[PlanetCCRMA] Another Hardware Compatibility Question, Oh Joy! -- M-Audio Fast track Pro

[Don Estabrook]

On 2009-Mar-03 22:03:53 +0900, Sean Beeson wrote:
> After searching and only finding conflicting reviews and compatibility
> lists do I ask this. Sorry, if it was just answered recently on the
> list and I couldn't find it.

  I feel your pain there.  :)

> Has anyone used M-audio's Fast Track Pro with Planet CCRMA. If so, how
> well does it work?

  I use one with CCRMA on Fedora 8, mainly for editing and playback at
  home (ie, not my main recording rig).  It works fine for me, but I
  haven't used all of its capabilities.  I've recorded from its front
  panel mic/line inputs, and played back on headphones and on outputs 1
  and 2.  I haven't tested SPDIF I/O or the secondary playback channel
  (the 'B' side of the A/B button and outputs 3 and 4).

  A couple minor footnotes:

    - I have not been able to figure out how to make it run in any other
      format than 16-bit samples at 44.1 kHz.  I guess I haven't tried
      *too* hard, but I did spend some time Google'ing and fiddling with
      the snd-usb-audio parameters in /etc/modprobe.conf about a year
      ago, with no apparent effect.  The hardware supports a limited
      number of formats and I/O combinations (documented in the FTPro
      user guide) -- I'm pretty sure I was trying to set modes that
      were actually supported.

    - The "clip" LEDs don't necessarily light at the same level that
      clipping occurs on the A-to-D's.  (Or maybe there's no pulse
      stretcher, so they might be flashing too quickly to see.)

    - Every once in a while (maybe once or twice a month or so) it goes
      a bit sideways and either stops responding or introduces a weird
      noise into the audio.  Rebooting the FTPro fixes the problem.

    - I'm never quite sure which ALSA devices - and which of qjackctl's
      device choices - correspond to real hardware devices (ie, the two
      playback devices and SPDIF) -- it's more or less trial and error.
      But that isn't unique to the FTPro.

  Hope that helps - maybe others have more experience with it than I do.

  - Don