M-Audio FastTrack Pro Reviews

3.7/5.0 based on 18 customer reviews

Sweetwater Advice

Mark Chapman

After getting the M-Audio FastTrack Pro home, I was in full music creativity mode within ten minutes of opening the box! Recording stereo microphone setups was a snap, and the preamps have plenty of clean gain to use with more dynamic sources like acoustic guitar and vocals. My bass guitar going DI into the instrument input sounded smooth with plenty of low end punch straight to my DAW track. I can see myself bringing the FastTrack Pro along with me on trips and while collaborating with other musicians because it sounds great and is so easy to use!

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Customer Reviews

Supernaye
from Alabama
December 20, 2010 Music Background:
Student, Producer, Engineer in the making, Musician

Great!!!

So far, I have had nothing but great material from this device. I originally got mines for $150, but it is definitely worth that and more. It's great for a student like myself or someone who may not need that many inputs at the moment. I don't plan on upgrading for a while, because i'm fine with the specs and it's great. Everything's clear and I've had no problems with the device. As soon as I plugged it in, Garageband and Logic recognized it instantly (no downloaded drivers or anything). Basically, this is a great device and you wont regret buying this.

Kelly Mercer
from Halifax Nova Scotia Canada
February 1, 2009 Music Background:
Drumming for a number of years, tinkering with home recording.

Simply incredible!

I have been looking for something like this product for quite some time.

It's setup was simple and it works as advertised. I have used it with Pro Tools (of course), Ableton 7 and Adobe Audition without any issues.

I have tried it with a couple different laptops and it works best with the newer models running XP. For a test I did try it on an older IBM Thinkpad running Windows 2000 and it was a no go but that doesn't matter.

I think it may be time to sell my stand alone gear!

jose thomas
from ATL-GA
February 28, 2007 Music Background:
Music maker

good for music

very good sound card for home recodrding! me using last one year.Its Nice!

J. R. Shourt
from El Prado, New Mexico
July 8, 2011 Music Background:
Digital Musician

bare bones...

Okay. This product comes bundled with a lot of swag. Good for a person just getting their feet wet. My reason for the purchase was much more bare bones as I am already drenched.
The set up was quick and easy and I found the customer service top notch as always. Although I have been D.I.Y. / MIDI for the last 27 years I get lazy and sometimes need to ask for directions.
For now I just use the Fast Track Pro as a conduit to run my MacBook Pro where I run Sample Tank. Works great.

Mark Jordan Thomasq
from Singapore
November 16, 2010 Music Background:
Live Sound engineer, Musician

Worth The Price

i got it some 3 years back and till today it has performed very well. Clean preamps, latency got lower with newer drivers and is down to 7ms now..and it has inserts on inputs, balanced outs, Spdif digital out and midi IO...haven't tried 96Khz recording much yet,..but at 48Khz it works great..and interfaces really well with pro tools m-powered though with Pro Tools 9 that's no longer necessary

richie
from new york
February 13, 2008 Music Background:
hip hop

great for first interface

I have droped this thing, thrown it in my car and recorded some great very first tracks. it gets the job done with the easy to use usb, and i have never had any problems. it has two channel mic preamps "which sound great for a little usb interface". and it has midi. ill be upgrading to a high end interface and mic preamp because it wont do much justice to a neumann or any high end mic like that. im not letting go of this hting for a while because it has treated me and my first album so well, and if I ever need somthing portable reliable and easy to use Ill always have the fast track around.

Bradley White
from Gilbert, AZ
September 30, 2008 Music Background:
Pro Musician, Recording Engineer

Great interface for beginners and hobbyists

I bought the Fast Track Pro not expecting anything too special but it's a pretty cool little interface. The combo TRS/XLR jacks on the front along with the MIDI inputs make it a great tool for someone who wants to get into recording without spending too much. The preamps could be stronger but you get what you pay for. The Fast Track Pro along with a pair of SM-57 mics make a great starting point.

Donatus
from Shawnee, KS
April 15, 2008 Music Background:
Producer, Student

My first interface

Im pretty new to recording but the only thing that I didn't like about this interface is that the volume seemed very low and I had to turn to the gain up to almost the highest level to actually hear my guitar and with all those high levels comes unwanted noise. Besides that I love the design and the fact that its usb

all stops out
from Canada
April 14, 2008 Music Background:
Blues Organist

Perfect for my purpose

For my purposes this unit has proven very effective. I use it for my softsynth rig. Perfect for any keyboard player. I had issues with it off the start, there were lots of clicks and such. The problem was with my laptop and not the Fasttrack-pro. Apparently there are grounding issues within laptops, the problem was fixed by lifting the ground on the laptop.

My biggest concern with this unit is duribility; the XLR/phono inputs on the front seem a little flimsy though i have not had any troubles with them yet.

Jeremy
from nova scotia
February 24, 2007 Music Background:
Hobbyist

Good...

I got this as a gift from my dad and it's prety good but when I plug my speakers into it it does not go very loud... Witch sucks. The only problem is when i turn my computer on and the M-Audio thing says it's not pluged in even tho it is pluged in. So i have to turn the m-audio off wait a few seconds and turn it back on and it works... I would recomend it to a beginer in music recording (like me) Becuase i does everthing you need it to do. And at a fairly good quality.

Truk
from N.W. Ohio soon to be L.A. California
July 17, 2006 Music Background:
Musician, Engineer, Producer

Easy.

This thing is exttremely easy to set up. Just follow the directions, and you'll have NO problem. Other than that, I was recoring in Sonar 5.2 Producer within minutes. I didn't give this 10's across the board because it could have more features, but it's still pretty loaded. It feels pretty solid and it's not a bad price (bought mine for $200). If you want ease of use for programs like Sonar, or you want to get you feet wet with the almighty PRO TOOLS (m-powered); go ahead and buy this thing. I wanted to get into Pro Tools and I always like having extra recording equipment around.

Jonathan Pierce
from Rialto, Ca
June 17, 2007 Music Background:
Musician, Worship Leader, Hobbyist

User Friendly

I have used this interface for a year as a backup. It works great however the preamps are not the best quality, and buttons could be a bite more sturdy. Overall it is perfect for any student or hobbyist.

Jason Jones
from Odum,Ga
June 9, 2011 Music Background:
Singer/Song Writter

Its...Just ok.

Well Its decent, but the little bugger makes more noise then my 2 year old nephew when he is sick! The Head Phone Jack is scratchy the 1/4 inch input jacks are noisy...when its just chillin....its noisey! An yes i bought it brand new, perhaps I just got a defective one...for the money though, you really can't expect much.

Shawn
from Kansas City, MO
February 1, 2007 Music Background:
Educator

Better products for <$50 more.

The buttons on this interface came loose and, while I like the looks of it, it's not the most solid piece of equipment around. The mic pre-amps don't seem very high quality either...I have to have the volume almost entirely turned up to pick up voice sound with a condenser mic I have.

Mike
from Atlanta
December 9, 2011 Music Background:
Musician

Geat For Beginners But...

This M-Audio FastTrack Pro Is Awsome For Someone Who Is Just Getting Started In The Music Industry And Wants To Slowly Learn Computer Recording / USB...BUT... I Feel M Audio Went TOO Cheap On This Product. I LOVE M Audio They Are My Favorite But They Did Skimp Out On The PreAmps Portion Of This Device. Not Only Do I Feel They Skimped On The PreAmps But The Durability Isnt Too Insane Either. After About A Year I Started Having MAJOR Problems With The Line Input (Interference ... And No It Was Not The Microphone). So If You Are A High School Kid Or College Freshman Who Want To Start Learning USB Interface For A Cheap Price, I Advise You To Just Wait Out And Save Up And Get Something Worth Your Money And Time.

Thanks For Reading.
(Everyone It Titled To Their Own Opinions However)

Apoclypse
from NY
July 31, 2007 Music Background:
Hobbyist

Not loud enough

The build quality is okay and the thing is extremely easy to setup. However, my biggest gripe with it is that it doesn't go loud enough. You have to turn the mix and the gain knobs all the way up to get any decetn sound out of the headphones. I usually mix at medium levels and crank it up later after I'm done to make sure the mix is right. This thing is too low, imo. Another thing is that the drivers haven't been updated on the mac for quite some time.

Lonely Souljah
from Sacramento, Ca
September 14, 2008 Music Background:
Recording Engineer, Pro Musician

NOT WORTH IT

Literally, I Got This With The Best Intentions, I Wanted To Make My Home Studio Better, And This Did The EXACT Opposite. It Only Worked For About 15 Min. Then Everything We Made Came Out With A Static, So We Had To Turn It Off For A While Then Turn It Back On, It Was Like Playing 'Beat The Clock' Everytime We Wanted To Record. I Wouldnt Recommend This To Anyone I Wanted To Succeed With Music, But You Could Buy It lol.

BS
from
May 9, 2006

Well done, M-Audio

For 200$, this device rocks. Installation and stability is exemplary on XP SP2. Latency is no issue - I run this unit with the same low latencies I ran my EMU1212M before. The preamps are good enough for homerecording and aren't noisy if you don't turn' em up to 100% gain. If you're using a dynamic mic with low output, you'll have to drive the gain of the mic inputs to 100% and therefore your recording will become a bit noisy. So I wouldn't recommend to use such dynamic mics with the integrated preamps if you mustn't. Buying a separate DMP3 and connecting it to the front inputs (and switching them to line-input) will work very well for this purpose.

Anyway - I love this little unit. Installation was foolproof (if you install the driver before connecting the device to your USB port!), handling is easy, sound-quality is good homerecording-level, preamps are working quite well with condenser and newer dynamic microphones.

Well done, M-Audio!

inSync Review

Mark Chapman
7-13-2011

After getting the M-Audio FastTrackPro USB Audio/MIDI interface home, I was in full music creativity mode within 10 minutes of opening the box! After a quick search on M-Audio's website, I had the very latest driver's for Windows 7 on my laptop. Without having to reboot, the computer recognized the USB interface and added a very handy and easy to use control panel to the Toolbar for input selections, sample and bit rate options and latency/buffer settings.

After this amazingly simple install, I assigned the FastTrackPro as my ASIO device in Cubase and created a few new tracks. I then plugged in my CAD condenser mic to capture some vocals into the device's mic preamps with the 48V phantom power switch on the back panel turned on. The preamps gave plenty of gain to my Cubase input channel with no appreciable noise that I could hear. The monitor controls are very intuitive and allow you to hear your input directly to the headphones and line outs or you can monitor through your DAW software. This option would be great for any latency issues while recording.

Next it was time for some bass guitar using the instrument input switch offered on both of the devices preamp channels. I found that going direct gave me plenty of gain without any brittle highs or uneven low end response.

And finally, as the FastTrackPro can be used as a standalone A/D converter, I unplugged the USB cable from my laptop, powered the device with a 9V power supply and used the S/PDIF output to feed my MOTU 2408mk3 digital input. The bass guitar recorded perfectly into my desktop studio PC!

What an incredibly versatile interface at a great price. It's a new tool in my audio arsenal for sure!