M Audio Fast Track - Distortion, popping noises, etc... Solved-ALMOST

[Bonez007]

Hello Guys!

Many of us, users of Fast Track, have been experiencing funny noises which has irritating to say the least.

My story goes like this:

A few days ago I have purchased an M Audio Fast Track USB Audio Interface (2nd Gen) - from an authorized dealer in my Country - which came bundled with Pro Tools SE 8.03.
My Purpose of this hardware is to record vocals and my guitar simultaneously over a backing track. It seemed like the best bang for buck, and with the website saying how good the device and software are (Pro Tools an industry standard), I thought this was a bargain!

I get home and install the drivers and pro tools, which came with the device, into my windows 7 64bit laptop, and plugged it in - ready to record.
While recording just my electric guitar (plugged into port 2), I get random bursts of distortion which almost totally drowns out the .wav backing track that I had playing. This distortion lasts for seconds, or sometimes the entire song.
I have noticed that this only happens when I arm the track to record, it plays perfectly with the track disarmed.

I have been to the M Audio website for answers, and to check if I have installed the latest driver for my interface (which I have)... but they direct me to the Avid website, as this device is no longer supported by M Audio. The Avid website had been very unhelpful with the troubleshooting of my device. Their customer support is strange - I do not want to have to pay to get attention, by buying a service code, for a brand new device which I had spent good money on already. Apparently I am supposed to be getting a complimentary code upon registering my device/software, which I have done, but I have not received any such code.

I did, however, try out the (silly - IMHO) workarounds and suggestions scattered all throughout the confusing website in an effort to rectify my problem. I have disabled my wifi, bluetooth, etc (which is not what I like to do everytime I record). I've tried almost all suggestions there. No Luck.

I had then formatted my laptop, and downloaded the latest system drivers for all of my laptops devices, uninstalled the packaged Anti-Virus software that came with my laptop, along with all other unnecessary software (pre-installed games, MS office, etc.)
Next I loaded Pro Tools SE and the M-Audio Driver - Start her up, and to my relief NO MORE DISTORTION!!!

However, I now have to deal with spurts of random popping noises which come through while recording. This noise actually get written into the tracks I've recorded - Not the quality of sound that the websites promise!
In trying to get this working like it should, I have uninstalled the M Audio driver and downloaded/installed an earlier version. Did not work.
I've also downloaded/installed ASIO4ALL driver - Did not work

I have then installed Amplitube, and ran it standalone - I still get popping noises on the recording.
I finally downloaded a trial version of Repear - I do hear popping noises while recording, but I have not heard it while playing back the recording! I haven't had much time to test this out properly though - I appeal to the guys having similar problems to try this out.


Conclusion/Afterword:

-The best driver to use is the latest one.

-Some program(s), of the many I had installed on my laptop had conflicted with the M-Audio driver/device, and caused the distortion - Which had been rectified by formatting and reloading my pc.

-Reloading removed the distortion, but there is now a popping sound which gets written onto the recording.

- Pro Tools SE and Amplitube 3 both write this popping sound into the recording. Reaper seems not to write it (more tests needed).

- The workarounds of having your wifi and bluetooth adapters disabled is nonsense IMHO because my laptop is an all rounder - not a dedicated audio workstation. Furthermore, the suggestion of having a second hard drive (which isn't external) for recording defeats the purposes of having a portable recording solution - which is what the Fast Track is designed to do. Also, it does not mention a 2nd HDD under the requirements of Pro Tools 8 SE.


With all of the above mentioned, it seems as though there is a problem with the driver for the interface, which isn't compatible with Windows 7 64bit.

I would appreciate it if I could get some responses from other users who are able to try Reaper, and any other suggestions, also from the technical support team for proper solutions.
I don't desire returning this device, but I will be forced to do so if this problem is not fixed.

PS: All my tests and findings were done with my system running at "high performance" power scheme.
If I had been doing things incorrectly (or said anything I shouldn't), please correct me

You all have a good day,
Thank you for reading.

[Dcader10]

Hello,

Don't know if you have tried using another usb cable or guitar, mic cables. It could be as simple as a bad connection in the wiring.

Hope this helps,
Dcader10

[zedman]

Hi Bonez,
the distortion thing is driving everyone mad but for me the most irritating thing are the noises written to the bounced audio track. I have found that these are directly related to the effects plug-ins...I can faithfully reproduce this by enabling/disabling the plugins. further, if you open the system usage window in PT SE you can see the CPU usage for effects spike when the noise happens. I have tried all of the optimisations suggested but have had no luck so far....some kind of buffer overrun?? Stupid thing is, I can get this to happen with just one plugin enabled on a guitar track. Any suggestions...or better still AVID....time you fixed this!!

praying for a solution,

Zedman

[zedman]

Guys...see my other new post...problem solved!! really!!

[YYR123]

Wasn't this in another version of PT when using a certain plug - I seem to remember TL space ?

It was fixed by the dithering plug after the plug