Feature:
just regular features nothing specail with the box itself but the pro tools m-powered is great

Quality:
great qualitity i actually did drop it a couple times but still works perfectly fine

Value:
for the price its damn good

Desirability:
not very appealing to the eye but its like one of those girls that just because you can get her she seems hotter its affordable so it seems desireable

Sound:
i dont know what any of these people are talking about it took me under an hour to setup and have it going and i am 16 years old im not tryin to brag im just saying either the problems you had are specific to the equiptment you recieved or maybe your computer is insufficient im not sure but i know i got it working fast and well it has a pretty nice sound i use a cheap art tube preamp for vocals and a line 6 run straight in for guitar and sounds very nice

Ease of Use:
it all depends on your experiance before hand if you have worked with interfaces before peice of cake or even if you just have a nac for this kind of stuff its easy to use but i can see how newer users could have some trouble

Support:
havent had to use it

Overall:
this is a great product in my opinion just take some time to familiarize yourself with the interface and the program your recording into

• User: a customer from hotmail.com
• Submitted: 7/14/2008
• Style of Music: All
• Location: Brantfor,Ontario,Canada

Feature:
Lots of features included. Midi, SPDIF in's, TRS outs, Phantom Power, Pad, Clip light, and more. Also came with a 6' USB cable which is always nice!

Quality:
It is made of hard plastic it seems well made. It has a kingston lock port to prevent theft. But it just a frustrating interface. I use it with windows. I don't know about a MAC.

Desirability:
It looks nice and has lots of features. Heck... I wanted it at one point.

Sound:
The sound is actually preety good. Its clear and I had no trouble with cracks or pops.. Well mabye a little.

Ease of Use:
The Drivers that come with this are a NIGHTMARE. I spent many late night s just trying to get it to work. I have a good computer with lots of RAM and GHZ. So it should of worked but alright.. I guess not. The drivers will constantly stop detecting the interface. Which then makes you have to reinstall them again and again. It also had latency problems. Especially with two inputs.

Support:
HORRIBLE... This made me so mad... I called them on a tuesday morning and after waiting 30 minutes on the phone I was notified that they were closed for training. I called again the next day and they could not help me. They told me to reinstall the drivers. M-Audio has very poor support.

Overall:
If you can get it to work that mabye you will have a decent audio interface but good luck. Thats all

• Submitted: 7/12/2008

Quality:
its plastic, but its also a usb audio interface, most external computer hardware is plastic... i read some one say the knobs seem like they are gonna fall off. not true.. the thing is built well but im not sure if id wanna drop this thing at all, and at any point...

Value:
i payed 130 bucks... i guess i paid low price for high punishment, i just wanna record!!!

Desirability:
well, its blue, its looks nice, its a piece of plastic, not sure how lustful i am at it, right now i feel like burying it in the yard...

Sound:
As a sound card this thing produces... as a tool to record, its been a nightmare, in fact, im waiting for m-audio to call me back... when this thing doesnt operate correctly, you have to turn the gain on the mic and the turn the headphones down to monitor your self. I tried it on the Mac and got a bit better results... If you can get this thing to work, i dont see it producing great sound for 200 bonez but considering the hassle, i should of got something else...

Ease of Use:
like i said above... If I have to call tech support to make it work, then its not just plug and play...

Support:
took for ever to get some one on the phone... and i have to be called back after 2 3 hours, so if you have to rely on tech support, good luck...

Overall:
If m audio tech cant help me get this thing to work, then ill be looking for something else right away, and thats a shame since i just got it...

• Submitted: 5/1/2008
• Style of Music: all
• Location: dc usa

Desirability:
Due to their lack of customer support, M-Audio lost a loyal customer. I owned a Oxygen 8 before this, and same problem: no Vista support. I'm not a Vista lover, had no choice in the matter when I purchased a new laptop, but expected some help from one of the world's largest audio companies. No dice.

Sound:
Unintentional clicks and pops due to messed up Vista drivers.

Support:
The beta Vista driver does not work. M-Audio seems to concern themselves lately with new products and Mac support, not with loyal Windows customers who have begged for support.

Overall:
When it worked, it was great. But twenty minutes of clear sound until it distorts is not my idea of a good product.

• User: a customer from gmail.com
• Submitted: 3/7/2008
• Style of Music: all genres of jazz and electronica
• Location: salt lake

Feature:
M-audio screwed it up with a 1.1 USB Interface but for me works just fine, I don't have big problems with that

Quality:
No problems here, I dropped this to the floor accidentally and still working as good as the same day I opened the box

Value:
For 150 bucks this lil' dude will not dissapoint you ;)

Desirability:
Looks great, I like the blue lead is really hypnotic

Sound:
24/96 this is a average audiocard that gives you professional results, you can record here and you can connect your monitors or headphones (in my case Studiophile Q40 from M-audio that sounds BETTER than more expensive headphones)and you will listen everything as crystal clear

Ease of Use:
Just connect your guitar and start playing :D

Support:
M-audio really concern about your needs, Best support ever!

Overall:
I never had problems with the 1.1 usb port... near zero latency, no big problems... if you wanna have a home studio and you wanna record or just listen in your monitors THIS IS YOUR THING!

• User: a customer from hotmail.com
• Submitted: 1/28/2008
• Style of Music: Funky House, Latin House, Electro House and Everything about HOUSE
• Location: San Cristobal, Tachira, Venezuela

Feature:
i wish the hardware came with m-powered pro tools rather than ableton but at this price what else can u expect.. other than that the build quality is mediocre sometimes i feel the knobs might just break loose!!

Sound:
the M-audio fast track pro is definitely a worth deal, since i'm more in to gospel, i need live guitars to be recorded which is nicely dealt with by the unit and being a pianist the midi I\O helps polish the piano tracks easily, and it works quite fine with my sequncer(Cubase\Nuendo)!

Ease of Use:
its sound is awesome whether live or in a controlled environment! and no steep learning curve as well, the installation was a breeze!

• User: a customer from gmail.com
• Submitted: 1/12/2008
• Style of Music: Gospel
• Location: Mumbai,Maharashtra,India

Quality:
Unit is well built. Solid. Drivers, on the other hand, are pretty crappy. Under OSX 10.4.x they crap out all the time. I need to drop Logic, turn the unit off then back on. Sometimes (read: most of the time) turning the unit on causes the whole OS to hang for about 2-4 minutes, and then finally wake up. Sometimes (read: once in a while) turning the unit off and back on will cause the system to crash and require reboot... Bah. Next audio interface will definitely be MOTU.

Value:
Decent value.

Ease of Use:
buttons are a little hard to access. Back panel phantom power switch is almost hidden, power is on back. OK, but could be a lot better

Support:
Not great. They have not fixed bugs in their OSX drivers, and the last update was in 2006 or something. Lame.

• User: a customer from gmail.com
• Submitted: 12/3/2007
• Style of Music: Electronica, trip-hop, nu-jazz
• Location: San Diego, CA

Feature:
Good all around feature mix; if you can get by with the channel count, it's pretty well executed. Makes a great interface to throw in the computer bag and take along since it's bus powered.

Quality:
Plasticky, but light and feels fairly solid for all of that. Knobs are less than robust, but no real obvious design failures that I can see.

Value:
I got this at a store closing sale for about 30% off retail. I think it's not bad for the cost, though, even at avg retail.

Desirability:
Pretty decent appeal - looks nice sitting next to a macbook pro.

Sound:
Doggone good sound compared to other USB interfaces I've worked with. Clean input channel, and really does 24/96.

Ease of Use:
Pretty simple to get working. You'll need to install 'drivers' on your Mac (you get a system prefs panel for controlling the FTP).

Support:
M-Audio has always provided excellent support when I've needed them.

Overall:
Probably would replace it. Hard to say, since I'm a gear head and new stuff comes out every day.

• User: a customer from gmail.com
• Submitted: 6/12/2007
• Style of Music: Rock, Alternative
• Location: Independence, MO

Feature:
I only paid $90 for this. Considering the price, the features are pretty good, -20db pads, gain knobs, usb powered, headphone monitoring with a volume knob.

Quality:
Its plastic, light, could fall down the stairs and probably still work. Cheap knobs and led lights though. For the $90 i paid for it, it's good.

Value:
For $90, this was a steal. But for $200 I would be shopping around. If all you want is stereo recording at 24-bit/96kHz this will get it done, but I would buy this thing used or wait until its on sale. You can buy mine, because I already want to upgrade.

Desirability:
wowowowowowow!!!! this design is so sexy, i cant control myself. I often find myself gazing, fantacizing, falling deeply into those Neutrik XLR/ 1/4 in. TRS inputs.... Its blue, there are pretty green lights when things are working, and red ones when you are screwing up your recording. "...beyond its practical use (the color, the way it's made, the way it feels to you, the sheer genius of its design or features), that make you lust for this piece of gear even if you could make good music without it?" if you lust for usb audio peripherals' design i want to meet you.

Sound:
I use an intel mac mini and a ppc 12" powerbook with the fast track pro, and record mostly with cubase and audacity. The quality of the inputs better then par as far as usb audio interfaces, nothing special though.

Ease of Use:
I think I downloaded drivers but I can't remember. The only problem to mention is fairly often when I have the fast track connected to my powerbook the signal will suddenly become double sensitive. The quality sucks even when I turn the pads on and the gain all the way down to where there is no clipping. My solution is closing my recording application (cubase/audacity) and turn the fast track off for a few seconds. Then turn it back on, and re-open the applications.

Support:
I've talked to M-audio before, but never about my fast track. They fixed my other problems with a new driver available on their site.

Overall:
It craps out at least once every 2 hour recording session. and then i have to save what ive recorded so far - > close all recording applications -> turn off fast track device -> wait 5 seconds -> turn on fast track device -> reopen apps... gets to be a pain in the ass, and it seems like random instability. maybe new drivers would solve these problems? i have a sense it's the analog parts though, not a digital problem. Beyond that one problem the little bugger does it's job like a champ. For amateur home start-up studio, this is a good option. now that I am comfortable with stereo mic'ing and recording i want to upgrade. I've had the fast track for 3 months. and next time i will be buying probably something from MOTU, and at least 4x4. Although i dream of a MOTU firewire 8pre or a MOTU firewire traveler.

• Submitted: 6/7/2007
• Style of Music: Folk - raggae - blues - rock - psychedelia

Feature:
It has most of the features you need for a small project studio, but was lacking in 2 areas. I wish for starters that the headphone had an A/B switch for monitors. I run 2 Alesis Mk2's out of it and when doing post production it becomes a hassle to turn the monitors off if I want to hear only the mix in the cans. The second is only a minor hassle, but I wish the mic/instrument inputs on the front were located in the back, as cabling gets in the way. I understand that the feature is there for instruments to plug into, but if you own a small mixer then you would rather have those in back. Aesthetics I guess.

Quality:
Looks like everything is built well enough. Certainly worked and sounded better than the Fast Track USB unit I bought also. Looks rugged enough to do portable recording gigs with.

Value:
Ehh. The price point was OK with me, but I could have bought other USB units with more features for the same price.

Desirability:
It's simple, intuitive, and just right for the novice home studio owner.

Sound:
The sound is unexpectedly nice for the price range. At high volumes it becomes a bit noisy, but the nice addition of the pads solves that issue.

Ease of Use:
No problem setting it up if you just RTM. I haven't put any instruments through it, I run an 8-channel mixer into it. No audio issues that couldn't be fixed with some simple adjustments.

Support:
I haven't needed to talk with support. The website was plenty of info for me.

Overall:
I bought this product as a short-term fix for a tiny studio project. I knew it wouldn't have the features I really wanted in the long term, and if I lost or broke it I'd probably get another.

• Submitted: 4/20/2007

Feature:
The neutrik ins are nice. I would really have liked to see two headphone outs, one with a muting function over the other.

Quality:
Again, when it is working, it is pretty good (but certainly not transparent!). But, more often than not, it has all sorts of glitches. There are often little crackles and clicks recorded in my audio track (and it certainly isn't the USB cable: I upgraded to a monster cable for that reason!) The left neutrik jack works reasonably well (although its gain control is virtually impossible to decode: i'm either peaking or it is inaudible); however, the 2nd input makes these very quiet buzz noises whenever the green gain light goes on (to indicate that a signal is coming in). I assume that I'm getting the "buzz/hum" noise from the green light because of a poorly soldered joint or wire-cross. I have yet to open it up to take a look and see if I can just disconnect it.... Either way, this points to poor build quality / quality control.

Value:
It has decent features, but what's most important is its reliability and transparency. What is the point of making an entry level product if it doesn't adequately do the job it is supposed to?

Desirability:
It's a nice looking piece of equipment, but begins to look bland after a while (the firewire 410 is certainly an aesthetic upgrade!)

Sound:
The preamps are rather dull and cardboardy, but some work with eq and compressors will give you decent vocals. Guitar direct in, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired.

Ease of Use:
Every other time I boot up my computer, I have to reinstall the drivers. It recognizes the input from the instrument or midi device connected, but just does not send the information to the computer (or produce any sound in the headphone jack). The driver reinstall requires a restart, which is even more time-consuming. When it works, it works well (on my macbook pro), but it was causing frequent kernel panics on my intel iMac.

Overall:
I've had this product for three months, and I am definitely shopping around for a higher-level interface already. I reached the peak of what it could do probably in the first 3 or 4 days of owning it: the preamps are just that dismal. The other issues have contributed to my frustration with this product (when it really could've been a great item!), and now I'm looking at either the firewire 410 (but I'm not sure about m-audio anymore) or the digidesign m-boxes.

• User: a customer from gmail.com
• Submitted: 2/2/2007
• Style of Music: folk, acoustic, electronic, experimental
• Location: peterborough, ontario, canada