Paul’s M-Audio Session & Fast Track USB review notes
February 22nd, 2007 by Paul
On IHR #37, I reviewed M-Audio’s Session software and Fast Track USB audio interface, mainly concentrating on the software. I have posted my notes from this review in this post…
If you purchased a new Mac in the last few years, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with GarageBand software. It has to be one of the simplest ways to record great sounding music on your computer. But what if you’re on a PC? Is there a GarageBand for PC? Well, M-Audio seems to think so with their Session software, which I’ll be reviewing today on the show. So, how does running Session on a PC compare to running GarageBand on a Mac? Let’s find out.
Fast Track USB
Unlike GarageBand, Session software doesn’t come preloaded on every new PC. It comes bundled with a very basic M-Audio Micro USB audio interface, and the package costs about $50 (USD). This interface probably isn’t what a serious home recordist would consider professional, but for someone just wanting to get their feet wet, it’s perfectly acceptable. There’s a 1/8″ stereo input (with adjustable level), allowing you to hook up mics, guitars, CD players, or even an MP3 player. There’s also a 1/8″ stereo output for headphones or to connect to your powered monitors.
You can also spend a bit more money and get the Fast Track USB audio interface (which our affiliate zZounds.com sells online for $99), where you get 24 bit/48 kHz audio with a built-in mic pre, instrument, and line inputs. There’s also dedicated 1/8″ headphone jack on the front and RCA main outputs on the back. Another reason that you may want to upgrade to this audio interface is that it is fully compatible with Pro Tools M-Powered, which by the way, is what we use to record IHR. So for a few more bucks, you have Pro Tools compatibility in case you need it or want it down the road.
One thing that surprised me was the exclusion of phantom power, leaving you with only the option of recording with a dynamic microphone. Anyhow, I’m not really going to spend too much more time talking about the hardware, so let’s talk about the software.
Session Software
After connecting the Fast Track and my USB MIDI keyboard, I downloaded the newest drivers from m-audio.com. After that, I installed Session, which ships on a DVD disc. The program’s Factory Content Library requires 4 GB of free space. If you don’t have the room, you have the option of placing the Session disc into your DVD drive when you run the program which is a nice option, although I’m sure it will considerably slow down the loading of loops and samples into your songs.
For you tweak-heads out there, my test machine is running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Service Pack 2 (which M-Audio says is not compatible with Session). We’ll have to see about that. The processor is an Intel Pentium D dual 2.8GHz with 1GB of RAM. Recommended specs are Windows XP (SP2) with a 1.6 GHz processor, 512MB RAM, and a DVD drive.
Booting Up
Well, so far so good. The program loaded up with no problems even though technically it’s not supposed to. The Session startup window asks whether or not you want to open an existing composition or create a new one. If you click on New, It then asks you to name the song, choose how many beats per measure (ranging from 1 to 31), key of your song, and tempo. Next, a smaller window opens up giving you choices about how you’d like to start recording: You can choose from creating music with audio loops, play and record your guitar, sing and record vocals or instruments, recording a stereo line in, playing and recording with your keyboard, and lastly creating music with MIDI loops. I’m not sure whey they didn’t just lump together a bunch of these different options, which would of streamlined the process.
Audio Loops
Selecting audio loops brings up the next window with 2 columns; Instrument and Style. There are over 1,200 loops that range from bass, chromatic percussion, drums, FX, guitars, harmonica, organ, piano, strings, synths, vinyl, voice, and lastly, wind and brass. Styles include blues, country, electronic, funk, hip hop, jazz, latin, pop ballad, R&B, rock-alternative, rock-metal, and rock-pop. After you’ve made your selection, Session creates a track on the left side of the screen with a bunch of standard controls, including a variety of loops based on your selection within that track. The layout is actually not bad, considering they’ve crammed in a whole lot more than I though you could into such a small area. Also it lists a musical part you could use with any given loop (i.e. intro, verse, chorus). To audition the loops, you click on them in the list, then you have to click again on a little play triangle (which is really small) to the right of the loop’s name. This seem to be a bit confusing. I would of rather just click on the loops name and have it automatically audition the loop for me. As the loop auditions, you can click on the little triangle next to the tempo indicator in the main transport at the top, and drag a slider to the left or right to slow down or speed up your loop. One thing that I was surprised not to see was any sort of indicator on the volume or pan slider telling me what my current value was set to.
I can’t say that the quality of the loops are astounding, but they’re o.k. You can really hear the digital artifacts doing their thing as you time compress and expand the various loops.
Virtual Instruments
There’s a basic cross-section of sampled instruments, however there’s only 1 drum kit mapped as General MIDI. All instruments are well sampled and sound quite good. I especially liked the alto sax, grand piano, and nylon acoustic guitar. I think it’s true that we tend to judge an instrument library by the quality of the piano. I know I do. One of the coolest features is the ability to edit any one of these instruments in the “Syntax” editor, with control over almost any parameter including envelopes, modulations, key ranges, tuning, and velocity settings. These edited instruments can then be saved as new presets, which is nice.
Recording MIDI Tracks
Other than cut, copy, paste, the sequencer is about a basic as it gets. You can record MIDI parts in, but you have virtually no control over editing individual notes. There’s no piano roll, notation, or event list editor. If you need to make a change to a note, velocity, or gate time, you can’t, which is a real shame. I know of many freeware MIDI sequencers that have more options for editing than Session.
Recording Audio Tracks
At the top of the track column is a little plus icon for creating tracks giving me those options I described earlier. When creating another track, I selected Sing and Record Vocals/Instruments, and a track was created with various FX presets allowing me to monitor my signal with effects or just a dry signal. It was very easy to get a good clean signal into Session. Again, there’s no sample editor, and no audio cross-fades, no volume or pan automation, and not even automatic time compression/expansion of your audio tracks when you change the tempo of your song.
Effects
There are effects, (and quite a few of them too) including tempo-based delay, filters, and the usual gamut of effect processors (including EQ’s, compressors, delays, reverb, etc.). You can set up 2 sends per song, and an insert effect for each track. I generally gauge the effects by the quality of the reverb which sounded pretty good.
Conclusion
In conclusion, M-Audio clearly went after a market that is missing on the PC; the amateur to semi-pro “GarageBand type” of person who’s looking for a really simple way to record good quality music on their computers without having to learn a whole ton of stuff, and for version 1.0 I’d say they’ve done a pretty good job. I would certainly like to see them offer the ability to use Session with more of their interfaces or even open it up to the ASIO standard. Having the ability to edit your MIDI data or have more options to work with your audio would also be a step in the right direction, and while we’re at it, how about giving us some automation too? With that in mind, other than going out and buying yourself a Mac, I think this is as close to GarageBand as any PC user will get, however this program is definitely screaming out for a version 2.
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31 Comments Add your own
1. starr&hellip | June 22nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
is there a reason why i cant hear anything i see it playing
2. Derek&hellip | June 23rd, 2007 at 9:02 am
This post doesn’t have any audio or video, but you can go to the show post and try there.
3. Lucas&hellip | July 22nd, 2007 at 9:05 am
I bought the fasttrack usb a month ago for my lap top and I haven’t been able to get a decent sound with it. When its recording the audio is fine, but the play back of what was recorded sounds horrible. Do you know any tricks to get this to sound better? I don’t know if it matters but I’m using windows vista.
4. steven&hellip | September 2nd, 2007 at 11:22 pm
when im in the middle of recording something the whole program shuts down it really makes me made. Iv tryed reinstalling it and nothing works. any one else have this problem.any answers.
5. ramon&hellip | October 8th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I WAS GIVEN THE FAST TRACK AS A GIFT. IT RECORDS GREAT BUT WHEN I EXPORT THE COMPOSITION TO WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER THE GUITAR PARTS PLAY FOR A LITTLE WHILE THEN THEY STOP AND PLAY AGAIN ALL THE WHILE THE DRUMS LOOPS PLAY PERFECTLY CA YOU TELL ME WHATS WRONG?
6. Derek&hellip | October 9th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Ramon, that is more likely a problem in the export from Session. Have you tried using any other software?
7. ross&hellip | January 30th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
i have the same problem as steven
8. jim&hellip | February 8th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
It says it doesn’t work on WIndows MCE, or Vista 645 bit. Is that your problem?
See this article
http://www.m-audio.com/?do=support.faq&ID=24dfdfc72b87a76e44bb230c809fef0c
9. ray coleman&hellip | February 10th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I had a problem with my m-Audio session1.6, so I re-downloaded the soft ware. Now, I can’t open up the program. It keeps saying there is a bitmap problem. I have music on there that I would hate to lose. Can someone help me figure out what went wrong?
10. Derek&hellip | February 11th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I haven’t used Session myself, but I have some ideas off the top of my head:
- Your audio files are probably fine, since it sounds like the problem is with the Session program, not the stuff you recorded.
- Contact M-Audio support to see if they have any suggestions. http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.contact
- Try using the Start Menu > Add/Remove Programs control panel to remove Session from your computer completely, then reinstall it and try again.
- If that doesn’t work, consider creating a new user account (it will probably need to have administrator privileges) on your computer using Windows, and try running the software there in case it is a problem with your main account.
- See if you can move the audio files to another computer with Session on it (install it there if necessary) and open them there. You’ll need to hook up your M-Audio interface for Session to run, I think.
You might also consider posting something to the IHR forums to see if someone there can help you out:
http://www.insidehomerecording.com/forums
11. Paul&hellip | April 4th, 2008 at 9:40 am
how do you get your music you just recorded onto you ipod or cd? also has anyone else had a problem when lets say you lay a rythem track down and you want to lay a solo over it, then when you play it back the solo part is jumpy, skipping part, or changes volume levels?
12. Derek&hellip | April 4th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I’m not sure whether Session exports to MP3 directly, but it should export to some stereo audio format like WAV or AIFF as your final master recording. Once you have that, you can drag the file into iTunes or Windows Media Player and either burn it to CD directly or convert it to MP3 (in iTunes it’s in the Advanced menu, once you’ve set your Importing preferences to MP3). Then you can sync it with your iPod (from iTunes) in either WAV, AIFF, or MP3 format.
13. noel&hellip | April 8th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
i am getting to much stattic any one knows how to fix it ?
14. willie miller&hellip | April 14th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
does the trigger finger work with session?
15. john&hellip | April 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
jusbought this program with the mic and my speakers are built into the monitor and i aint hereing nething help please
16. Chris&hellip | April 26th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I have the program and I get decent recording but when exporting songs or even during playback the whole thing crashes.
17. Derek&hellip | May 4th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Most of these questions should be going to M-Audio support at http://www.m-audio.com , not here. This review is over two years old. None of us has the program anymore, especially a current version, so we can’t help you much!
18. Wilfredo&hellip | May 18th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I’ve had all kinds of trouble with the software. First I couldn’t get an output. Even when I had installed the Micro USB driver, I got a message saying that the driver was not there. I found a way around it, but I still get the message ocassionally. Second, I have tried every possible way to record guitar tracks, and I have not been able to do it yet. Third, since I can only use pre recorded clips included, I have been playing with it for a while, but I cannot transfer the files to CD or itunes. Fourth, what kind of customer service takes two days to answer the same exact words written on the manual?
19. Kathy&hellip | June 2nd, 2009 at 8:52 am
Today – my husband is picking up the Session Fast Track for me. I hope that is will work on my Laptop computer.
Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!
20. Derek&hellip | June 2nd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Kathy, even if the Session software isn’t to your liking, the Fast Track USB interface will work with pretty much any recording software out there, including the various free options. The interface itself is just fine, so you should be good.
21. chris viard&hellip | June 7th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I can’t understand why in the hell they made this Session Software only compatible with Windows. Suppose you have a mac and you want to use the damn session software you bought. You can’t. Can anyone tell me why I can’t hear anything from my bass when plugged into this sucker?
22. Derek&hellip | June 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I think they made Session for Windows because Windows PCs don’t come with music recording software, but Macs all come with GarageBand. You can use the Fast Track USB interface just fine with GarageBand, so making another simple DAW for the Mac was superfluous.
23. jacob&hellip | July 1st, 2009 at 1:29 am
So I just want to understand this… does this program let you pick a virtual instrument, give you the musical typing feature, and let you play it like garageband or am i confused?
24. Derek&hellip | July 1st, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I don’t know if it has a musical typing feature like GarageBand. I don’t think it did, but I also don’t know if it’s been updated to include it in the years since we posted this review.
25. Norita&hellip | July 14th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Does it record files as Mp3 or not?
26. Derek&hellip | July 30th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Norita, note that this review is well over two years old, and Paul isn’t even regularly on the show anymore. I don’t have Session, but presumably it can export as MP3, as most software can. Does that answer your question?
27. randy&hellip | December 21st, 2009 at 4:27 am
i had the software awhile back and someone stole my laptop. now i have a desktop but i lost the disk it wont let me install without the disk are there any options
28. Ed&hellip | December 30th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I just got Sessions with FAST TRACK USB as a gift. I’m brand new at this and was wonderibng if there was a manual with step by step instructions on how to use this software.
I can create a basic recording, but if I want to add bass, drums (etc) how do I di it?? As I say I am brand new at this.
29. Adam&hellip | January 18th, 2010 at 7:28 am
I have the same problem as Randy. Session or the drivers uninstalled itself and now the Install cd wouldnt work. Maybe need to find a session torrent.
Any suggestions to better software. I have been limited to the few drum patterns session has and would like a software with more drum options as I do all the guitar, bass, vocals. Just need drum beats/patterns.
I got FL studio the other day and I havent been able to figure it out to use it. Session was much easier and Im not sure Fruity loops is what I need.
Here is some music I recorded with my Session and Fast track usb, the newer songs are the better ones cause I got a new xlr mic cable. I was using my mic through a guitar effects processor but it sounded like shit
http://www.soundclick.com/adamgt
Comments welcome
30. lokizzle&hellip | January 23rd, 2010 at 10:17 pm
i hooked up the m-audio usb and my vocals are showing up but when i play it back to hear it nothing comes out do anyone know the problem to that email me @ lokizzle2004@yahoo.com
31. lindey&hellip | February 27th, 2010 at 7:22 am
lokizzle,
that probably has to do with the audio setup, (if you’re sure that your vocals were recorded). If you have the USB Producer Microphone, then you want to make sure that is selected under “options,” “audio settings.” You would then need to plug your headphones or speakers into the USB Producer Microphone, not your computer. Hope this helps.
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