crosstudio
New member
I got the M-Audio AudioSport Duo which is the USB enabled Mic-Pre from KraftMusic.com for $259.
The USB driver installed easy enough, and I selected MME instead of ASIO since I am using Cakewalk's Sonar.
Let me say, first and formost that either the WDM driver is not ready for prime time or I didn't install it correctly. I could not select 48khz in Sonar using the WDM driver. I had to record in 44.1khz. This is unfortunate because I prefer to record in 48khz. The latency of the WDM driver makes it possible to monitor your recording while you playback out of the same output. In addition, if you select 24bit driver you will not hear any audio at all. You have to select 16bit driver, and 24bit file. I'm hoping that I've missed something here and not installed the WDM drivers properly.
In order to record at 48khz, I had to switch to the MME driver (by checking the MME box in Sonar's Audio dialog box), but the latency inherent in the MME driver makes it difficult to monitor.
Here is where I feel that the M-Audio Ad was a tad misleading, they made it sound like you could monitor your input pre-USB send while listening to the playback at the same time. You can monitor and playback simultaneously but you are monitoring the return from the USB which depends on the latency of the PC driver. If you want to hear your input through the headphone pre-USB you can, but it will defeat the playback coming from the PC.
In MME mode, when you have a track selected for recording, the driver has a tendency to start fuzzing out at a moments notice, however, once you deselect and reselect record, the fuzzing goes away. it doesn't fuzz out while you are actually recording.
All of the afformentioned issues are driver related, and that can be worked out by M-Audio over time.
The upside is that once you get your settings right in Sonar, the Duo sounds great. It's pretty darn clean. I'll be using the Duo to run around to various musician's and vocalist to record a couple of tracks, the Duo is perfect.
The AudioSport Duo didn't have a problem pushing out the 5 mono tracks. If it can playback 4 mono tracks and 4 stereo tracks at the same time, I'll be fine using this on the road.
Below is a link to an MP3 I created today using the AudioSport Duo. I recorded mono bass, electric guitar, and classical guitar tracks. Then cloned the electric guitar and classical guitar tracks.
the bass was recorded using a sansamp bass di into the line in of the Duo.
the guitar was recorded using a sansamp classic into the line in of the Duo.
the classical guitar (yamaha cgx171) has a built in b-band preamp which went into the line-in of the duo.
Bass: comp / eq / aux1 reverb
Guit1: comp / eq / aux1 reverb
Guit2: comp / eq / mono delay / aux1 reverb
Class1: comp / eq / aux1 reverb
Class2: comp / eq / mono delay / aux1 reverb
As you can see each track has track fx inserts and each track is sending a little something to aux1 for some reverb.
I'm using a Dell 1.2ghz with 512mb RAM, and 48gb HD.
My AudioSport Duo test
The USB driver installed easy enough, and I selected MME instead of ASIO since I am using Cakewalk's Sonar.
Let me say, first and formost that either the WDM driver is not ready for prime time or I didn't install it correctly. I could not select 48khz in Sonar using the WDM driver. I had to record in 44.1khz. This is unfortunate because I prefer to record in 48khz. The latency of the WDM driver makes it possible to monitor your recording while you playback out of the same output. In addition, if you select 24bit driver you will not hear any audio at all. You have to select 16bit driver, and 24bit file. I'm hoping that I've missed something here and not installed the WDM drivers properly.
In order to record at 48khz, I had to switch to the MME driver (by checking the MME box in Sonar's Audio dialog box), but the latency inherent in the MME driver makes it difficult to monitor.
Here is where I feel that the M-Audio Ad was a tad misleading, they made it sound like you could monitor your input pre-USB send while listening to the playback at the same time. You can monitor and playback simultaneously but you are monitoring the return from the USB which depends on the latency of the PC driver. If you want to hear your input through the headphone pre-USB you can, but it will defeat the playback coming from the PC.
In MME mode, when you have a track selected for recording, the driver has a tendency to start fuzzing out at a moments notice, however, once you deselect and reselect record, the fuzzing goes away. it doesn't fuzz out while you are actually recording.
All of the afformentioned issues are driver related, and that can be worked out by M-Audio over time.
The upside is that once you get your settings right in Sonar, the Duo sounds great. It's pretty darn clean. I'll be using the Duo to run around to various musician's and vocalist to record a couple of tracks, the Duo is perfect.
The AudioSport Duo didn't have a problem pushing out the 5 mono tracks. If it can playback 4 mono tracks and 4 stereo tracks at the same time, I'll be fine using this on the road.
Below is a link to an MP3 I created today using the AudioSport Duo. I recorded mono bass, electric guitar, and classical guitar tracks. Then cloned the electric guitar and classical guitar tracks.
the bass was recorded using a sansamp bass di into the line in of the Duo.
the guitar was recorded using a sansamp classic into the line in of the Duo.
the classical guitar (yamaha cgx171) has a built in b-band preamp which went into the line-in of the duo.
Bass: comp / eq / aux1 reverb
Guit1: comp / eq / aux1 reverb
Guit2: comp / eq / mono delay / aux1 reverb
Class1: comp / eq / aux1 reverb
Class2: comp / eq / mono delay / aux1 reverb
As you can see each track has track fx inserts and each track is sending a little something to aux1 for some reverb.
I'm using a Dell 1.2ghz with 512mb RAM, and 48gb HD.
My AudioSport Duo test