Product Review - Amplitube 2

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Aplitube 2 is an effects plug-in processor for digital audio recording. It emulates, remarkably well, a wide variety of guitar pre-amplifier and cabinet sounds along with quite a few stomp pedal effects and digital effects processes.

The idea is that you can basically build your own set-up without the need for spending thousands of dollars on expensive, bulky equipment. Amplitube retails somewhere between $300 - $400.

I'll give you the pros and cons:

Pros - It sounds fantastic. And with an assortment of interchangeable rigs, the possibilities are nearly endless. And anything you can tweak on your real set-up, can be tweaked in amplitube: bass, middle, treble, presence, gain, spring and/or digital reverb, distortion, chorus, modulators, compressor, decompressor, etc. You can even adjust the placement of the (imaginary) microphone and how much ambience to allow from the (imaginary) room. Amplitube also includes a few bass pre-amps and cabs as well.

Cons - Unfortunately there is simply no substitute for the real thing. While technically, the combinations and possibilities are limitless, digital effects can go only so far, no matter how brilliantly designed, in achieving what analog recording can achieve effortlessly. You may find yourself blown away, initially, by how unbelievably real it sounds. But you will eventually realize that it is likely because your expectations were low in the first place.

Besides that, my only other complaint is that the quality of the effects from the stomp pedals are a bit lacking and although there are 21 different stomp effects, most of them turn out to be a disappointment.

Conclusion - I recommend it as long as you understand that what you are getting is a great, versatile, and wildly entertaining digital effects plug-in. You are not a getting the real thing.

Product Review - M-Audio Fast Track USB

I'll give you the short and to the point review first:

Save up for something better, dipshit.

Now here's why:

Don't get me wrong. The M-Audio Fast Track USB served its purpose fairly well. The quality of my audio recordings was immediately improved. And I got a lot of use out of it. Installation was simple and tech support has been decent.

It sounded like exactly what I needed; a pre-amp with a digital output (USB or firewire) with at least one microphone (xlr) input and one guitar input. I was fairly new to audio recording (or more accurately, I was new to having a little extra cash to spend on audio recording devices) and I wasn't satisfied, of course, with the standard line-in on my internal soundcard.

And so, lacking any amount of foresight or patience, I went out and bought the Fast Track. I bought it for I think around $100 - 130 about a year and a half or two years ago.

Here are my complaints:

1. Latency - This is the number one issue for me. While I can get somewhere around 10ms latency (which is pretty good for USB) on a single track with limited effects, the problems arise when I have multiple tracks with a few real-time effects processes running on each. In many circumstances, as the audio project becomes more complex, the production grinds to a halt unless I increase the latency to an amount that makes monitoring useless.

Although I haven't tried it, I have heard that the M-Audio Fast Track Pro, which uses firewire instead of USB, alleviates this problem considerably. I cannot vouch for it, but if latency is your only concern, the Fast Track Pro might suite your needs. It is, however, slightly more expensive than the USB version.

2. Single In/Single Out - I keep kicking myself for this one. I should have known... no, I DID know that I would quickly outgrow the usefullness of a single input (two if you are counting both the xlr and guitar ins together), single output pre-amp. It wasn't long after I purchased the Fast Track that I realized what a waste it was for a musician to invest $100 for a one channel in/out recording device. For two or three times the price, i could have had 8 times the channels. Do yourself a favor; If you think there is a possibility you may want to record multiple tracks simultaneously and you haven't got boatloads of cash lying around, don't compromise. Just settle your ass down, put your money away, and save up.

It is important to point out that even if you do get a multi track mixer, you need to be aware that a USB connection will still only support one track output. So even if you've got your whole band coming in on 8 separate tracks, if you're using a device that only supports USB, you are limited to one track output. You won't be able to level, equalize, compress and add effects to those 8 tracks individually, once they are recorded.

Firewire can handle multiple out tracks, so I recomend not only getting the multi-track mixer, but also spending the extra couple bucks for the firewire version. Something like the Alesis MultiMix 8 FireWire would work and you can get it for around $300.

3. Random Violient Hissing - My final complaint is a problem that is perhaps peculiar to my device although I suspect others have had the same issue as well. My M-Audio Fastrack USB, for no apparent reason, succumbs to random bouts of violent, earsplitting hissing or white noise. It is managable, I suppose, in the same sense that genital herpies outbreaks are managable; that is, it happens and there's nothing you can do about.

Tech support tells me it is probably a driver issue. But I have updated, unistalled, and reinstalled the drivers multiple times. I've disabled other audio devices. Adjusted my audio settings and software preferences. I've practically taken the thing out for dinner and a movie. All to no avail. Chances are, if you buy the Fast Track, you won't have this problem. But it is certainly worth addressing.