Hi i am quite new to this forum.
I need your advice about M Audio Transit audio interface.
I used to have a pc with Maudio audiofile 2496 and i sold it.
Now i have a laptop acer 7720 and i want to use pro tools but i read that mbox2 is not compatible with this laptop so ( i don`t know why ) so i just need to go for m audio gear. I have mixer with decent preamps so i need interface just with 2ins and 2outs. I am thinking about M AUDIO TRANSIT.
Is it good interface for analog recording?
Thanx for help.
M Audio Transit with Pro Tools M Powered
Re: M Audio Transit with Pro Tools M Powered
It's a nice sounding interface and I find it very convenient for solving some kinds of problems. It works well for what it was designed for (consumer linking to stereo systems and occasional recording) I have two and use them a lot. However, there are some problems with them that you may have trouble solving:
1. The input is designed for PC "powered" microphones and consumer audio levels. It's not sensitive enough to work with any sort of professional microphone without a very poor s/n ratio. At the other extreme, it will overload at pro audio line levels unless a -12db external attenuator is used. These can be hard to come by (I make my own).
2. The input always has 2.5volt DC bias on it for a PC style microphone. This makes many mixers CRAZY. Mackie SR24 mixer's VU meters stop working if you plug a transit's input into the recorder output jacks and some mixers get biased to the point of distortion. Some Behringer mixers meter's read low when this device is connected up.
The fix is to use a cable with capacitors in each channel's signals (a pain to make), or use an external isolating transformer (a good sounding one costs as much as the interface and is bigger), or modify the circuit board to remove the miniature surface mounted bias resistors (not for the faint of heart, but what I did).
3. The output level and impedance are incapable of driving low impedance headphones directly. It works great with a monitor amplifier or with high impedance phones like Sennheisers, but sounds weak and has no bass (at ALL!) with standard phones like Sony 7506s.
4. It doesn't really support many sample rates in the software, most rates are achieved by resampling in the Windows or Apple Driver. This creates some confusing problems when used with software that's not very smart about how it echoes input while recording.
5. The Apple OSX drivers are buggy and subject to crashes if the device is plugged in more than once per boot up. (There's a fix for this, but it's silly and M-Audio should have fixed the problem long ago).
6. The PC and OSX drivers both need to be run with fairly large buffers to avoid dropouts. This makes the latency high enough to be annoying when recording, and can make the device unusable for software monitoring when tracking.
On the positive side, the quality is excellent and the devices work well for digital IO. They come with a decent ASIO driver and they're good problem solvers for when you need high quality playback or straight recording at the end of a USB cable. They're compact, cheap, and I've used them with PTMP 7.1 on both Macs and PCs (but PTMP 7.1 under XP is a lot more usable with my Delta 1010lt!).
As I said, I own and regularly use two of them, but I'd think twice about buying one for tracking or serious recording use. Most M-Audio interfaces are supported in PTMP - another model might be a better choice. I've never used PTMP with any other interfaces than the two I just mentioned, but I suspect that one of their later FW or USB2 interfaces might be a much better choice for this kind of work.
I mean this "mini-review" constructively and hope it doesn't start another one of the brand loyalty debates so common these days.
I hope my experience with it is useful to you in deciding if the Transit is what you need.
Mario
1. The input is designed for PC "powered" microphones and consumer audio levels. It's not sensitive enough to work with any sort of professional microphone without a very poor s/n ratio. At the other extreme, it will overload at pro audio line levels unless a -12db external attenuator is used. These can be hard to come by (I make my own).
2. The input always has 2.5volt DC bias on it for a PC style microphone. This makes many mixers CRAZY. Mackie SR24 mixer's VU meters stop working if you plug a transit's input into the recorder output jacks and some mixers get biased to the point of distortion. Some Behringer mixers meter's read low when this device is connected up.
The fix is to use a cable with capacitors in each channel's signals (a pain to make), or use an external isolating transformer (a good sounding one costs as much as the interface and is bigger), or modify the circuit board to remove the miniature surface mounted bias resistors (not for the faint of heart, but what I did).
3. The output level and impedance are incapable of driving low impedance headphones directly. It works great with a monitor amplifier or with high impedance phones like Sennheisers, but sounds weak and has no bass (at ALL!) with standard phones like Sony 7506s.
4. It doesn't really support many sample rates in the software, most rates are achieved by resampling in the Windows or Apple Driver. This creates some confusing problems when used with software that's not very smart about how it echoes input while recording.
5. The Apple OSX drivers are buggy and subject to crashes if the device is plugged in more than once per boot up. (There's a fix for this, but it's silly and M-Audio should have fixed the problem long ago).
6. The PC and OSX drivers both need to be run with fairly large buffers to avoid dropouts. This makes the latency high enough to be annoying when recording, and can make the device unusable for software monitoring when tracking.
On the positive side, the quality is excellent and the devices work well for digital IO. They come with a decent ASIO driver and they're good problem solvers for when you need high quality playback or straight recording at the end of a USB cable. They're compact, cheap, and I've used them with PTMP 7.1 on both Macs and PCs (but PTMP 7.1 under XP is a lot more usable with my Delta 1010lt!).
As I said, I own and regularly use two of them, but I'd think twice about buying one for tracking or serious recording use. Most M-Audio interfaces are supported in PTMP - another model might be a better choice. I've never used PTMP with any other interfaces than the two I just mentioned, but I suspect that one of their later FW or USB2 interfaces might be a much better choice for this kind of work.
I mean this "mini-review" constructively and hope it doesn't start another one of the brand loyalty debates so common these days.
I hope my experience with it is useful to you in deciding if the Transit is what you need.
Mario