M-Audio Fast Track c600

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shimada
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Shimada

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Hey guys!

Just wondering if anyone has anything to say about the new M-Audio Fast Track C600. I'm thinking of getting it, but there weren't many trustworthy reviews out there.
 
i'm in the same boat shimada. i've been looking to upgrade my usb interface and i'm really happy with my little two input fast track. some of the things i read about the fast track ultra made me kinda leery because it sounded like it had many glitches. i found the c600 and i can't really find much about it.
 
Just bought one. I had a Lexicon U22. Solid built unit but only 2 channels and bit scratchy on the pots with low gain on the preamps. Got the C600 for the DSP, 2 headphones out and 4 XLR inputs. The build is a bit on the cheap side. the top acrylic really scratches easily if you take the plastic off (i pulled a little off and put it right back after a simple wipe with a microfibre cloth scratched the hell out of it! looks terrible with bubbled up plastic though, so I'll probably just suffer though and let it wear!). Knobs are a bit on the smallish side. I haven't dug into all that the control panel can do but the DSP and headphone outs work great!! Worth the price of admission to be able to produce a dry headphone for me and wet for my singer! Having 4 inputs is changing the way I work in my little home studio too.

I got it for $375 at Sweetwater. good service, nice folks! I've put in a call to my rep to ask about the scratching. M-Audio will probably hear a lot about it. WOuld be nice if they would take care of us early adopters when they fix it! Fingers Crossed.

Sound quality is tops. Recorded Djembe, vocals and acoustic guitar with condenser mic, SM57 and they all sounded warm and perfect! Headphone mix was great and now I have dry tracks with no latency and no loss of "feeling" thanks to the DSP built in. Bravo!
 
It's not often no one on here has experience with a piece of gear.

Thanks for posting up the info.
 
Unfortunately, I'm sending the unit back. I spoke with my rep at Sweetwater and informed him of my issues. He said that he has had not complaints about this issue.

After I posted last night, I ran the unit through some tests again and configuring it more. I started to find "cracks" in the system. When I reset the transport controls via the control panel, it worked, but when I quit the control panel and restarted, it was back to the ProTools shortcuts. I followed the instructions in the manual to the T. Then it started doing some other weird stuff in Garageband like my monitors would come on and feedback when I hit the multi button, even after I reconfigured the multi button to open a new track. And when I restarted my computer this morning, the "Keyboard Setup" window appeared on the screen. In the manual it says to ignore it when you first install the unit, but apparently this happens every time I restart my computer too! Annoying!

I'm using iMac OSX 10.7.2 with 12gb ram

So back this "toy" unit goes and I'm now in the market for a real piece of gear. Sadly my Lexicon I-Onix U22 was made better and cost me far less than the $375 for this thing. :(
 
Haha, Sorry you're having such a bad experience.

Still good to know though, thanks.
 
Win some, lose some. Sweetwater is good about taking returns. Although I have to pay shipping back :( I miss the good ole days when you could walk into a music store and check it out in person! ugh.
 
Dang, I'm gonna sound so wishy washy here but... I decided to get over it and keep the dang thing. I can let the swirls and scratches go. AND (he eats crow)… I'm sure that my other issues were operator error. :( ha ha

So, onward and upward. AND getting back to what's more important, making and recording music! YAY!
 
@flyingace - im thinking about picking up this interface and i was hoping you could answer some questions about it since you've had it for a while.

I used to have a Lexicon u42S and i had a different experience from you - i hated it. The drivers were crap, it constantly disappeared from my available sound options in preferences on my iMac (and obviously opening a sequencer at this point was useless), and the only workaround I had was to disconnect the unit and reconnect or restart my iMac! An email to customer support produced no reply whatsoever so am disappointed with their support as well.

So i sold it this morning and have been looking at the C600.

One thing I wanted to find out was how it performed when using the interface as the input/output device on a Mac (so all sounds go through the interface instead of the iMac speakers) and whether you can control the main volume with the volume keys on the Mac keyboard. For some reason I'm assuming that you cannot. My friend has the Apogee Ensemble and controlling the volume can be done with the keyboard as well as the main volume knob on the Apogee interface which is very nice. Basically I want to channell all sounds (including computer effects, when i visit web pages etc) through the interface to my monitors. Im ok with using the volume knob on the interface, but would be extremely happy if i could still control the main volume with the volume keys. This seems like a weird thing for me to want for an audio interface, but its a case of "a nice to have feature"!

Have you had any issues since this thread started with your iMac not 'seeing' the interface?

The multi button and the build seem to be your main gripes with this - anything else since then?

I appreciate any response!
 
vjkmxe:
Well...I finally got my Lexicon U22 back from lexicon support. They completely replaced the motherboard. And it sounded better, but in an A/B test with the FT600...hands down the FT600 wins for better sounding pres! Warm and analog sounding compared to the U22. I had no idea what I was missing!

As far as the build quality, I"m over the swirl thing and just let it go. The plasticky feel of the unit kinda sucks but I haven't seen anything not working or breaking. I think for my desktop/home needs, it will be fine. Definitely NOT for pro use! But the sound quality is there for sure!!

I love the multiple monitor function! I have it set up as my iMacs output and input via the control panel. I have noticed that when I restart I have to open the sound control panel and reselect it as my IO. I have all my sound going thru the interface and have hooked up my CREATIVE brand powered speakers/sub to the B monitor button, my M-Audio BX5as to the A button. It's nice to A/B mixes. I listen to my iTunes and all computer stuff via the interface now. NO the keyboard buttons no longer control volume or mute :( But the big volume dial on the interface is right there and easy to dial up or down. I enjoy using my headphones late at night to watch or listen while the rest of the family is asleep.

The control panel (software mixer) was a little confusing to me at first but I'm getting used to it.

All in all, I think it's a good unit. I paid $375 at sweet water for it. I wouldn't pay more!

Good luck, let me know if I can help more!
 
flyingace

Thanks for replying - so helpful that you can share your experience with this unit!

So you don't have the same problems as I do with your Lexicon unit?? I wonder if my unit was faulty.......

I can see how the Monitor function would be a great feature so good to hear you're not having any problems with it.

"I have noticed that when I restart I have to open the sound control panel and reselect it as my IO." <- so this happens all the time? Is this something that has been raised with M-Audio? While it seems minor, i would still think a well designed audio-interface shouldn't force a user to go through this all the time.

"NO the keyboard buttons no longer control volume or mute " <- i figured as much - ah well, not a deal breaker - more of a 'nice to have' feature!

"I have all my sound going thru the interface and have hooked up my CREATIVE brand powered speakers/sub to the B monitor button, my M-Audio BX5as to the A button. It's nice to A/B mixes. I listen to my iTunes and all computer stuff via the interface now." <- so so far, not a single problem with any program? With my Lexicon I found it hard to channel audio to the interface with some programs - it was such a hassle that i just ended up using iMac speakers instead.
 
So far I've only tested the interface with Garageband and it works seemlessly. Considering it's a rather low end app, i'm guessing using higher end, like Logic 9 (where I"m heading), will also work well.

I think the lexicon was a good interface for what I was doing but now that I've been able to hear such a difference with the warmer and better pres that the C600 has, it just doesn't cut it anymore. The built in DSP means ZERO latency issues while tracking! So far so good!
 
C600 Monitoring

I just picked up this unit too. I quite like it, but one thing is bothering me: I am unable to monitor an input while a track is playing back. Not sure if it is a setting for the interface or something in Pro Tools SE (I'm beginning to get what the 'S' stands for), but I cannot just play over a loop or track and hear the input without actually recording it. Seems like it would be a standard feature and the whole point behind having a multi-channel interface so I think it's user error, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Works with Pro Tools, works with Garage band, no latency issues...I'm digging it now if I could just get past this one issue....
 
scottxmartin said:
I just picked up this unit too. I quite like it, but one thing is bothering me: I am unable to monitor an input while a track is playing back. Not sure if it is a setting for the interface or something in Pro Tools SE (I'm beginning to get what the 'S' stands for), but I cannot just play over a loop or track and hear the input without actually recording it. Seems like it would be a standard feature and the whole point behind having a multi-channel interface so I think it's user error, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Works with Pro Tools, works with Garage band, no latency issues...I'm digging it now if I could just get past this one issue....
Click to expand...

If I'm correct in saying so, Pro Tools SE won't allow listening to tracks during playback because of latency issues or something like that. I can't recall the exact reason, but I'm 90% sure Pro Tools SE won't allow it.
 
I cant recommend C600 to anybody. I know people who really had a very hard time with them.
 
scottxmartin said:
I just picked up this unit too. I quite like it, but one thing is bothering me: I am unable to monitor an input while a track is playing back. Not sure if it is a setting for the interface or something in Pro Tools SE (I'm beginning to get what the 'S' stands for), but I cannot just play over a loop or track and hear the input without actually recording it. Seems like it would be a standard feature and the whole point behind having a multi-channel interface so I think it's user error, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Works with Pro Tools, works with Garage band, no latency issues...I'm digging it now if I could just get past this one issue....
Click to expand...

Hi!
I had the same issue when I upgraded from Fast Track Pro to C600. On FT Pro you could listen the playback while (for example) trying different keyboard sounds, and adjust the balance between playback tracks and synths with the mix knob. It was very convenient but with C600 it seemed at first that I had to record the track to hear it. I solved the "problem feature" by adding one AUX track to the ProTools project to hear the keys when I wasn't recording yet. I have not used the monitoring mix software that comes with it so I can't comment on that.

Contributing to the original post "Anyone has something to say about C600?": Yes indeed there wasn't much reviews out when I bought the C600. I didn't have to regret, though. To me this interface has worked excellently. The price/sound quality ratio is in my opinion great. I record only keys and some demo vocals with PT9 M-Powered & Windows 7 Professional 32bit system and I've had no latency or any other problems. - Just that I had to install the driver/software package once again due to some error, I don't remember anymore what it was.
I'm changing from PC to Mac soon, so I'm looking forward to see how it works with Mac.
 
I have the C600 and PT MP9. I just plug my guitar in and record. I can then add distortion from the amp sims included with mp9.. Problem is I cannot test out the distorted sounds before recording it dry. Is this even possible? I cannot use any of the included sounds just sitting there playing. It has to be recoded dry first. Is it the software of c600? I am new to Pro tools.. Please help!
 
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