I'm very easy going, and not looking for peffect results, but this thing is ridiculous. It should have never been sold to the public. The advancements in recording tools and the lowering of prices in general has been amazing, but this tool is not an example of that. Far from it.

I haven't thrown it up against the wall yet ... I'll have to see if I can get a store credit or something. If I can't, then up against the wall it goes and I'll come back with an update.

I'm easy to please, and typically don't feel agnst against the world ... but this purchase has put me in a very bad mood. What's worse is that I actually read the reviews below before I bought and assumed thwy just didn't know how to use the thing properly. WHAT A FOOL I AM .... if you're thinking of buying this don't!!!!

I find this to be very difficult to understand. No control seems to have any effect on anything whatsoever. The GT software has no instruction manual and the Help section on the computer is so basic you can't get the thing to work. So far, I haven't been able to do anything with the GT thing. THe interface, Fasttrack proper, I use to record onto Garage Band, but most of the time, there's such a delay I give up after a few minutes. Just too annoying for me.
I use a G4 Ibook with all the memory I need and it still won't work properly. I've tried what they suggest in terms of lifting the load off the RAM's back but it still lags irritatingly. Piece of junk if you ask me. I'm considering going back to the shop for a refund. I am not in the habit of paying good dollars for a thing that won't perform the task I bought it for.

OK

I've been tempted to stomp on it but what good would that do me ?

DON'T BUY this piece of junk.

This audio interface is easy to use, at least with Mac OS-X 10.3.6. The supplied GTPlayer Express software does not seem to work fully with OS-X 10.2.8: Editing patches fails there. The manual is fine for the FastTrack, but somewhat lacking for GTPlayer. Getting good sound out of it requires the use of a line-level signal: the instrument level input does not provide adequate signal levels for optimal recording or, for example, to drive Amplitube Live.

I've tried several guitars, with single coils and humbuckers. Used a Koch PedalTone, Mesa Subway Rocket, and Roland VG-8, in addition to just pluggin in the guitar (as I was hoping to be able to do, for portable use). The GTPlayer software works, and doesn't sound too bad, but the need for line-level input means one would probably use outboard effects anyhow. My 666 MHz PowerBook G4 can handle 3 GTPlayer effects, but generally not 4. Too many effects causes nasty noisy artifacts.

I've only had this a couple days.

I've e-mailed customer support, and haven't heard from them, but they probably haven't had time to reply during business hours. No reason to think customer service won't be good, but hard to see they can help with my complaint about levels without a firmware update or an exchange.

I play folk, rock and blues. I've been playing for over 40 years. This would be great if it put out higher levels from instrument inputs. I bought it for conveinient use with my laptop, and it's useful, but not great, in that role. I have a MOTU firewire interface for more serious recording efforts with both PC and Mac towers. I didn't A/B it with other similar units.