i'm looking to buy a new external soundcard for my current setup. I use a guitar heavily and i'd like to have a nice ASIO soundcard to use with guitar rig. atm i'm using a cheap soundblaster external that has ridiculous latency in guitar rig, FL studio, etc.. so using it to record is near impossible. i've been looking at the M-Audio Fast track pro. it looks like it has everything i need, 4 RCA outputs, 2 1/4" outputs/inputs, 2 mic inputs, SPDIF and MIDI I/O.. any opinions on this?

everyday man... there are soooooo many great cards that could benefit you... i've hooked my guitar up to a firewire 410 with no issues but this isn't the only card great for such a set up.

there are endless soundcard threads you should really search first because i've answered the guitar questions before

Echo AudioFire 4

After buying a Firewire Audiophile, I sure as fuck will never be buying anything from M-Audio again.

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0729 there are endless soundcard threads you should really search first because i've answered the guitar questions before

yeah, i know. i've glanced over them a bit. just wanted to know if the soundcard was shit or not. thanks for the advice though.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm Echo AudioFire 4 After buying a Firewire Audiophile, I sure as fuck will never be buying anything from M-Audio again.

will check it out. thanks. edit: i really like the universal inputs. very handy. (though the m-audio one had the same thing going on). if i may ask, why not m-audio? just a shoddy product? i've read that m-audio's drivers are great.. i dunno.

Last edited by Omega_Blue on May-08-2007 at 12:39

DigiDesign MBox 2

E-MU 1616M
It has 4 balanced inputs, two of them has built in pre-amps, plus you get Protools HD AD converters.

Stay the fack away from EMU soundcards - I have literaly seen one catch fire under normal useage conditions and they don't sound as good as many other similar priced audio interfaces either.

Echosystem -Why not M-audio? I've done tech support for them in previous life and have to say they probably have some of the lowest electronic failure rates (aside from Motu) of all the kit had to deal with.

Omega blue, if you can stump to it, check out motu. They're also build like tanks.

Yeah E-MU cards look fantastic on paper, hell I was going to buy one...

But the drivers are absolute shite, I read a review in computer music I think, the latencies they managed to get down to weren't impressive and they said it was unstable the whole time. Echo wins for driver efficiency/stability, but theyre a bit more expensive than others.

@echosystems: you believe in everything you've read somewhere, don't you? The emu-drivers aren't the best out there, true, but they are more than useable!!!

@Omega_Blue: If your present soundcard is alright for you except for that latenc issue, you should try this ASIO4ALL and be happynot having to buy anything :-)

___________________
"Compress It To Jesus" Tom Lord-Alge

quote:

Originally posted by John Doe @echosystems: you believe in everything you've read somewhere, don't you? The emu-drivers aren't the best out there, true, but they are more than useable!!! @Omega_Blue: If your present soundcard is alright for you except for that latenc issue, you should try this ASIO4ALL and be happynot having to buy anything :-)

Um...

The current E-MU drivers are based on SoundBlaster drivers... Which is enough to make them shit IMO. Creative aren't exactly renowned for high quality, low latency, drivers dude.

You're right, I'm sure they are "more than useable". However, like most other people, if I had the choice between paying a little bit extra for something awesome over something thats "more than useable", I would choose that which is awesome

Echo wins. They have one of the best reputations for drivers, probably only rivalled by RME, apogee etc. Also, the AD/DA in the new Echo lines are roughly comparable to those "ProTools equivalents" in the E-MUs.

johndoe: i mentioned this in the other soundcard thread that's going on, but ASIO4ALL hasn't done shit for latency for my card. still performs the same as before/or the same as my onboard laptop sound, even after changing the buffer length and whatnot.

echosystm once again thanks for the advice on the audiofire 4, it looks like exactly what i need. the digi mbox 2 lacks enough outputs, and if E-MU sucks then i guess the audiofire sounds the best (pretty cheap too).

I'm buying one too :P

Just one note thats important to make... I'm pretty sure the headphone port isn't an independant channel, meaning you cant route something to the headphones only. From my understanding, you link it to an output (SPDIF, analogue 1/2 or 3/4 etc.) which has nothing on it (or something turned off) to only get sound through the headphones. Eg. if your monitors are on analogue 1/2, and your headphones were set to monitor analogue 1/2, then you would need to turn off your monitors to hear the sound only through the headphones.

Double check that! It's no issue for me, but it may be for you.