Product reviews are done by Johnny Ferreira –
Professional Musician, Recording Artist, and Home
Recording Studio Owner and Enthusiast.
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M-Audio Fast Track Pro Review
M-Audio Fast Track Pro – USB Audio/MIDI Interface Device with Built-In Preamps
Get it at Amazon.com
Did you know the M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB Audio Interface is one the most popular and highest selling device of it's kind? Well it is. M-Audio makes products to satisfy the needs of us home recording musician types and also DJ's so they know we need pretty good quality accompanied by a nice low price. They succeeded on both these points.
I love that the Fast Track Pro has phantom power for condenser mics. This is a great little unit to record on the road or to run your home studio. Besides the handy phantom power feature my next favorite is the microphone preamps. If you don't have a stand alone mic pre then this will do quite nicely, if you have, or want to get a different one it's ok cause it'll just by-pass the built in ones.
The main problem with some of these usb audio interfaces is the latency issues when recording but with this Fast Track Pro M Audio model you can put it in direct monitoring mode and really have almost zero latency… you gotta like that.
Pro Audio Sound For Well Under $200?
Yes, this interface will give you 24-bit/96kHz of professional audio quality. To get an audio interface rated 24-bit/192kHz you'd have to move up to the M-Audio ProFire 610 at $400 or the Pro Tools MBox Pro which costs in the $800 range. You'll find that almost all of these audio interfaces regardless of manufacturer are 24-bit/96kHz standard pro audio quality.
What About The Recording Software?
Whatever… really you can use the fast track with any recording program out there. It comes bundled with Ableton Live Lite and of coarse you can use M-Audio Pro Tools… actually, the new Pro Tools 9 software can run on any interface and not just the Digidesign or M-Audio like in the past so it's like I said… whatever!
M-Audio Fast Track Pro Review on video.
Click Here To Get It On Sale Now at Amazon.com
M-Audio Fast Track Pro Review Features:
- 4 inputs & 4 outs & MIDI
- 24-bit/96kHz pro audio quality
- Low-latency ASIO software monitoring
- Microphone preamps
- Microphone inputs with pads, signal-peak LEDs
- Very portable: 8.5 x 1.75 x 4.5 inches
The Good
- High value for the low price
- Exceptional sound from the Headphones output
- Decent mic preamps with phantom power
The Bad
- Can't install included drivers as they're outdated and are problematic: must upgrade directly from M-Audio.com.
- Doesn't support sleep mode on a Mac so so if your Mac goes to sleep sound card will crash – you can avoid this by disabling sleep mode on your Mac.
What About The Warranty?
Yes, the M-Audio Fast Track Pro has a one year warranty on parts and labor.
What other users said about it:
- "using Garageband on a MacBook Pro laptop and the addition of this device was seamless"
- "gains could have been better, you do need to have them almost all the way up"
- "the only real competition is about three times the price"
- "Just plug and play – works great!"
- "FANTASTIC piece of audio equipment"
Best place to buy it?
Considering their competitive pricing and free shipping, the best place to buy this online is at Amazon.com
Please leave a comment if you enjoyed my M-Audio Fast Track Pro Review!
