Review: M-Audio Fast Track USB

Introduction

Like most young adolescent males I fantasized about being a rock star and unlike many I didn’t buy the $200 electric guitar package from the mall. Well, not until I was well into my thirties. It only took 20 years for me to finally pick up a guitar and start some lessons at the mall. Let me start by saying the lesson you get at the mall are awesome. They’ll teach you all the classics like, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Marry Had a Little Lamb", and if you stick around for more than 2 weeks you might even learn a couple riffs from "Smoke on the Water". Once you’ve mastered playing the guitar live (usually takes about 2 weeks), you are going to want to immortalize yourself. That’s right! I’m talking about recording the songs you’ve learned at the mall, so you can listen to them over and over. So how do you go about recording "twinkle twinkle little star"? Well, if you’re a geek like me then you are going to want to record it onto your computer. I did some research and I found a rather inexpensive USB Audio interface that will do the job. I’m talking about the M-Audio Fast Track USB Audio Interface.  Here are my findings with a quick overview:

Overview

You might be wondering exactly what the M-Audio Fast Track USB Audio interface is and why would someone one need it, especially if your computer already has a sound card.  The Fast Track USB is a special audio interface with amplified line-in inputs.  It is possible to connect your electric guitar directly into your computer's sound card through the line-in input with an adapter (1/8" to 1/4" converter), but because an electric guitar is passive you need power to amplify the guitar pickups and most likely your computer's line-in doesn't provide that power.  There are couple other ways to work around this problem, but are out of the scope of this review. 

Features

• easy to connect and use
• professional 24-bit/48kHz sound
• dynamic microphone input (XLR) with gain control and signal LEDs
• switchable instrument/line input (1/4”)
• stereo headphone output (1/8”)
• stereo output jacks (RCA)
• level control for headphones and main outputs
• USB bus-powered
• compatible with GarageBand and most other music software
• USB class compliant (OS X 10.3.5 and higher) for plug-and-play operation
• direct hardware monitoring for synchronized overdubs
• mono switch sends input signal equally to left and right channels
• includes GT Player Express software

What's in the box

• Fast Track USB audio interface
• M-Audio Driver CD (includes driver installation software)
• One (1) standard USB cable
• User's Guide and warranty card

Getting Started

Hooking things up

I decided to hook up the Fast Track USB up to my PC first (2.6ghz running Windows XP) . The hook up was super easy. I installed the driver from the CD, plugged the supplied USB cable into the Fast Track and into my PC, then I followed up by installing the GT Player Express software that came with the unit. The moment of truth came when I plugged my electric guitar into 1/4" line-in input in the back of the unit and fired up the software. I belted out a G chord and then a C chord, but I instantaneously became nauseated with latency between me playing the chord and the time it came out of the computer's attached speakers. I fiddled with it for about an hour and finally raised the white flag. The reason I gave up so quickly was my original goal was to hook this up to my Mac and use it with GarageBand. So I went through the same hook up procedure with my Mac Mini, but the main difference was, no driver was needed. Mac OS X had the driver built-in, joy!

Testing it out

GT Player Express software

So once everything was hooked up I fired up the GT Player Express software on the Mac (Yep it runs on both platforms) and attempted the same test as I did when I had the Fast Track hooked up to the PC. I fired a G chord followed by a C chord; not surprisingly it worked, zero latency (or zero perceived latency). An interesting side-note is that the supplied software has built-in effects with it and they sound better than I expected. I own a Korg PX-4 and the distortion effect supplied with GT Player sounds better than my dedicated effects processor. But I digress!

GT Player Express

GarageBand

If you've got a Mac then you are probably familiar Apple's GarageBand. For those that don't have a Mac or are not familiar with GarageBand, it is a multi-track recording software package that allows you to record, edit, and mix audio tracks. Unfortunately it's only available on the Macintosh, but for those with PCs there are some comparable software packages out there. Because I have a Mac I'm using GarageBand to record and mix my incredible guitar masterpieces. It was time for me to record a song. So, I launched GarageBand, created a new project called "My Song" (how original of me), added a real instrument track, set the track to monitor out (So I can hear myself playing) and laid down my rhythm guitar track. Next I added another real instrument track and laid down my smoking lead guitar track. Click to hear my totally sweet song :MySong.mp3

GarageBand

Audio

The Fast Track USB allows you to connect both a Microphone through XLR input and an Electric guitar through the 1/4" line-in input. I wasn't able to test the Microphone recording capabilities of the Fast Track, because I don't own a microphone and even more importantly I didn't want to because my singing voice is crap. So consider it a blessing <grin>. The recording audio quality of the Fast Track USB is surprisingly good considering the price point. I wouldn't recommend it for serious or professional musicians (neither which I am), but for the casual or financially challenged musician the Fast Track is a good inexpensive solution. For the more serious musician you might consider stepping up to the M-Audio FireWire Solo.

Conclusion

If you didn't pickup on the subtle sarcasm, I'm no professional musician I'm not even an amateur musician. I would consider myself more of a hobbyist. That being said this review is written in that context. If you are looking for an inexpensive way to record your electric guitar on your PC or Mac then you won't be disappointed with the M-Audio Fast Track USB. For those with a PC it might take a bit more configuration to get the Fast Track working correctly without latency. I suspect if I devoted a bit more time I could have solved my PC latency problems (For the record many people do use the Fast Track on a PC and do not have any problems), but since my intent was to connect it to my Mac I quickly gave up. I only have one issue with this device I wish that the line-in input was a bit more amplified and that there was a way to control the level directly on the device. I've read a work around for this short-coming by buying an 1/4" to XLR adaptor and connecting your Guitar through the Microphone XLR connector on the Fast Track USB. This will allow you to control the input level for your Guitar directly from the device.

Pros:

• Easy to Install (At least on a Mac)
• Good Audio Quality
• Cool blue light (what can I say)
• Inexpensive
• Can record both Microphone and Guitar simultaneously

Cons:

• No 1/4" line-in input level control on unit

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