M-Audio Fast Track USB Audio Interface with GT Player Express Software
Software-controlled internal digital mixing and routing.
Overall User Ratings (based on 72 ratings)
Submitted January 17, 2007 by a customer from yahoo.com
"Damn Good for $100"
Good for beginners and budget minded folk/
Sound
The is about as good as CD quality. Way better than the build-in soundcard but not as good as other more exspensive Audio Interfaces/
Features
Simple yet effective but the some of the software is garbage.
Ease of Use
Install drivers, plug in and your done.
Quality
Strong and durable plastic. dropped a couple times and still works like a charm.
Value
U get what you pay for. worth about a 100 hundred bucks.
Manufacturer Support
Good no problems yet..
The Wow Factor
Damn sexy LOL
Musical Background:
Hobbyist
Musical Style:
Hip Hop and RnB
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Submitted February 16, 2007 by a customer from yahoo.com
"Start making music NOW!"
I have small condenser mics now with their own power but i would upgrade to the next model to get the phantom power for the new ribbon mic that I want to buy!
Sound
I get clean vocals/acoustic guitar and the electric is fine as well. I use Guitar Rig and the plug ins with Cubase so that can adjust just about anything!
Features
The software that comes with it is just demos but they work just fine!
Ease of Use
Worked fine the first time updated the drivers as well have redone my machine since then and it still works after a re-install. These other folks dont understand computers if they cant get this to work...take it to a tech shop!!!
Quality
no problems...dont plan to bang it around...it just sits there!
Value
great
Manufacturer Support
dont need to use it yet...but the M-Audio website is great
The Wow Factor
I had to have it to use the plug ins and Guitar Rig without latency...of which I get 5 ms!!!
Musical Background:
Armchair musician!
Musical Style:
Rock, Country, Folk
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Submitted September 21, 2007 by a customer from yahoo.com
"I wanted to get clean sound into my PC. That's what this does."
I'll use this until I really need something else. Could be next month or next year but I will pass it on.
Features
The extra software struck me as being a bit of a sell out. Basically, advertising products that I don't want. I felt kind of ambushed by that and wasted a few hours trying to figure them out. I know now; they're Frisbees! The unit is fine though.
Ease of Use
My needs are simple. I want to get clean sound from a good mic, into my PC. This is all I need, for now. The sound is excellent and the unit does not create any problems for me. I'll pass this one along to a friend when I decide to upgrade for Phantom power.
Quality
It's what it's supposed to be. Small & functional. I honestly couldn't care less about the appearance. (Which is fine, by the way)
Seems quite well made.
Value
Short answer... "Yes" it's worth the money because it's a must have.
Manufacturer Support
I paid $92 for this piece of equipment. It's affordable but not downright cheap. Still at that price, I'm not likely to waste your time.
If it breaks down, I'll upgrade.
The Wow Factor
I'm giving you five points for the blue light.
Musical Background:
Entertainer
Musical Style:
Folk
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Submitted January 12, 2006 by a customer from Hotmail.com
"A Good Buy"
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
i dont think im going to wear this out anytime soon. if i were to upgrade, I would get the 2 input version of the same product. if i broke or lost it, i would probably get another one or upgrade to the better version. the fast track finally allowed me to put my music on my CPU and make CD's, so yes it helps me meet my musical goals. what i like most is the ease of use, least, the recording software. a good buy for any aspiring musician.
Sound
For what i use it for, the fast track is pretty good. im sure there are much better versions of this product out there, but this is not bad for $100. it faithfully maintains the tone of my guitar. I have analog behringer recording amp i use with it and it sounds pretty good. Not perfect but pretty good.
Features
it comes with pretty much everything you need to use it. it even comes with somthing like 300MB of drum loops. i myself wasn't able to use the recording program that came with it, nor do i use the effects that came with it, but if you know what your doing they are probably very useful. i use Adobe Audition 1.5 with it, works very well.
Quality
seems sturdy, knobs are firmly attached, inputs not loose or anything, made of strong plastic. looks pretty nice too.
Value
to record on your own in a home studio setting without spending a lot of money, this is a pretty good deal. unless you have 1/4 inputs or midi on your CPU, (i dont) this is probably your best bet.
Manufacturer Support
haven't neede help
The Wow Factor
without this thing i would have no way to make CD's of my music. basically its the "poor man's" tool for recording music and putting out good quality CD's.
Musical Background:
Guitarist
Musical Style:
Metal, Rock, Hardcore, Alternative , Etc.
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Submitted April 23, 2007 by a customer from aol.com
"The Truth About The FastTrack"
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
I would recommend this product for beginners. It doesnt have the best features or sound but, it gets the job done.
Sound
The sound is pretty good but,I don't think it is quite cd quality. If you use different software(I use Fl Studio)then I think you should be able to get a decent sound.
Features
Its very simple and does not have many features, but like others have said you get what you paid for.
Ease of Use
There is hardly anything to it. It is very easy to set up and like I said before it should produce a pretty good sound with different software.
Quality
It gives off the impression of being flimsy and cheap, but its pretty durable(I wouldn't drop too many times though)
Value
Its worth the money, but if I would have known the quality before I bought it I would have bought something a little better.
Manufacturer Support
So far I haven't needed any support
The Wow Factor
Its good if you want to have a little fun in the backseat(recording on the road)
Musical Style:
Rock/Hip Hop
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Submitted February 2, 2007 by a customer from yahoo.com
"Sweet but Upgrade!"
Probably a couple of months before I replace it with something that has a broader span of functions. I'm building my home studio so I just needed something to get me started, now that I know the basics, I will upgrade.
Sound
Clear sound through the mic and once you get through the buffer configuration.
Features
Software sucks and shouldn't even be included as a part of the package since it's only a demo. The box itself has guitar and line in which really don't make any sense coz you can switch in btwn the 2 with no difference. Then comes the mono and stereo part in the front, which is totally topsy turvey coz when I switch to mono, that's when I hear through both monitors but if I switch to stereo, my sound recording comes out through one speaker, wierd...no...poor workmanship on their part.
Ease of Use
Plug and play, you have to install the drivers from the website depending on what system you have. Kinda frustrating if you don't know about this but you'll get over it when you think about how much you paid. Also, when your computer goes into sleep mode and you wake it back up, the devicestops working, and I always have to unplug the USB cable and plug it back in to get to "wake up" as well. Not good.
Quality
Plastic is not attractive but you get what you pay for. As I mentioned before about having to unplug the device and plug it back in just to get it back to life after my computer goes into sleep mode when I leave it idle for a little while.
Value
Spend a little more and get something better. My 30-day warranty is still good so I will upgrade.
Manufacturer Support
no weekend support. We need them more on weekends when we focus on the music.
The Wow Factor
looks like a fisher price toy but will get the job done.
Musical Background:
Producer, Rapper, Composer
Musical Style:
Rap/Hip-Hop
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Submitted December 24, 2006 by noway
"go download the latest drivers asap"
Sound
had this thing a while...was bummed out cuz the latency issues mostly but the sounds in the gt express package are okay and ya don't need to have expensive fx processors, amps, mics, ect. am sure there are other applications that will work with this device. to be honest i'd had this out quite some time ago, didn't like it, tried updates ect, put it back in the box, but then a friend told me he had the same unit, that the company had new drivers that made it play with almost no latency so i got it back outta the box, dl'd new drivers and am very happy with it now. there's a newer model, the pro i think that might be worth looking into for someone not owning one yet, but for me this is now gonna get used to drop guitar riffs into my computer based home recording studio. rock on!
Musical Background:
hobbityst
Musical Style:
rock
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Submitted February 2, 2009 by a customer from gmail.com
"GET IT!!!"
hghgh
Sound
This plays good sound,and clear,and clean, although when you record your voice it only comes out of one speaker!
Features
It comes with abelton live lite 6 ,and if you upgrade it to live lite 7 it is a complete power house, no novices that use garageband, or FL studio can use this. this is like a mini- protools.
Ease of Use
if you have a macbook, or any apple, its easy as heck, just plug it in.
Quality
look up at sound
Value
should of only been 70.00
Manufacturer Support
You cant get to m-audio ever!!!! they suck on the phone, and email, so keep the manual!
The Wow Factor
its fat,and short but really light its ok.
Musical Background:
Producer/Singer/Rapper
Musical Style:
World
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Submitted February 28, 2006 by a customer from hotmail.com
"A very probalmatic piece of just (unless you are one of the lucky ones)"
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Between the problems that I am still having with this unit, and the amount of time I have had to spend with tech support. I would avoid this product.
Sound
can't get a sound out of it. Has caused all sorts of major install problems. I have been working with tech support for over 5 days now and the last response said that my operating system is installed for Virtual IRC and that "might" be casuing the problem.
Features
Real basic.... would be nice if they would work.
Ease of Use
unuseable right out of the box. thought that the first one was bad so it was sent back and a replacement sent out. It did not work eigther.
Quality
I would expect a bit better construction for $100.00 Seems real cheap and flimsly. I would be real careful not to drop or bang it around
Value
If you just have an extra $100.00 to spend, mail it to me. You will be getting the same value for your dollar, and I will be making a few bucks
Manufacturer Support
Fairly good response time. (3 days) 5 responses since and unit still won't work. Seems kinda like they are reaching into a hat and reading off whatever solution is written on it. I have wasted about 10 hours so far and none of the problems have been corrected.
The Wow Factor
it looks good, nice little light on the front, outerspace control knobs. I just wish that they would do something
Musical Background:
noviced, just play for fun
Musical Style:
blues, folk, accoustic rock etc....
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Submitted January 16, 2007 by a customer from yahoo.com
M-Audio Fast Track USB Customer Review
Sound
The sound was descent, but the sound level going into Cubase was a nightmare...
Features
Never could get the guitar to record right. It has a switch on the back of the unit to manually switch lines from mic to guitar. What a joke! Doesnt work right.
Ease of Use
Not many switch, so a beginner could use it.
Quality
NOT RELIABLE...broke after about 15-20 of use....terrible humming noise.
Value
Get what you pay for....remember that.
Manufacturer Support
Never used it....b/c warranty ran out.
The Wow Factor
Not sure if I'll ever buy another M-audio product. Reviews suggested it was a good product. Found out the hard way after a 100 bucks....
Musical Background:
Hobbyist
Musical Style:
Acoustic
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Submitted March 7, 2008 by a customer from gmail.com
"Vista Users Look Elsewhere"
If you use Windows Vista or plan on switching to Vista, your M-Audio equipment isn't going to work the way it did in XP.
M-Audio has a Vista driver for the Fast Track USB but it doesn't always work. I downloaded the driver from M-Audio's support page and installed it as instructed. Within minutes I was up and running. Everything seemed to be working fine at first. I had Ableton Live 7 and Reason 4.0 running. After a few hours of working, I started to get distorted popping sounds. It happened as I was recording guitar and during playback. I saved all of my work, closed the programs and uninstalled and reinstalled the driver for the Fast Track. When I played back the track I was working on earlier, the popping sounds were gone so I didn•t think anything of it. However, when I tried to work on music later that week, the distorted popping sounds were back.
I was thinking about upgrading to the M-Audio Fast Track Pro Mobile but a friend of mine who owns one, and also runs Vista, encountered the same sound issue I did with the Fast Track USB. As of today, M-Audio only has a beta-driver for Fast Track Pro Mobile. The driver for the Fast Track USB is not a beta and still has issues. I had a sound issue with an M-Audio USB Uno as well (which I also wrote a review for). Personally, I will not purchase anymore M-Audio products due to their poor Vista drivers.
Musical Background:
Hobbyist
Musical Style:
Hip Hop, Electronica, Rock
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Submitted April 28, 2005 by a customer from six12.com
"M Audio = Total Letdown"
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
The M-Audio USB Interface is basically useless unless you have a royally amazing soundcard. I couldn't play "live" like they claimed meaning I had to play my guitar amp-free before I could re-listen to what I had just played on the computer. Once you put effects on it, it basically turns to crap. High fuzzy noises, dirty sounds or extremely fake unorginal guitar tones.
Sound
Basically, you can get CD quality sound...if you don't use distortion. Once you start putting distortion through it, the quality turns horrible. The effects they give you doesn't sound realistic at all and sound phased and very un-guitar like.
Quality
Its built semi-tough but totally not worth it.
The Wow Factor
Looks good, doesn't work though.
Musical Background:
Vocalist, Guitarist
Musical Style:
Melodic Death, Death, Thrash, Power Metal, Neoclassical Metal, Progressive, Tech/Math Metal, Metalcore
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Submitted January 20, 2008
"Great product not expensive,easy n sound good"
Sound
Sound very good for my guitar,Lots of effects to play with on M-Audio session software.got it for x-mas really love it easy to record multi track software but no time marker for this software
Features
It working great even with others Guitar Amp modeling effects software.It run On MY window xp pro with 3.2 GHz processor.No on/off switch on this box but not a major problem
Ease of Use
It was take me half an hour to set up.Too bad there is on out put to Guitar amps.it can only connect to Speaker amps or Headphone.doesn't not work with computer speaker very well.
Quality
Very good for 99 buck, you don't need to buy all those effects for your sound.You can even download free guitar effects software to play with fun to record you music
Value
Good investment so far with this product
Manufacturer Support
web site support was OK.
Musical Background:
Hobbyist
Musical Style:
folk rock ,Hard rock
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Submitted June 22, 2006
"Don't buy it."
I'm looking for something that I can use as a mic input, since that's all I really want. Not about to throw $100 away on something like this again.
Sound
awful. Nothing but noise coming into my computer. I bought it to get rid of the fuzz on my tiny laptop mic input. I can't even understand my voice when i record through this thing.
Features
i don't play guitar so I wasn't interested in the software. I just wanted a nice mic input to record my horns. It has an XLR input which is sexy.
Ease of Use
impossible. I've tried everything outside the box. New mic cable. (I've tested my mic on other equipment, crystal clear.) My mic sounds good through the headphone monitor jack too. Only records crap inside my computer though. I tried disabling Intel SpeedStep in my Bios like m-audio's "knowledge base" mentions. All that did was make my boot up slower. I updated drivers for all of my hardware, USB, motherboard, CPU, the fasttrack. All I can say after that is that I've never seen so many error messages trying to update drivers as with this thing. I even replaced my USB cable. Didn't help.
Quality
Mechanically it looks great. Very clean and neat. Contrary to others' comments, it's feels solid. I actually opened it up once and was impressed, my motherboard doesn't have soldering that looks that neat. It doesn't appear to be very complicated. It's definitely a home product though, I wouldn't call it rugged. I'm not afraid of dropping it. Actually I'm afraid of throwing it through my window, except my window is worth too much.
Value
I haven't gotten it to work after owning it for a year.
Manufacturer Support
I hate phones so i didn't call anyone. figured someone making computer equipment should account for that. Driver updates aren't digitally signed so, the developers hate Microsoft? Maybe I would have more luck with a Mac.
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Submitted June 9, 2006
"Wouldn't buy it again."
I've had it for 2 months, would not buy it again. Poor compatability with Creative and Realtek soundcards. Poor customer support. Bundled software is lightyears behind Line 6's.
Sound
Very weak signal.
Ease of Use
Easy to use. I wish it worked better.
Manufacturer Support
Customer support not user friendly and after a month could not get the unit working the way it should (problem is weak signal unless I play through an amplifier which defeats the purpose).
Musical Background:
Active Amateur Musician
Musical Style:
Blues, Jazz, Rock
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Submitted February 28, 2006
"You get what you pay for."
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Most of the time you can live by this rule....Cheap recording gear isn't good and good recording gear isn't cheap.....so basically you get what you pay for.
Sound
It's just a direct box really, so it sounds like whatever you put through it....The only sound issues I have is the fact that there is a significant delay in the monitoring, you cen set a faster responce but you lose significant sound quality.
Features
Like I said before, it's bascally a USB direct box. It would have been nice if it has phantom power but for $100, not much can be expected
Ease of Use
Worked right out of the box. It seems some of these people have had problems with this working at all. 1. I would imagine if you have older USB ports on your motherboard, you could run into problems or 2. Make sure you set it to 16 bit sound because alot of sequencer software doesn't work in 24bit.
Quality
Not the greatest quality, but I haven't had any fuctionality problems with it in the couple months I've has it.
Value
If you're just starting home recording, it gets the job done. If you're knowledgable about computer based recording, you already know that a firewire direct box is the way to go.
Manufacturer Support
I wouldn't know, never had to use it.
The Wow Factor
It's a direct box, nothing fancy...
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