Customer Reviews

M-Audio Fast Track Pro 4x4 Mobile USB Audio/MIDI Interface with Preamps

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

1.- This is primarily an USB External Soundcard, so don't ask more than a simple soundcard can deliver for you. If you want a multitrack recorder, or a high-end amplifier, or a 256 mixing console, then buy them, but not this one.

2.- The installation is the simplest. Don't use the CD. C'mon! This machine has been in the market since (I think) 2005, so don't expect 2010 drivers in the box. Forget about the CD and go directly to the M-Audio website and download the drivers that you need.

Don't forget to uninstall all previous drivers associated with older soundcards and physically extract your old soundcard from your computer.

And, beware: first of all install the M-Audio drivers, reboot your machine and just then, you can turn in your Fast Track Pro, never ever before (!).

3.- Maybe the interface it's a little enigmatic to understand - because the manual isn't that explicit - but not impossible to master. An advice... You`re surely gonna need some Y adapters because the only cable that comes in the box is the USB connector. In my case - only my case - I needed one Y adapter to connect my speakers (crappy ones) that have a 1/8 male connector (just enough for my old soundcard), so I needed a 1 stereo TRS 1/8 female to 2 mono RCA male Y adapter (lot of letters, uh?). Besides, I use an old second hand V-AMP with my guitar, so I needed a 1 stereo TRS female to 2 mono TRS male Y adapter, to connect my V-AMP in stereo and not mono. If you don't do this your instrument signal will be in mono and at one side.

4.- Some people complain that the sound is not that loud, but it depends of the kind of speakers and headphones you use. Bad ones, weak output - Good ones, strong output. With this dude, the bad stuff really sounds bad! So don't blame the Fast Track Pro for any weak sound.

5.- Some people - believe me - gets confused with the front, with all the knobs and buttons, but it's not that hard. The "signal" knobs at the side of the XLR/TRS inputs are exactly for that, for them only. The fun it's in the right side... The "mix" knob has two functions:

- When your're using the XLR/TRS inputs, for guitars, basses or microphones, just to mix them left and right. The upper bottom (inst/line) it's to select between a guitar signal or a synthesizer signal. The lower bottom (pad) is to cushion your soundcard from a too strong signal (maybe an amplified one). I use it to connect stuff I don't know how powerful could be.

- When you're not using those XLR/TRS inputs, and you just want to hear music (because, after all, it's a soundcard), then turn the "mix" knob all the way to the right, so then you can use the other two knobs, the "output" knob and the "level" knob.

The "output" knob is for turning up or down your speakers level or anything you have connected to the RCA outputs in the back. The "level" knob is for the same function, but only if you connect a pair of headphones to the TRS input in the front, exactly below the "level" knob.

6.- By the way, I haven't used the two TRS output, nor the TRS inputs, nor the secondary RCA outputs, nor the S/PIDF RCA connectors, nor the MIDI in/out connectors either. I don't have that many necessities, but they may come in handy for somebody else. And the MIDI connectors really come in handy when you need to plug a synthesizer or sampler that needs dedicated midi in/midi out messages; so there's no need to connect via USB first to your computer, then again via USB to your Fast Track Pro, and then again via USB to your PC to hear the results (!). So it's kind of common sense, to connect MIDI directly to the MIDI in the Fast Track Pro, isn't it?

Other thing, this device doesn't have an synthesizer chip inside, so don't expect to hear any MIDI sound if you connect your controller keyboard to it. You'll have to use softsynths for that, be it standalone or plugins (VST, DX, RTAS) in your Sequencer.

7.- This soundcard doesn't have a software interface as a Soundblaster or the likes, your equalization and volume depends only of the player or program you use, so don't look for a virtual mixer, equalizer or F/X board to modify the sound. I use Winamp or Windows Media Player, so I modify the sound in those programs.

8.- To configure it with your favorite software, you'll need to look on internet to find the right way, because it's not in the manual (the manual is basic hardware description and some instructions to configure it in your OS). I highly recommend The M-Audio forums to find your way in the different configurations, but usually - in any software - it's inside the "properties" or "audio hardware" menu, where you can assign the M-Audio hardware and drivers to make a software work.

In my case, I use Sonar 8 Producer Edition - a monster that I spent weeks trying to make it emit a sound in a humble Soundblaster - and Adobe Audition 3.0 (far easier to configure). And I had to read a lot in internet to make them work with Fast Track Pro, because the experience - without that valuable information - was really disheartening, something that made me understand absolutely all the people that put 1 star on this product. This dude is not for people with little or any patience, or for people that is not PC or Internet savvy, or for people that is not familiarized with Music Software.

9.- Finally, the hardware is really simple to master, just some knobs and buttons with double functions, some different connectors, inputs and outputs (believe me, you will need some Y adapters), and that's it. But on the software side, the one that makes your Fast Track Pro interplay with your Sequencer, your Softsynth, or your Audio Editor... You'll need some time to learn.

In my case, I had to navigate a lot in the M-Audio forums, the Cakewalk Sonar forums and the Adobe Audition forums, to get the information I needed.

PS: Remember that this soundcard (never forget this is a soundcard) doesn't have a CPU or RAM of its own (technically, a DSP), so you'd better have a new and powerful machine (not less than an Intel Core i3), because all the weight of dealing with audio, softsynths and special effects is gonna be on your CPU and RAM... That's why a lot of people with old and weak computers complain about the latency and cracking supposedly "caused" by this soundcard.

This thing CAN sound AMAZING-- but it probably won't, unless you are very careful. Make sure you have the latest drivers. Don't even BOTHER with the MME ("wave") or WDM drivers; it's ASIO or nothing, because M-Audio's MME/WDM drivers are so bad, I was completely convinced this thing had both a noise gate and a lousy ADC, when it turned out to be driver issues.

The pre-amp doesn't have as much gain as you might hope, but if you've got it cranked and you can barely get anything out of an SM-57, something is WRONG with your install. Try using ASIO. I had absolutely horrible results with Adobe Audition 1.0, but the 2.0 demo, using ASIO, a few reboots, and some tweaking, finally sounds perfect.

That said, the headphone output on this thing is awesome. Oh, rock on.

I hope I can get this thing working properly, because the only real competition is about three times the price.

NOTE: This device has PARTIAL support available for Linux/ALSA, with more on the way. That is independent support, mind you-- NOT M-Audio drivers.

I will revise/replace this review as I see better results; this is already better than my last one.

This is a great little machine, yes there are a few caveats.. but on the whole I don't think you will find anything else in this price range with better features. I noticed quite a few negative reviews on this and other m-audio devices here on amazon, but it appears that most of them are either people who are inexperienced with digital audio equipment or people complaining about driver issues.

I have owned previous M-audio equipment and they do have a history of spotty drivers and slow fixes, however in this case I have had absolutely no problems with their drivers (running on Vista 32-bit). The sound quality is great, ASIO latency is low (~3ms), works on Linux too. I would give it 5 stars if it was 24/96 and usb 2.0

I used this mainly in a recording studio.

i had this thing since it was first released around dec 05. the drivers on the cd wouldn't install and seemed alpha quality. since then, new drivers released 3 months later, and none since then. first, BEWARE, if your FTP is on WindowsXP, and is plugged into a USB port that doesn't share IRQs well, you'll have a lot of bluescreen, or audio will stop working, etc... it wont be solid. this was confirmed by talking with m-audio tech support. also searching the net it appears the USB IRQ thing in Windows is a well known problem. and we all thought USB was plug and play? i was floored.. so... after i fixed this conflict (I plugged the USB into a different USB jack who's IRQ wasn't shared by any others), no more crashing/hanging, but occasionally the audio would quit working in windows and i'd have to reboot, maybe every 3-7 days. recently cleaned off some trojan/virus/malware on the system, and the audio _seemed_ to become solid for the last couple weeks straight (so maybe it was just malware causing the issue, or maybe that 3-7 day estimate really is 3-14... hmmm)... anyway, i've uninstalled the device already as I got tired of it as you can imagine.

that said, assuming you will get this device solidly working (and many people have told me they have, so maybe it's ok), here's what's _not_ cool about this little device: can't change buffer size while in audio application (need to quit audio app, then change buffer size, then reenter the app)... also, it's USB1.1, so enabling full duplex (both input and output at the same time) you get a lesser quality sampling rate. the audio ins and outs clip a little low, apparently not as much headroom as other pro gear. With all the screwing around with USB, the fact that it is still using USB 1.1 (instead of 2.0) when introduced in 2006, and the low quality ins/outs, calling this unit "PRO" is going a little far. it certainly appears nice from looking at the I/O features, which is probably what hooks people (it's why I bought it, it's like a swiss army knife). drivers are not often updated, when there's clearly work to be done (i.e. changing the buffer size without closing down the audio app, handling USB IRQ conflicts without being a CPU hog or hanging the computer "a USB driver should not crash a computer no matter how much the tech support person says it needs to be very lean to run realtime... :)", etc..)

what's cool about this, lots of IO features: 2 mic inputs, nice front panel, headphone, etc... really it's the best external audio unit for the price when comparing features...

if you're really a pro, maybe you'd rather go with an internal PCI solution that's more of a sure thing than fiddling with the USB problems and low headroom on the IOs. I got rid of mine in favor of an echo mia midi which is really cool compared to this...

if you need all the IO features (mixer, headphone, mic inputs), and you really really need it external, then the fasttrack pro may be worth trying out, it's a nice little unit when it works, and i hear it works solidly for many people (just 0.01% of the time for me though, so I'm a little spooked, so it's bye bye)...

I'm the kind of person who really values user reviews when deciding what to buy. While you can expect to find some (near-)glowing reviews strategically placed by the company themselves across the web, when you come to a place like amazon, you're almost sure to find an overwhelming number of real reviews in contrast to the frauds.

I made a mistake when buying the FTP and that mistake was putting price before quality. Now, I'm not suggesting that it's always better to spend a little more money, but I am suggesting that when the reviews show a fairly wide gap and the price isn't so much different, it's almost always better to go with the more beloved product.

The FTP doesn't totally suck. In fact, it works ok when it works at all. It's just great for outputting audio. And that's got to count for two stars.

What it doesn't do well is record audio. If you want to buy a device that will allow you to fool the world into thinking you recorded in a studio with mega equipment, THIS WILL NEVER BE THE RIGHT DEVICE FOR YOU!

Maybe you've heard of the signal-to-noise ratio, which marks the difference between the highest (non-clipped) audio signal and the sheet of white noise at some lower volume. No manufacturer gives the right number for this, it's true, but the FTP is really bad. You cannot use any signal below -50db. It's mush. Part of you might be thinking, "I'll just sing really loud." and another part might be thinking "I'll just use a noise gate." but those parts almost definitely don't realize that no matter how loud you sing (or play your instrument) and no matter how much you gate away, that (really loud) noise floor is present throughout your recording. The only way you have to try and minimize it is noise-reduction, and if you know about noise-reduction vsts, you know that they really don't sound that great. As they take out the noise, they also take out some of the essence of your recording -- essence that was overcast by the noise floor to begin with.

Another thing you might want to consider is that you'll almost never have a difference of 50db between your signal and the noise: 1) because you can't expect to record so close to the peak without distorting (a good median is -12db, I think, unless you're doing classic or jazz, in which case, -24db). And 2) the FTP does not include a pre-amp, so you can bet your bottom dollar that more often than not, you're going to be covering up what would have been amazing recording with distortion, reverb, and anything you can think of to hide the noise. And that is just terrible.

You may have heard before, "you can't polish a turd." and you can't.

So recording with the FTP is a no-go.

Finally, there's the drivers. M-AUDIO is notorious for poor driver support, especially for products as old as this. They've got support for 64-bit and for windows 7, but if you scan the forums you'll see that there are problems which have gone unresolved for years. For instance, a few times per day the drivers will just stop working. You'll have to close every program using audio. Open the windows device dialog. Disable the FTP. Enable the FTP. And finally restart your audio programs.

Even if you don't have this problem when you first get the FTP, when you inevitably update, you almost definitely will have this problem or perhaps another, more severe problem, because that's the company's game.

You don't have to learn from only your own mistakes. You can learn from mine too. Get anything but this.

I've had this for over a week and have been recording many hours every night. No problems so far.

I am using Garageband on a MacBook Pro laptop and the addition of this device was seamless.

I am not new to home recording as I have a Dell Pc with an Edirol USB device and Sonar Producer edition but I moved and these are still at my old home.

One of the main reasons I bought this was for the Mac/Pc compatibility and the phantom power - a requirement for my Condenser mic.

It feels well constructed and the preamps work well - the pad switches being a nice addition.

The ability for recording two tracks at a time is great too as sometimes I like to lay down a "live" demo first and its great to have guitar on one track and vocals on another.

The Cons?
Well, this is me being picky but I dont like the white push switches, they just feel and little cheap and plastic.
Also the gains could have been better, you do need to have them almost all the way up.

Other than that, I cant fault it. But there are many more hours of recording ahead of me so if anything pops up, I'll be back!

I don't write a lot of reviews, but this thing is such a pain and M-Audio are so obtuse that I had to write one. I knew that the Vista drivers were in beta when I bought it, but I figured that would not last long. Well, the last update was in June of 07 and they will not give a clue as to when the official driver will be out. The beta drivers suck and I have had nothing but glitches and problems. The hardware is all plastic and OK for the price, but without proper software it's almost useless. I just ordered a Firebox, hooked it up in 5 min and it works 10x better. If you're running XP this might not be an issue, but the truth is the $100 more for a firebox is worth every penny. M-audio and Mackie are both dropping the ball on software support lately and it's going to cost them in the long run. The forums are full of people telling them that, but not a lot of results yet. We all hate Vista, but that's life. Get your drivers up to date.

This is a FANTASTIC piece of audio equipment. Does not need anything other than USB for power and truly truly makes a BIG difference if changing from an onboard soundcard. The sound has depth, is clearer, crisper and just beautiful. Would definitely recommend this product as a starter production soundcard.

The drivers were my only concern in operating the Fast Track Pro. I didn't know much about operating the thing in the first place, so . . . I hooked up my fast track and down loaded a new driver through the M-Audio web page (always go to the M-audio web page for new drivers). Anyway, everything was fine till one day the thing stopped working. I wasn't sure why . . so, I placed it on a shelf and forgot about it, till I got the idea to download the driver, again. After downloading a second driver (you have to erase the original driver and then download the new one. The download program takes you step by step through the uninstall to the new install). Everything was fine till I needed a new driver. It seems when you unplug the USB cord from the original USB port and place it in another, you'll need a new driver. You'll have to go back to M-Audio and get one. Make sure you leave the cord in the same port, or make sure you plug it in the same port each time you need to operate the Fast Track Pro. Also, make sure you leave the USB cord unplugged while downloading the new driver. I made this mistake for several weeks and couldn't understand why it wasn't working. Keep it unplugged till everything is downloaded. After you download, either wait for a message to plug it back in, or wait to finish the install. Once it's installed, go ahead and plug it in a familiar USB port. (Make sure you remember that port from that time on).

The sound quality is pretty good. Sometimes I hook up a pre-effects unit from Boss (the GT-8). It sounds ok, but there is a little humming through the wire. You can clear that up by erasing the silent portion of your tracks that contain the hum. I've been working with Sonar Home Studio 6. It sounds fine. A little flat or bassy, but the sound quality is nice. Hip Hop sounds great through the Fast Track and Sonar. My rock stuff sounds nice but it's still a little bassy -- you have to add more treble to your guitars when producing distorted guitars. Jazz sounds great. No problems there.

All in all, I'm pleased, but I seem to need a new driver every four months. I'm not sure why. Anyway, I'm still able to use the Fast Track so, it's a good piece of equipment. I've thought about Firewire and a new firewire card, but I don't see a point in getting a new firewire card yet. I hear there is no need for a driver through firewire - it's a totally different animal for me, so I didn't bother with Presonus and other units. Open Labs swears by Presonus and they chose firewire for some reason. Anyway, if you're happy with USB hook ups, the Fast Track is a good bet. My only problem were the drivers . . . Four Stars!

Outstanding product for anyone interested in reproducing digital music using computer as the sound source. I use it for DJing where the unit functions as an external sound card enabling my DJ software (PCDJ Red)to act as two individual decks connected separatley to my exteranl mixer! If you've ever used software for DJing you know the power of having practically unlimited songs at your fingertips. You can even have the same song in both decks! And requests are found in and instant for the listening audinece. I highly recommend this product and the best deal I found was thru [...]... hands down!