New M-Audio Microtrack II coming soon…
September 11th, 2007 by Paul
This just in: The long awaited sequel to the original M-Audio Microtrack IS the M-Audio Microtrack with the roman numeral “II” after it.
Oh yeah, it’s also black instead of silver. Honestly though, it’s got a few features I’m glad they added including an analog input limiter, and files bigger than 2 GB. I wish they would of dumped the CF card and opted to use SD cards instead, but “oh well”. Here’s the only specs I could dig up. Pretty disappointing M-Audio.
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1. Dave Dudek&hellip | September 12th, 2007 at 5:41 am
For a device like this, I don’t see why the CF card would be a downside. In fact, I think it’s a big plus. Changing to an SD card is not going to change the overall size of the device all that much, at least until they are able to shrink these recorders down to cell phone size. You can get a 12 GB CF card for under $200. I don’t think that storage capacity even exists for SD cards. Also, I believe that the fastest CF cards still have faster read/write speeds than the fastest SD cards. (I could be wrong on that last point. The last time I looked into that was when I was researching digital cameras about a year ago.)
However, the most important thing the makers of these portable electronic devices that use flash storage need to do, is dump the FAT filesystem. It’s too limiting as far as maximum partition and file size, and it fragments like crazy over time. It would probably cost too much to license NTFS or the Apple filesystems, but (Linux geek emerging here) ext3 is free and it doesn’t have the problems of FAT. The tools to mount ext3 filesystems directly on Windows and Mac are lacking, but maybe they could make it appear as a Samba (Windows) share when connected via USB orFireWire.
2. Derek&hellip | September 12th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Looks like it has proper 48V phantom power now as well, plus the limiter, but otherwise it’s not much different from its out-of-date predecessor. And it’s still $300 USD or so. Surprisingly uninspired, considering the much more modern competition from Zoom and Edirol.
3. Derek&hellip | September 12th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Oh, and Dave is right about CF — high-end DSLRs (Nikon, Canon) still use CF for the same reason. SD is more common at the low end, but CF is still available in higher capacities and speeds.
That said, CF does seem like yesterday’s technology in some respects, and since these devices aren’t pushing the bandwidth limits of other flash media, it remains a bit of an odd choice for M-Audio here.
4. Paul&hellip | September 12th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
It’s a lame release. The only thing I miss on the H4 is SPDIF, but even that isn’t really as big an issue these days (yawn).
5. Dave Dudek&hellip | September 13th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Well, I’m not commenting at all on whether or not this is a good recorder. I am just making the point that just because SD is newer than CF, it doesn’t necessarily make it the best technology for use in pro-audio gear.
And seriously, the makers of all mobile devices (pro-audio and otherwise) that use flash storage need to work on the filesystems they use. Fragmentation becomes a performance issue over time, unless you are erasing all data on a regular basis. The partition size and file size limits are already a problem for many of these devices. Ever wonder why Apple hasn’t made a flash-based iPod or iPhone with more than 8GB of storage? 8GB is the maximum partition size for any FAT filesystem, and Windows users would never be able to use anything larger. Apple still wants to sell to Windows users.
6. Dave Dudek&hellip | September 13th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Correction: FAT-32 does do larger partitions, but there is still a 2 or 4GB file size limitation depending on implementation.
7. Mark&hellip | September 23rd, 2007 at 12:30 pm
The iPod Touch has 8GB or 16GB of NAND Flash.
8. JeffS&hellip | January 25th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Hi there, just posting a note to say that I have received the MiroTrack II and I love it, WHEN IT WORKS! That’s right, it keeps freezing and I just got off the phone with M-Audio… apparently it’s an issue affecting some units with the firmware and they are aware of it. Both the original firmware 1.0 and the December update 1.0.1 are affected. They are working to correct it but I cannot seem to find any mention online of other users experiencing this problem so I thought I would try to spread out some information.
9. Richard Corfield&hellip | February 9th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I thought FAT32 was covered by patents meaning that hardware makers would have to pay a royalty on it, or was that quashed?
FAT is a terrible filesystem for flash storage. The storage problems are different to the floppies it was originally designed for – notably the use of a central allocation table which gives very uneven wear on the limited life flash media.
If not ext3, there are file systems out there for free that are specifically designed to work well on flash storage. I wonder if a device could use these under the covers even if it pretends to be FAT for Windows users. This in the end comes down to a cost of Microsoft near monopoly lock-in and if the patents on FAT were to have been enforced it would be free revenue for Microsoft.
On the original topic. The MII looks interesting! I’d been thinking of the Fostex FR2-LE, but this is smaller which is quite convenient and I wonder if easier to use. It’s also cheaper.
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