M Audio Fast Track Pro won't record at 96000 KHZ

[WarmJetGuitar]

Hey guys!
Wondering if you could help me out here.

I'm gonna mix/add analog effects to some stuff for some mates of mine. It's recorded on digital but I wanna mix it on tape, so we sent four tracks out to my Fostex reel-to-reel from an M-Audio and it went kindda smooth after messing around with some settings in the digital realm to make the M-Audio Fast Track send four channels out.
Normally I only use digital for mixing down in stereo from tape and never had a problem working in 96000 KHZ/24 bit in order to reduce the loss of sound quality and have room for some AD/DA conversions if nessecary.

The project we was transfering to tape was 48000 khz so we changed the settings to that and used the trial version of Adobe Audition. After transfer I wanted to return to normal settings but it seems like the M-Audio don't wanna exceed 48000 now. In Audacity (yes, I know but it's just for stereo tracks to be mastered later in Pro Tools or on tape) it's officially fine but in the M-Audio program it won't go to 96000 if I want any inputs.

Any ideas what went wrong and how to fix it?

 

[bouldersoundguy]

96,000 kHz is way above the human range of hearing. In fact it's radio frequency in the FM broadcast band. Perhaps you meant 96kHz.

At what sampling rate were the digital files recorded? Just keep that setting for your transfer. There's little if any advantage to recording at 96kHz or upsampling to 96kHz.

 

[PTravel]

Hey guys!
Wondering if you could help me out here.

I'm gonna mix/add analog effects to some stuff for some mates of mine. It's recorded on digital but I wanna mix it on tape, so we sent four tracks out to my Fostex reel-to-reel from an M-Audio and it went kindda smooth after messing around with some settings in the digital realm to make the M-Audio Fast Track send four channels out.
Normally I only use digital for mixing down in stereo from tape and never had a problem working in 96000 KHZ/24 bit in order to reduce the loss of sound quality and have room for some AD/DA conversions if nessecary.

The project we was transfering to tape was 48000 khz so we changed the settings to that and used the trial version of Adobe Audition. After transfer I wanted to return to normal settings but it seems like the M-Audio don't wanna exceed 48000 now. In Audacity (yes, I know but it's just for stereo tracks to be mastered later in Pro Tools or on tape) it's officially fine but in the M-Audio program it won't go to 96000 if I want any inputs.

Any ideas what went wrong and how to fix it?

I seem to recall a similar problem with the Fast Track Pro (I've since given it to my writing partner to use with her Mac -- I use 2 Ultras and an Ultra 8R). I don't remember this exactly because I don't have a way to open the control panel for it, but it's something like this: The Fast Track Pro will support 96,000 when used with either inputs or outputs, but not both. If you try to use both, it defaults down to 48,000. I'm sorry this isn't clear, but it's been many months since I used it, and was the reason I passed it on to my writing partner: I wanted to be able to record and playback at 96,000 without having to switch the interface each time. If you open the control panel for the Pro and start fiddling with the enabled inputs and outputs, you'll find very quickly which ones will work and which won't. As you've mentioned that you were using it to export 4 tracks, that sound like it might be the problem. All this information is buried (and I mean buried) in the manual.

And, bouldersoundguy, you're a pro, and I'm smart enough never to argue with professional. So, I'll ask a question: it seems to me (always a bad start for a dilettante's question, I know ) that 96 Khz offers one advantage: when you mix multiple tracks or apply effects, there will be fewer "rounding errors" at higher sampling rates, i.e. less data will be lost. Is that not correct?

I always record, mix and master at 96K, and only drop down to a lower rate when I have to, i.e. when burning to CD.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

And, bouldersoundguy, you're a pro, and I'm smart enough never to argue with professional. So, I'll ask a question: it seems to me (always a bad start for a dilettante's question, I know ) that 96 Khz offers one advantage: when you mix multiple tracks or apply effects, there will be fewer "rounding errors" at higher sampling rates, i.e. less data will be lost. Is that not correct?

Pros get stuff wrong all the time so it doesn't hurt to question things. The way I see it digital recording is so much better than analog (except for the sometimes desirable sound tape imparts) that worrying about rounding errors etc. just gets in the way of making music. Using high sample rates uses more resources for no good reason when 48k and 44.1k sound fine. There may be cases where a particular converter or plugin sounds better at 96k, but you can't generalize that to all hardware and plugins.

I always record, mix and master at 96K, and only drop down to a lower rate when I have to, i.e. when burning to CD.

Be sure to get the resampling, dithering and truncating in the right order. If you do it all in one stroke while exporting your mix with dither on the mix bus then you may be dithering before resampling which is not ideal.

 

[PTravel]

Pros get stuff wrong all the time so it doesn't hurt to question things. The way I see it digital recording is so much better than analog (except for the sometimes desirable sound tape imparts) that worrying about rounding errors etc. just gets in the way of making music. Using high sample rates uses more resources for no good reason when 48k and 44.1k sound fine. There may be cases where a particular converter or plugin sounds better at 96k, but you can't generalize that to all hardware and plugins.

In my case, computer resources aren't much of an issue. However, I do a lot of DSP -- lots of use of Melodyne, reverb, time stretching, pitch correction and noise reduction (I'm not trying to make studio-quality releases, just playing around to get what sound okay for my ears). Add to that some of my mixes have as many as 100 tracks (though not playing all at once, of course), and there's a lot of blending going on. I've got the disk space, the CPU power and the computer memory, so, as my mother used to say to me about eating chicken soup, "It couldn't hurt."

Be sure to get the resampling, dithering and truncating in the right order. If you do it all in one stroke while exporting your mix with dither on the mix bus then you may be dithering before resampling which is not ideal.

Well, here's something I don't know anything about -- in fact, I've never even heard of it. Glad I asked a pro.

Interesting. I've found that my CDs sound best when burned from within Audition 3.0 (which I use for mastering specifically for this reason), not quite as good from within Audition CS6, and sound absolutely dismal when burned using Nero. I assume this is because of problems with the sequence of events you've described above -- in all cases, I'm going from a 24-bit, 96 KHz master straight to the CD. Could you direct me to somewhere I can read more about resampling, dithering and truncating? I just assumed dropping the sample rate and bit depth to 16-bit, 44.1 KHz was a standard thing but, clearly, it is not.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Well, here's something I don't know anything about -- in fact, I've never even heard of it. Glad I asked a pro.

Interesting. I've found that my CDs sound best when burned from within Audition 3.0 (which I use for mastering specifically for this reason), not quite as good from within Audition CS6, and sound absolutely dismal when burned using Nero. I assume this is because of problems with the sequence of events you've described above -- in all cases, I'm going from a 24-bit, 96 KHz master straight to the CD. Could you direct me to somewhere I can read more about resampling, dithering and truncating? I just assumed dropping the sample rate and bit depth to 16-bit, 44.1 KHz was a standard thing but, clearly, it is not.

Well, it's really a simple matter of being sure dither -> truncate are the last two things you do. That may just mean exporting your mix at 44.1/24 and then dither/truncate as a separate step.

 

[PTravel]

Well, it's really a simple matter of being sure dither -> truncate are the last two things you do. That may just mean exporting your mix at 44.1/24 and then dither/truncate as a separate step.

Thanks! I'll try that.

 

[DaleVO]

WJG,
PT describes what you will experience, in his reply to you.

After your transfer, did you reset the FTP to 2in OR 2out 24bit, in the GUI?

From the FTP manual:
Maximum Sample Rate
This field will change to reflect the maximum sample rate available, based on the sample depth selected in the Sample Depth section, and the number of inputs and outputs selected in the Channels section.
Note that the Maximum Sample Rate field is a display-only field.

Configurations
At 16-bit operation, the Fast Track Pro operates as a four-in, four-out device at a maximum sample rate of 48kHz, with analog and digital inputs available:
< Analog Input 1 & 2 and S/PDIF input
< Analog Output 1 & 2 (available on both TRS and unbalanced Outputs 1 and 2)
< S/PDIF Output (mirrored at unbalanced Outputs 3 and 4)

At 24-bit operation, the Fast Track Pro operates as a two-in, four-out device or a four-in, two-out device at a maximum sample rate of 48kHz, with analog OR digital inputs available:
< Analog In 1 and 2 or S/PDIF
< Analog Out 1 & 2 (available on both TRS and unbalanced Outputs 1 and 2)
< S/PDIF Out (mirrored at unbalanced Outputs 3 and 4)
Or
< Analog in 1 and 2
< S/PDIF In 1and 2
< Outputs 1 and 2 or 3 and 4

At 24-bit operation, the Fast Track Pro can also operate as a two-in or two-out device at sample rates of 88.2 and 96kHz. Analog or S/PDIF can be selected for input or output.