M-Audio interfaces rule - a field report

[zmarx]

Good afternoon.

I just turned into an M-Audio fanboy - here's a field report for everyone who wants to buy an audio card for Vista:

* I was looking for an audio interface with MIC preamps that works with Vista pre SP1, because due to some Windows cockup I am not able to update to SP1.
* First one I bought: Echo Audiofire 4, nice card, but ocassionally applications had issues with it and its latency was ok, but not that great (12ms). Perhaps because it's firewire, so I decided after half a year of using it to go back to start and get a USB one.
* M-Audio MobilePre USB: bus-powered. downloaded drivers, plugged it in, worked straight away, latency in Cubase 4: 8 ms, brilliant, BUT - damn, I need MIDI input as well - so I went back to the store and they kindly exchanged it for a ...
* Edirol UA25-EX: bus-powered too, MIDI, pre-amps, BUT test under Cubase 4 -> 23 ms and still! (in this amount of time Cubase should be able to send the audio buffer's content via e-mail) glitchy in places, so I went back to the store and exchanged it for a ...
* M-Audio FastTrack Pro bus-powered, MIDI, pre-amps. They supply drivers for all flavours of Vista including pre SP1 and all of a sudden I am back in low latency land, halleluja -> 8ms

I guess there aren't that huge differences in hardware, but M-Audio just constantly keeps updating their drivers and that makes their products work well. So here is my 2 cents (ok, I already provided 2 dollars): Go to the download page, look at the drivers for the product you intend to buy, if the version sits at 1.0 for 2 years, then be suspicious.

[D-Fusion]

I have to agree that their interfaces are great but wait until you need some support or need drivers for the next operative system

2 Years to get vista drivers and the 64bit drivers is still not released to public

Wonder how long it will take before the Windows 7 drivers will be out after it's release.

[buscemi]

I like the FireWire Solo for mobile work. Allows me to get back in the Pro Tools game a little bit too. Have never needed support though, so I can't comment on that. Luckily it works with this crappy Agere FireWire chipset

[evesixtynine]

I have total M-Audio Mobilepre problems and can't get support at their site. I won't bother relating them here except to say that in Win 7 only one input out of the whole box can work at a time. Also, the little applet that is supposed to show up for tweaking latency, etc, doesn't even with a cmd/alt or whathaveyou. I posted over at their forum and they don't answer anything which isn't in their official book.

[MOK19]

I have to agree that their interfaces are great but wait until you need some support or need drivers for the next operative system

2 Years to get vista drivers and the 64bit drivers is still not released to public

Wonder how long it will take before the Windows 7 drivers will be out after it's release.

^Precisely.
I have a firewire410 that sat useless for 6 months until I got on their beta program. And now it's sitting there useless once again because for some as-of-yet undiscovered reason, it doesn't want to work with my new laptop. My money-earning job is tech support, and I can't figure it out, and got pretty crappy help too.

I replaced it, in the meantime, with a friend's loaner FastTrack Pro. No software channel mixer on that, so I can't mix records anymore. Oh well.
And like the firewire410, it has this STUPID STUPID LIGHT that BLINKS when it's OFF. WHAT THE HECK. Most annoying thing. My setup's in my bedroom, so you can imagine it's an aggravation when I want to sleep. I'm not going M-Audio with my next box. Not a chance. The always-on flashlight-LED is enough to drive me up the wall.

[Ford Prefect]

hahahaha...my Firewire 410 is the doorstop for my office...the FTP on the office machine is hit or miss...has to be turned off and back on 10 times a day b/c it's flakey...only the FTP 8R at home is solid...

[hibidy]

Anyways, I had a FW 410 50 or 60 years ago and did a pete towshend on it. However, my profire 610 is from the soundcard gods and has been flawless.

go figure.

[MOK19]

AW SONOFA!

Cool pic tho.

[hibidy]

I understand though. My FW 410 was so frustrating. Turns out maybe it itself wasn't what was so bad but maybe the fact that NOBODY talked about TI chipsets way back then. Funny, an audiophile 192 mostly worked fine and then of course my traveler wasn't bad. Anyways, profire 610 yo, rockin the hardcore

[archiei]

My FW Solo worked great when I had Windows XP installed. I lately upgraded to Windows 8 Pro and - bang - horrible distortion. Tried both 32 and 64bit version. Now I'll probably wait 2 years for Win 8 drivers and then can make music again...

[hibidy]

My FW Solo worked great when I had Windows XP installed. I lately upgraded to Windows 8 Pro and - bang - horrible distortion. Tried both 32 and 64bit version. Now I'll probably wait 2 years for Win 8 drivers and then can make music again...

Are you using the win7 drivers or do they actually have win8 drivers? (just curious)

[archiei]

I'm using Win 7 drivers, there are no Win8 drivers yet. I even tried XP drivers.

[Jace-BeOS]

I've been pretty happy with an M-Audio ProjectMix I/O on Vista 64 and Snow Leopard...

[hibidy]

Probably a stupid suggestion, but can you try vista drivers? I have no idea if they are even different. BTW, what driver version?

[hibidy]

I've been pretty happy with an M-Audio ProjectMix I/O on Vista 64 and Snow Leopard...

I wonder why maudio never developed this further. I don't even know if they make them anymore but I always thought that was a terrific unit. Golden age when that came out, a ton of cutting edge products.