[PlanetCCRMA] usb audio interface comparisons

[Sean Beeson]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 10:28 AM, francis keyes <fkeymo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey All,
>
> I'm setting up a laptop audio workstation for the first time and was
> wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the usb audio interfaces.  I've been
> using Fredora + CCRMA for a numbers of years with M-Audio delta cards on my
> desktop machine.  The two USB interfaces I'm currently considering are:
>
> M-Audio Fast Track Pro (and/or Ultra)
> Edirol UA-100
>
> I have gathered from other postings that the Fast Track will work.


I use an M-Audio Fast Track Pro. You will only have the hardware knobs to
control anything. There isn't any software mixer. After 10 hours or so of
being on it begins to take on an overdrivin distortion and the only thing
that clears it up is rebooting your the system. Once I got up and running
with the PlanetCCRMA repo on Fedora 10, I immediately needed more inputs
coming into some hardware easily. I have a few external sound producing
modules that I would love to take the output from individually and further
patch them into the effects in the DAW, but i am limited to the two ins. I
really don't like not having some sort of software mixer for it either. I
have no idea how ALSA knows how and how much to use of the input signal. In
highnsight I would have tried to get a firewire interface(you have to make
sure your firewire chipset will work) that has a supported mixer. I would
definately go with something that others say has more support. I have yet to
get the monitor outs to work. It shows up as two sound cards under ALSA. The
second one is the only one with an audio input. As far as I can tell you can
only use one of those devices at a time. The one other person who I know
using  one reported the strange distortion and inability to use the monitor
outs as well. Once I got it going I was basically discovering what that
person had descrided to me as I went along. But it does work and sounds
really good. If anyone has gotten further with one, please let me know.

--Sean
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