M-Audio audio interfaces

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:42 am

Why do so many people seem to recommend against M-Audio audio interfaces? Are they really any worse than anyone else's? Or is it just that more people have them, so more people have problems with them? After, all enough people seem to have problems with RME, MOTU, Echo, etc...

4am · Post by **4am** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:14 am

for me m-audio it was a disaster!
after 3 or 4 crashes during shows i changed to rme
since then the sun shines

cressy · Post by **cressy** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:20 am

hehe, about half my posts are all about how much I hate m-audio.

It's not that their stuff is terrible, its more that they make decent low to mid rage equipment that suffers from:

- Poor Support
- Non-existant quality control
- Really shakey drivers

It's true that people have problems with everything from Presonus to RME as well as M-Audio. And yeah, alot more people have M-Audio stuff, so you're gonna get a higher incidence of problems.

But... ALOT of people have RME stuff, and most people think they rock.
ALOT of people have M-Audio stuff, and alot of people think they suck.

I started with the M-Audio Firewire 410. I thought it was ok.
Then I got a Presonus Firepod, and realised that stability is actually possible with an external soundcard and laptop.

zsazsa · Post by **zsazsa** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:01 am

i think a lot more people have m-audio then RME (there is a big price difference).
M-audio devices have had a lot of trouble with older (non-intel) macs.
I own 2 M-audio soundcards, a trigger finger, and a couple of (midiman) midi devices.
All works fine.

But you hardly ever hear complaints about RME. It is top of the line.
So if you have the money go for it.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:50 am

I'd 9 out of 10 posts we get on ALDJ for soundcard issues have to do with M-audio stuff. Sometimes it's user error, but anytime I see negative comments skewed so heavily toward one company, it's hard for me to recommend them. Also, they seem to be really slow with updates, where as companies like RME, MOTU, etc are usually pretty quick with any bug fixes once they are discovered or confirmed.

overdub · Post by **overdub** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:59 am

My M-Audio Projectmix IO has been a dream come true for me since the very first day.... perfect for LIVE use.... launch scenes, trigger clips, play with the mix and the aux sends without ever touching the comp.

What can I say - it worx 4 me

blank · Post by **blank** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:00 pm

The product is not that bad, the problem with m-audio is the drivers that run the product.

I bet their drivers are coded by a bunch of monkeysbeaten with an electrical whip all day long. This is horrible and badly optimised for everything that is usb or firewire. Surprisingly, their pci solution did work great for me ( was my entry level sound card)

The other bad part is the support

Most of the guy I did talk or email at m audio support was more novice than me with a damn soundcard. I had the strong feeling that he was using a reference sheet withtout knowing what the hell he was talking about.

anyway, try, you'll see

Lateral · Post by **Lateral** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:29 pm

Fast Track Pro & Live 5.2 = never had any problems with performance.
Fast Track Pro & Live 6.* = clicks'n'pops, but it's a known issue. I tried it on a stronger machine, everything was perfect.
I had driver problems whatsoever. Few times I could not install that card with a certain version of XPSP2, got USB went totaly mad, found three of them (!!!) in control panel...
I agree, support is reeealy bad. Drivers are mostly old. For ex. drivers for Vista (for Fast Track Pro) are not out yet...
But, for EUR 200... it's good.

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:57 pm

For amatures and hobbyists like myself, I think M-Audio is perfect. It gets the job done and is easy on the wallet.

I have an M-Audio Delta 1010LT sound card, an M-Audio Oxygen8 Midi controller, and a pair of M-Audio BX5a monitors. They work great in my teeny-tiny home studio, but I wouldn't even think of gigging with the stuff.

If I was a professional musician, I'd definitely look for an upgrade.

Newecho · Post by **Newecho** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:49 pm

I just got a new laptop with Vista (gulp). I thoguht I'd have all sort of problems - but you know what - it rocks. Almost no problems whatsoevery. I've installed:

Live
Fl Studio
Vanguard
Absynth
Dimension Pro
Enigma Editor
Bome Midi Translatore
...

To the point of this post, I needed an external sound card. I wanted cueing, phantom power, input monitoring - and for cheap. I decided on the M-Audio Fast Track Pro.

So far, it works great with the beta vist drivers. The only problem I've had is if I unplugged the usb cable before powering down the FastTrack, it crashed my system.

The only time I've had issues with clicking and popping is when I accidently had the wrong driver selected (WME instead of ASIO).

On a side note - drivers for Axiom and Trigger finger for vista work great as well.

sqook · Post by **sqook** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:25 pm

blank wrote:The product is not that bad, the problem with m-audio is the drivers that run the product.

Bingo. In earlier times (that is, a few years ago), m-audio had some serious quality control problems, though I have heard that the build quality of their products has gotten better recently. In spite of that, the drivers are still the weakest part of the package, especially on the mac side. Before finally giving up on my 1814 (after having gone through two replacements for faulty units, btw), I would get constant problems with kernel panics, freezing, pops/clicks, etc. Since getting rid of it I've had a presonus firebox and edirol fa-66 and almost no problems with either, which not coincidentally, are both class-compliant devices requiring no 3rd-party driver.

Lots of people have problems with hardware... that includes the so-called "reputable" brands like RME, MOTU, etc. But I don't think that m-audio is suffering from "microsoft syndrome", where you could claim that more people bitch simply because more people are using their products. In my personal and word-of-mouth experience, almost everyone I know has had issues with m-audio soundcards at one point in time. On the inter-nets, I'd say it's about a 50/50 split... lots of people are bitching, but whenever one of these m-audio threads start, a few people always chime in to note that their setup is running glitch-free.

So it may be a matter of opinion, but my opinion remains that I wouldn't buy another interface from them.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 7:21 pm

Thanks for the replies (more still welcome...)

Personally, I found MOTU's Windows drivers for the Ultralite to be flaky as hell...

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:29 am

M Audio isn't a very good value for their firewire gear if you consider the features compared with other devices that have proven track records. Lookey here...

MOTU Ultralite: $550
M-Audio FW1814: $499

Echo Audiofire 4: $299
M-Audio FW410: $299

The devices compared aren't exactly like their M-Audio counterparts, but they are quite close. Also, they actually work with decent support and drivers!

robbmasters wrote:Thanks for the replies (more still welcome...)

Personally, I found MOTU's Windows drivers for the Ultralite to be flaky as hell...

Weird. Did you use the recommended Texas Instruments chipset? Ultralite worked perfectly on my XP Home SP2.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:08 am

the_planet wrote:
robbmasters wrote:Personally, I found MOTU's Windows drivers for the Ultralite to be flaky as hell...
Weird. Did you use the recommended Texas Instruments chipset?

Yes. (More details here.)

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:51 am

My first and only PCI soundcard was a M-Audio that worked just fine. Only odd thing about it is it made a weird noise when I would start up Digital Performer.....
Now I had nothing but pain with USB M-Audio gear and friends of mines set ups.

On the other hand I have a 5 year old MOTU 828 that still works just fine, and a RME Fireface that sounds great! The RME's only downfall is it doesn't like sharing a port with a firewire hard drive, beyond that, you can't beat it.

I have a Midisport 4x4 that still works after about 5 years as well, but it's pretty sketchy with some applications like Digital Performer, won't send beat clock to the old moog I have here, though other applications can, and other MIDI boxes can send to Digital Performer. Seems like driver issues like people here are saying...

M-Audio audio interfaces

M-Audio audio interfaces

hmmmmmm

FastTrackPro