Early MicroTrack 24/96 Reviews...
 

Seems like some folks don't know that the MT is already out, so I posted this at the end of a different thread on another topic, but now that I think of it, it seems worthy of it's own thread. So...

The MT is in fact shipping (in limited quantities), and they are NOT pre-release models, they are the actual production units. That is why all of the bugs and early testing and reviews are slowly starting to get out. The taper community is all over this thing like flys to... Well, you know what I mean. Anyway, M-Audio has shipped a limited quantity, with more on the way soon (supposedly), so it's more a function of who you ordered with, what their priority is with MA, and then where you stand on your seller's waiting list. That said, if you want to read more about real-world, actual hands-on experience with the MT, you should go to this thread (but you might want to work your ways backwards rather than starting at the beginning because all of the juicy stuff is closer to the end):

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=50364.0

That site requires registration to prevent spam, but it is worthy of checking out if not just for the wealth of "audience taper" knowledge it has to offer. Also, Oade Brothers has a very, very good rep in the taper community, and if you go to their message board, you'll see a whole bunch more conversation about the MT, including remarks from the Oade Brothers themselves about the first impressions of the MT.

My own personal assessment of the news to date on the MT, is that it still holds some real potential, but it's got some serious issues (random hangs, 30v phantom max, and no S/PDIF at 24/96, which is amazing considering that's in the freakin' NAME of the product, and it's batteries aren't living up even close to the stated specs, and oh yeah, if you can believe this one, the Line/Mic switch is REVERSED, LOL!). So, it basically already needs a firmware update, which supposedely is coming out within "weeks." So, it definately has potential, but right now it doesn't even seem close to being a pro-audio piece of gear.

Bill,
thanks for the link to the tapersection stuff. I had never heard of that site before.

Interesting about the MicroTrack. M-Audio is giving one story, and you're giving another, but it's pretty clear there are units out there even though M-Audio is saying they aren't. Maybe they've opened a specific channel or something, but it's all good info. Thx.

I have been reading that forum too Bill, but the one thing I think makes the most sense (and some of the tapers have mentioned this too), is that this unit should really be reviewed in depth once M-Audio updates the firmware because it is so buggy right now. I just cannot imagine that M-Audio is going to leave the firmware in such a buggy state. If they put out an update within the next month, then it's only going to make sense to review it then in order to see how the device stacks up in the long-term. I know you are planning to do a review DSE, so I hope that M-Audio gives you something better than their current firmware.

Having said that, it seems really unlikely that firmware is going to solve the battery problem, but maybe they can do something about the 30v preamp (though that seems unlikely too). Someone on that tapers forum mentioned that they tested or were asked for advice on the preproduction unit by an M-Audio engineer, and he recommended: 1) user replaceable batteries (which would seeminlgy lower the cost) 2) XLR jacks (or mini-XLR) instead of 1/4" TRS and 3) a built-in limiter. If they had engineered the unit that way and resolved the firmware and phantom power, this thing would have been a very hot seller for M-Audio.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. There is no doubt the need for an update to the firmware is big, but you never know with this stuff -- could be next week, or months from now. So until we see it, those reviews are very relavent for anyone considering blowing $400 plus media on the MT. I want that thing to work as bad as the next guy, but I'm going to wait for this "firmware" first thanks to the reviews. And trust me, those guys will test the hell out of it within the next week -- with each additional "taper" who has one, they'll QA that thing to death real quick like, which is good for everyone, including MA themselves.

My guess is they'll fix the M/L/H switch, some of the locking up problems, and hopefully the 24/96 digital inputs, and improve battery life slightly. I think the phantom issue might be more serious, but hey, a lot of people will run external phantom from their pres or whatever anyway, and it is putting out 30v, so a lot of phantom powered mics will be OK anyway. So, I'm will you, like I said in my original post, there is still A LOT of potential here, but it depends a lot on this "firmware update." I'm still real hopeful on that front, but for now, it is what it is. They released it a bit too early maybe, and now they're going to have to deal with the results until they fix it.

And BTW, that guy who was asked about testing in pre-prod you reference (post from TS forums) I believe may be the owner (or is affiliated is some way with) of Sound Professionals.

The thing doesn't have any limiter at all, huh?
That's not too good.
And the company is advertising it as putting out
48V but it's only putting out 30V?

Ha! That was the Sound Pro store responding to my post where I said it would have been a good product if only they'd added those features!

The preamble to that was Sound Pro agreeing with me that those were priority features that it was STUPID to leave out.

With the unit as it's performing now I think you'd have a hard time deciding between the Edirol R-1 and the MicroTrack... or at least some of you will have a hard time making that choice... for me it was easy. I cancelled my MicroTrack order and I'm probably gonna' go R-1.

I'm "MattinSTL" over there, just like I am on almost every other board.

DSE... you have a poorly informed connection there at M-Audio... there is NO doubt that people on taperssection had their units 'cause I actually SAID I wouldn't believe it without pictures and everybody put up pictures! That was a week previous from this PAST Thursday! (So 9 days ago)

Also as for taperssection... they have a system of evaluating a person's "worth" or "kharma" as they call it... where a person can give you a ticket, or take one away... but only once every 12 hours. So people have post counts AND they have ticket counts... which implies their worth to the forum. At first I thought this was the coolest thing EVER... but once you hang around for about a hundred posts or so you realize that it's either a way for somebody who disagrees with something you said to work your tickets down... or else a way for you to almost "campaign" for tickets... people are constantly telling people when they gave a ticket... and then they get one returned to them... and so on. I think it's an idea that's about 50% good... but when you either TELL people, "hey I just gave you a ticket!"... or else secretly work somebody's tickets down because they stepped on your toes... it's worthless.

That site has a mix of incredibly valuable and technical information on it...

BTW you can get a MicroTrack from my home state right now on ebay... from a seller with 100% positive feedback... and he says he's taking offers under $389... AND that he has 12 of them ready to ship.

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call my connection "crappy" as he is the VP of marketing and sales. It's more likely that they're working out some issues and don't want to send me a unit for review/purchase until it's worked out. But it would have been better had I not been told "they're reallly not shipping just yet." Because it was inevitable that I'd learn of the issues at some near point...

I edited my post... sorry for the disrespectful choice of words.

One interesting thing that was just reported was pics on the MT's inards. Someone is reporting (not sure if it is true) that the ADC chip in the unit (now that we have pics of it) actually has a limiter. So, you never know, could be in the next firmware? Also, DSE, I was thinking your intuition above on the story you got is spot on. I actually thought that yesterday when I originally posted, but I decided not to say anything explicitly because I figured you'd make the connection on your own in about a minute after reading the posts at TapersSection (considering they've actually been shipping for about a week, and there's actually been a few reports of them being spotted in-store at Guitar Center). Finally, I've still got high hopes for that unit, and MA seems to be putting themselves out their explicity about an imminent firmware release, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've known all of this all along, were too far into the production run to really do anything about it, and it didn't make sense to delay manufacture since maybe they've had the fix all along -- I mean if they're saying in a couple of weeks, chances are they are already in a QA testing mode on the software at this point. But who knows? We'll just have to see...

The amount of unhappiness over this product sure makes it clear how badly people want a product like this.

yup.

after a couple of nearly disastrous outings with my pmd660, i got rid of it and was really hoping the MT would work out. the oade mods to the marantz looked interesting -- especially the advanced one where they rip pratically everything out of it -- but they only mod units they selll and i'm still not sure if the updated preamps sound that great based on some of things i read. the fostex fr2 seems to be the best, least-expensive option for a solid state recorder at this point, but at $1300 without the TC option, it still ain't cheap.

If you hear the samples posted on Oade's site you'll think it can't possibly be true... the difference in the ACM mod 660 and the stock 660 is HUGE. It's like you're hearing a transistor radio and then a good cd player.

Being skeptical as I am I didn't want to believe it... but after weeks of prying and calling I'm coming to the conclusion that they really do change 'em that much... because the logical argument is "how long do you think they'd stay in business if those samples weren't accurate?"

After seeing bit perfect graphs and all sorts of comparison recordings on taperssection... I gotta' believe that what seems too good to be true really isn't too good to be true.

The fact is that you're paying 50% more for a modded machine... but in the end it's a totally new machine anyway.

Can you tell which way I'm leaning right now?

Matt, definitely sounds hugely diff. I'd sure like to try one of their rigs too, because it's hard to accept that big a diff between mod and stock!

Sony FX1 and M-Audio MicroTrack
 

If there is a limiter inside that can be accessed through updated firmware, that would be fantastic. I think I would most appreciate that added feature over user replacable batteries or XLR replacing the 1/4 TRS jacks.

One thing I'd be interested in (especially in DSE's review) is if this unit might be combined with an FX1 or Z1u (and maybe even the newer HC1/A1u). FX1 owners would really seem to benefit a great deal since it would give them a lot of similar audio features as the Z1u but the real improvement is that you could record a WAV file rather than being forced to use the compressed audio of HDV. The MicroTrack also might have better pre-amps also in spite of the 30v phantom power. The MicroTrack seems like the only unit small enough that it could actually be mounted to the camera (somehow) and take the place of a BeachTek type adapter. Does this seem feasible and a reasonable benefit to anyone else?

DSE... I'd say it's safe to say that you and I think alike regarding the Oade ACM 660. When I tried to get some scientific answers about the mods... and also questioned the unscientific nature of "A" recordings rather then A/B recordings... my ticket count started to drop at taperssection. I could tell that my skeptical attitude wasn't appreciated regarding Oade.

The ONE thing that made me take a deep breath and accept that his mods could really be that impressive is that everyone at taperssection seems to have a high level of proficiency creating waveforms and running other tests which show SN and "bit perfect" recording... and then you have a bunch of people who hated a stock 660 and loved the modded one... so I figure they can't be fooling themselves into hearing improvements that aren't there.

The other thing is I told Doug Oade straight out that if I order an ACM 660 the FIRST thing I'm going to do is run a split recording of that versus a stock 670 which a good friend of mine owns... and he said "do it! there won't even be a comparison!"

So if I pony up $710 for a 660 modded and it blows the 670 away or doesn't really blow it away... the whole world will know... and I don't think I'm the first one that would want the world to know... and people who bought the modded 660 seem to ALSO want the world to know how happy they are... so...?

I guess I'm ready to stop being skeptical and order one.

I'll let you know what I find... and I'll post a split recording of the modded 660 and a stock 670.

EDIT: DSE... don't those recordings on Oade's site sound like he's right on top of the mic in the two modded clips and then about 3' from it on the stock clip? The thing I had a hard time believing is that that WASN'T what I was hearing... and I told Doug that, but he just laughed it off like... you just wait and see. Which made me feel good to hear! Also I listened a few more times with my 7506's CRANKED UP... and I could still hear room acoustics on the first two... plus I tried to concentrate on details such as saliva and clicking at the beginning and end of words... you know how if you really listen to that you can judge distance to the mic? Well I think he probably WAS about the same distance... which definitely makes me eager to do a showdown of the ACM 660 and stock 670.

Does the Edirol R1 have a limiter? Without a limiter
[on the M-Audio] I'll stick with my current field set-up
which, between the two pieces, gives me 3 hours of
48K WAV, smokin' preamps, adjustable limiters,
dual 48V phantom, 6 hours of run time on 2 AAs, and
a S/N of 90+, for $800. Bought this setup 3 years
ago and still, for the money, doesn't seem to be beat.

The R1 doesn't have a built in limiter, which is sorta stupid given all the other built in processors they have, like center canceling, loads of EQ presets, reverb, tuner, metronome, mic modeling...Oh, and noise reduction.

It's quite a nice device though. I had one, but bought an R4, even though it's much bigger.

Douglas... are any of the effects in the R1 useful for recording dialog? My main interest in any of these recorders is for running double sound... so it's going to be primarily voice off a boom.

Any special reason to consider this (or some other recorder) for that?

I don't feel their useful at all. If I wanted FX on record, I'd carry a multichannel sound card and laptop everywhere.
I'm still sold on HDMD in PCM format for portability, but hoping the Microtrack does the trick for me...so far, it's not looking good, but I reserve judgement til I hold one and spend a day in the field with it.

Well I have mixed feelings about this... 'cause portability is normally a big deal to me... but lately I'm running an independent sound guy anyway and I hope to continue that trend... soooo... I cancelled my MicroTrack and got a 671 on the way. We'll see what that's all about. Considering it's about 10x the size I hope it's at least 2x the performance... but the reason I went with that is I think it's probably about 20x the reliability.

I'll report back when I know what's the dillio.

Thanks for the input Douglas... you were fairly instrumental in my decision. I'd already decided to let everyone else try the MicroTrack... but I expected to move from that to the Edirol... but with your assessment of the effects I get the feeling that they weren't aiming that product squarely at professionals either.

Quote from DSE: "I had one, but bought an R4, even though it's much bigger."

DSE: Do you have a review of the R4, or plan on doing one?

Not sure why everyone seems to be falling on their sword over the micro track...following other threads it appears it is just a firmware issue....Like to see any new product that don't have some issues out of the gate. Haven't seen to many items with firmware version only at 1.0 :-)

Nobody wants to like the MicroTrack more then me... and I'm sure it will evolve into a decent product.

So far there's about 5 pages of bugs people are experiencing on taperssection.

That's why I went 671. This thing needs a generation to get the kinks out.

Plus they GOTTA' dump that internal battery, make the thing a half-inch longer... and go with replaceable AA.

I still stand by my original repsonse...I read all the "5 pages" of bug reports...most repsonses were of no value while others were wanting product enhancements. S/PDIF seems to be the predominate issue...however, appears a new firmware is about to be released to fix. Once again, this is a new item for a company that has a pretty good track record. Some bugs in pre-release...sure...are they trying to fix...yes.

All I'm saying is the phrase "falling on their swords" implies stupid mistakes or self inflicted aggravation.

An internal battery that lasts 3 hours (at worst report) with NO phantom, NO display, NO headphones running... is VERY limiting... especially that you gotta' charge that thing for 8 hours to be up and running again. OR you could get an external battery pack and run it to the unit to prolong, but not replace, the internal run time. Some people have reported 4.5 hours record time which is getting better, but you still have to either double the size and complexity of the unit by having it tethered to a battery pack... or else you're DONE at whatever time the battery runs out. And even if you do run an external battery pack the unit still runs down it's internal battery at the same time... and once that charge is too low (even though it's prolonged by a couple hours) the unit dies... and can't be brought back to life with another battery pack. At THAT point the unit must be charged up again.

If you turn on phantom and then monitor with headphones what do you think will happen to that record time?

The other issue is everybody's only getting 30v instead of 48v on the mic-inputs.

So the freezes and other issues, like the unit's refusal to do 24/96 recordings, will hopefully get worked out by firmware... but right now it's a 16/48 or 24/44.1 recorder... just like the R1... only less reliable and predetermined running time which will be interrupted by 8 hour charge cycles.

I'm sure that some of these kinks will get worked out... but I doubt some of the other problems will be fixed by firmware.

Just on the battery issue ALONE I think it's safe to say that if anybody fell on their sword it was M-Audio.

Ok...I'm not trying to start anything here...just that I believe the issues can be worked out....realy depends on what application you plan on using it for. For me it will fit a niche and have it run on battey power is not an issue :-)

I also brought up this battery issue in another thread. In my opinion this is a huge deal breaker. I can't image having a portable electronic device that does not allow you to change out the battery. Well, I can understand in some cases like the Ipod because of design aesthetics, but geez, this is an audio recorder. How could it not have user replaceable power?! Crazy, I tell you.

Tim I should have credited you with pointing out the obvious... when you said that in the other thread I wanted to jump on you for the negative thought on the MT... after I thought about it... and the battery life has turned out to be fairly short... that made more sense then anything I'd read anywhere.

It's a pretty common aggravation with everybody... why NOT make the thing SLIGHTLY bigger and have replaceable AA?

Had you never said that I might not have changed my mind about the thing. (or looked into the issues surrounding that battery limitation)

Nothing against M-Audio... I like their stuff, but it would be scary to take that thing to a paid shoot figuring you could count on it if you needed to... and NOT be sure.

No worries Matt. I understand you were just excited about this product. But like you said, it would be real scary to a go to a paid shoot with this thing. The battery is the only thing that makes it work and having no way to replace it is bad news. It's like driving around in your car with your tires and rims welded to your suspension and no way to replace a flat tire. IMO, this internal battery is one of the most bone-headed design decisions I've ever seen on a device that is suppose to be professional tool.

Matt,
Do you know if you can run the MT from the AC power supply for indefinate time? I realize for a majority of the folks who were planning on using this thing in a "stealth" mode the battery issue is big. For me, in my wedding and event business, it would be used for short periods of time...where having an internal/rechargable battery would be a plus :-)

That's a good question... in the other threads I've read you can't recharge the battery and use it at the same time... so I'd guess that you also can't run it off the adapter... since that's for recharging.

I'll look into it and get an answer.

I was at Guitar Center in Arlingon TX this afternoon and they had 4 MicroTrack 24/96's in stock. Price $399.99. The boxes were sealed in shrink-wrap so I didn't get to fondle it.

I'm really torn between it, the PMD660, and one of the Sony HiMD recorders. The 48v XLR's on the Marantz would be really, really nice.

BTW, I just read the M-Audio specs and its states battery life as 8-hours, 3-hours with phantom power. They are silent about the 1/4" input phantom voltage, strange?

No one is getting even close to those battery life numbers in the real world. And, I also believe they are now saying 48v phantom is not in the spec, it seems they've actually changed the switch's labeling from "48v" to "Phtm" (or something close) from the beta phase to the officially released product. BUT, all of that said, they're probably going to be able to fix a lot of the problems in firmware (although maybe not the 48v part). We all need to sit tight, because this device still has a lot of potential (even with the phantom issue).

This is the second time I've heard about the switch change. I'm pretty disappointed I've not seen mine yet. M-Audio has always been good about getting products to where they should be, and taking care of their customers. Years ago, their "Flying Cow" product had some initial issues, but they were great about keeping folks informed and moving ahead.
Lately, it seems as though several manufacturers are releasing products a little ahead of their time, or before they've been thoroughly tested out in working environs. Anyone else noticed this?

for the time being, i think all those who are considering the maudio product, should check out a hi md from sony. I just used one for filming a travel show in India, and it worked brilliantly. It comes with a pretty good battery life, and if the stock isn't enough, you have the option to attach a 1.5 v AA batt to the himd so you can go as long as you have a set amount of AA's.

Besides outstanding battery life, you get insane audio quality in the PCM mode, the himds are durable as hell, they've handled brilliantly imo. Coupled with a mixer, this thing is pretty damn durable, i won't even consider the maudio for a moment untill all these errors are fixed. For now though, if you want 100 percent ease of use, great quality, and long battery life, go himd. You won't regret it!

I'm just reading this thread. I purchased my Micro Track this past week and used it to record ambient audio during a wedding ceremony. I placed the unit about 3 feet under and in front of a PA speaker the DJ setup for the ceremony. I used the stereo mic that came with it. When I got back home to listen to the audio I was blown away. Basically the minister came through clear with no distortion. I setup the groom with an iRiver 799 with a Giant Squid lav mic. Audio for that setup was good also. This was my first try and I was impressed. All the audio will be used for the wedding production. For my next wedding I'm going to use some mics with the Micro Track.

Peace, Jerome

That sounds like some real good advice, Spike.
Which model are you using?

New firmware now available in "beta" form. I have no idea what it fixes (and what it doesn't), and I haven't heard much talk about it yet, but for what it's worth, here you go. I consider this to be a good sign even if they don't fix everything in this release, at least they released new firmware pretty quickly...

http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.drivers

Spike,

What HiMD do you use and why? What’s the difference between the $399 Sony MZ-M100 and the $169 Sony MZ-RH910? It seems to me that the quality (from a specification point of view) is the same so the rest of the price is bells and whistles we probably won’t use if we’re just acquiring audio from a console at a live event or even from an external mic.

If I go HiMD, I’m inclined to go with the MZ-RH910 since I can buy two of them for the price of one MZ-M100! Also the MZ-M100 is within $50 of the Marantz PMD660 which has XLR inputs and Phantom power so at that price I think I’d rather go with the PMD660.

Also, don’t you have to capture your audio in real-time from HiMD? That certainly makes it less attractive than the PMD660 or the MicroTrack or even my iRiver 790T that I got for $85.

I really want to graduate from the iRiver to something more substantial but the MicroTrack doesn’t seem to be all we had hoped for which makes the PMD660 or a HiMD more attractive right now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated (especially from any PMD660 owners too)

~jr