M-Audio Fast Track USB

Looking for a flexible solution to creating home recordings and podcasts? The M-Audio Fast Track USB audio interface provides 24-bit, 48-kHz audio quality in a compact unit. It's easy to set up and is powered by your PC's USB port, so it doesn't need a spaghetti pot of cables. And at $129.99 direct, it's a pretty good deal.

The Fast Track USB measures 5.4 by 4.3 by 1.7 inches and weighs just 9 ounces, leaving plenty of room on your desktop. It has a mono XLR input for a dynamic mic and a quarter-inch TRS input port for instruments. It also gives you stereo RCA and eighth-inch outputs for monitoring. Knobs on the front of the box give you control over mic input levels, output levels, and monitoring levels (where you can adjust the mix of input and output).

Setup is very easy. I was able to plug the device into my Microsoft Windows XP-based PC and Apple iBook running Mac OS X 10.3 and use it right away without installing any software. (You'll need to be running OS X 10.2.8 or later on a Mac or Windows XP SP 1 or later on a PC.) The analog interface provides just enough control to do basic recordings. The preamp in the microphone input is plenty clean enough, and I like that you can use a button on the back to switch between a line-level signal (from an amp, preamp, or audio playback device) and a direct guitar signal. When I tweaked knobs during input and playback, there was no crackling noise in the signal. Two LEDs on the front indicate input signals and peaks, though I wish the indicators were made up of more LEDs, so you could get a better idea of the signal levels.

One basic recording principle to note is that if you're using the Fast Track USB (or any audio interface with a mic input) in combination with a condenser mic and preamp, make sure you send the preamp's output into the Fast Track's line input and not the mic input. Otherwise you'll get a lot of noise in your recording.

Combined with a dynamic microphone and either the included GT Express software, GarageBand, or a free audio recording/editing software package such as Audacity, the Fast Track USB is a simple and portable way to create high-quality home recordings and podcasts without needing lots of money or experience.