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

Halo Wars

Last weekend I noticed that Halo Wars demo was available on the Microsoft Marketplace, and though, it’s an RTS on a console, it’s going to be terrible, but I downloaded, and really enjoyed. I’ve tried other RTS’s on the console, eg C&C, but felt that they don’t work as well as on mouse and keyboard. I’m the kind of person who has groups of units mapped to my 1-9 key for quick select, and like to attack multiple enemies at one..this isn’t possible on the console, or should I say, not as easy as hitting a number key.

So anyway back to Halo Wars, I’m quite a fan of the Halo series, they are probably not the best FPS’s on the planet, however the storyline is pretty good, the characters, weapons and vehicles are memorable, and these are all present in this RTS.

First of all, Graphics, to be honest, the graphics aren’t any better that you would find in other recent RTS’s, they are good and clear, but I can’t say anything wow’d me. However, the cut scenes are fantastic ! I mean really fantastic, think the likes or the final fantasy films, or Flight of the Osiris from the Matrix (Animatrix). Between each level, there was a couple of minutes of cut scene, it was so good, I thought to myself, why oh why don’t they make an animated film, it would be brilliant ! The game I believe is set 10 years before Halo one, so no Master Chief, however there were many Spartans in the game.

Next, Sound, Gorgous, Gorgous sound, the music, was very simular the the Halo series, so as you can imaging when the game got going, so did the music. The sound effects, voices where everything you’d come to expect from the series, and utterly brilliant.

Next Gameplay, this was the most important for me, as I was pretty sure it would suck, hard to control, no where near as good as a mouse and keyboard, however I was wrong ! You can tell this game was designed for the 360, the buttons and control system worked seamlessly, and at no point through the 15 levels did I ever get stuck on which button to press.

All in all, a very enjoyable experience, and can’t wait to get on line and kick some ass. The game has taken me 10hours and 16 mins to beat, however some of that time, I was pretty drunk. The game is only 15 levels long, however there is the online play as well as the skirmish still to do.

1o/1o

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LOGIC 3 SONY PSP MINI THEATRE SYSTEM DOCKING STATION

Got one of these puppies for Christmas, and until today I didn’t have anything to test it with. While I was in Game today, I stumbled across Family Guy: Blue Harvest for only £4.99 ! Bargin I know !!

So I’ve just fired it up, and OMG ! this thing sound fantastic !, comes with a little carrying case which holds the cables and dock.

The PSP sits good as well as charges as it docs.

Full spec below

Product Information

A ‘mini theatre’ to play movies or music. This SoundStation for PSP Slim & Lite produces astounding sound using a high class amplifier, deep bass sub-woofer and 3D surround-sound circuitry to pack a punch more powerful than its compact size suggests. Includes mains adaptor, carry-case and line-in cable

• 2.1 Sub-woofer Speaker System
• 12 Watts RMS
• Operates from AC Adaptor (included) or Batteries 4xAA (not included)
• Internal 3D surround sound processor
• Docking station for PSP re-charging
• Blue soft-light illumination
• 3.5mm Stereo line-in for playing other audio devices like MP3, MD, CD player. etc
• Dimensions: 104 x 278 x 38mm (H x W x D)
• Weight – 550g
• 3.5mm Stereo Line-in (Cable provided) to allow gameplay, or play back of other audio devices including MP3, CD player, MiniDisc etc.
• Carry Case for Sound System & PSP console.
• 1 x 2.5″ Sub Woofer 4ohm = 6 Watts RMS
• 2 x 30mm full range 4ohm Neodymium aluminum speaker cones = 6 Watts RMS
• PSP Slim & Lite not included

Tags: 3, Adaptor, amp, anything, AVI, Blue, blue harvest, cable, Carry Case, carrying case, Christmas, compact size, dock, docking, family, family guy, game, Got, guy, illumination, internal 3d, Lite, logic, mp3 cd player, mp3 md, ohm, player, PSP, psp slim, RMS, s mp3, Slim, sound, sound circuitry, sound processor, soundstation, speaker cones, Speaker System, station, stereo, stereo line, sub woofer, today, umd, umd disks, Watts, watts rms