M-Audio Fast Track Pro

Over the post 6 months or so, I’ve become heavly involved with recording audio for a number of projects we work on, over at Fictionshed. If you listen back to the earlier podcasts (Fictioncasts), you’ll here me say, that you don’t need any specialised equiptment to record your voice, and a standard PC, with cheap mic will do…..the rest of this post will be me eating my words.

Due to getting a not the quality I wanted from the cheap headphone/mic combination, Tony kindly lent me a mixer and a couple of mics. This did improve the quality, however gave me some hard background noise.

In January, and with the ScutterCast in mind, I decided to splash out and get myself a MacBook Pro, as this was the only way I could find to do an enhanced podcast. The sound quality with the MacBook was a massive improvement, however the internal mic gave me a “roomy” type sound to my voice, which has been ok, however I needed something a little more direct.

After weeks of looking at the Samson C01U, the SL300 USB Studio Microphone and even the Samson G-Track, however Tony suggested I get the same as him, which was the M-Audio Fast Track Pro, as I already had the mic

Well Friday it finally turned up, and due to spending my Friday evening editing together the latest ScutterCast, I’ve only had chance to get to play with it today.

All I can say, is this thing is MINT ! It’s exactly the sound I’ve been wanting, it’s crisp, it’s clean, and NO background noise !

I now feel I’m set up to record the machinima project, this will also mean a lot less editing on the ScutterCasts, as I usually spend an age increasing the volume on my voice.

My setup is now as follows

MacBook Pro
M-Audio Fast Track Pro
AKG D650S Microphone
Stand & Pop Shield

I’ve included a small audio clip so you can hear the quality

maudio_test.mp3

Tags: amp, audio, background, background noise, crisp, eating my words, editing, equiptment, fast, fast track, Fictioncasts, Fictionshed, Friday, friday evening, headphone, internal mic, lent, m, M-Audio, mac, macbook, massive improvement, mic, mint, mixer, noise, number, podcast, post, pro, quality, recording, rest, S Microphone, Samson, samson c01u, ScutterCast, sl300, sound, sound quality, studio microphone, tony, track, voice

Vauxhall Vectra SRI CDTI (150)

Due to C taking a new job, we were forced to buy a new car. Lucky for us, in the current climate, we were able to pick up a decent car for a fraction of the price.

As you can probably tell by the title, we picked up an 08 plate Black Vauxhall Vectra SRI CDTI (150). Granted it’s a diesel, but it’s quick. The 150 stands for 150bhp, and it even pulls in 6th. On my final trek back from the garage, I had to do a junction on the M6, and I got to put my foot down a little, the pull I got from the car, but a big smile on my face. I know the car is only 150bhp, but when you’ve been used to driving a 1.4 Clio, this is a massive improvement.

The car has electric everything, really nice to drive. Couple of downsides though, in an 08 car, I expected as a minimum that the car would have an MP3 player, or at least a 3.5mm jack to connect an mp3 player.

Another weird downside of the stereo is….it doesn’t turn off when you kill the ignition ? I got out of the car last night, locked it up, and the continued to play, thinking this was some kind of delay thing, I left it for a minute or 2, and still it played. I can see the battery going flat me thinks.

edit: Fixed the stereo, it was a setting.

Tags: 5mm, bhp, Black, car, cdti, cdti 150, climate, decent car, diesel, downside, foot, foot down, fraction, garage, Granted, job, junction, Lucky, m6, massive improvement, mp3 player, new car, new job, plate, player, price, smile on my face, sri, SRI CDTi, stereo, title, trek, vauxhall, vauxhall vectra sri, vectra