I've been "tasked" with trying to get this unit to work. It's a
USB-connected and -powered preamp for digital audio. Before I launch
into my questions about it, is anyone here familiar with this product
and able to give a poor user some help with it? (I looked through the
newsgroup and only found postings on other M-Audio products.)

Mucho appreciado.


--
Save the Planet
Kill Yourself

- motto of the Church of Euthanasia (http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/)

On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 14:00:50 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

I've been "tasked" with trying to get this unit to work. It's a
USB-connected and -powered preamp for digital audio. Before I launch
into my questions about it, is anyone here familiar with this product
and able to give a poor user some help with it? (I looked through the
newsgroup and only found postings on other M-Audio products.)

I've installed and used similar devices, though not that particular
one.

What's the problem?

Laurence Payne spake thus:

On Sun, 09 Apr 2006 14:00:50 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

I've been "tasked" with trying to get this unit to work. It's a
USB-connected and -powered preamp for digital audio. Before I launch
into my questions about it, is anyone here familiar with this product
and able to give a poor user some help with it? (I looked through the
newsgroup and only found postings on other M-Audio products.)

I've installed and used similar devices, though not that particular
one.

What's the problem?

Thanks. Main problem: sound quality seems to be terrible. Don't know if
it's the device or user error, but I'm using the front-panel headphone
out jack as a monitor, and a good dynamic mike plugged into one of the
rear XLRs.

Leaving aside the annoying issue of latency delay (apparently there's a
way to eliminate it, but I haven't been able to figure it out), the
sound is just plain distorted, seemingly both on input and output. I
tried recording a test track, and the whole thing behaves very
strangely: it's as if there's a badly-functioning noise gate somewhere
in the circuit, more like a CB radio squelch control, which drops the
output to zero during quiet periods.

The sound through the headphones is awful, but the phones are fine
(sound good played through my Walkman D6).

To be honest, the real problem for me is the software that came bundled
with the unit, something called "Live Lite 4". I have zero experience
with recording software, and this is like being plunked down in front of
a zillion-track digital board with absolutely no frigging idea what all
those little knobs and switches do. The interface has dozens of doodads,
and there appears to be no easy way to just record some sound and save
it to disk.

When I used the "render to disk" function the first time, I got a WAV
file with some recorded sound in it, albeit very low-level and
distorted. Every time I tried this thereafter, I just got a blank WAV file.

The larger issue is to figure out whether I'm just doing something
stupid, or whether the unit is just busted. Oh, and of course, for what
the person who bought this paid for it, they get zero tech support.

Thanks for any help.


--
Save the Planet
Kill Yourself

- motto of the Church of Euthanasia (http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/)