AVID driver alert - Warning to Fast Track Pro Users

Bill Terry · Post by **Bill Terry** » 7 Sep 2015 5:28 am

I had an old M-Box Fast Track Pro USB interface that I bought off of Craigslist a few years ago. It's sort of a 'spare' at best, I used it from time to time for some odd project or another. I recently wanted to incorporate it into my test setup at work (Cirrus Logic) in order to connect some evaluation hardware via the SPDIF connectors.

The work PC is a Windows 7 machine, and when I plugged in the interface, Windows recognized it as a USB audio interface, however the machine did not have the actual M-Box (at the time) drivers, which provide some additional interface control parameters. I found that M-Box had sold that product and several others to AVID and driver support etc. was now through AVID.

I found the latest driver package for the Fast Track Pro, and downloaded and started the install. The driver install at some point advised me that the firmware in the box needed an update, so assuming that would be necessary for the driver to work, I installed the firmware update as per the instructions (all part of the driver install sequence).

All seemed to complete normally, however when power sequencing the interface as instructed, now I see that Windows does not even recognize the hardware... at all.

I started searching for a solution to the problem online (wish I had looked first), and found that this is a known issue with that driver package (which is still as of yesterday available for download and install from Avid) With that driver update you get one of two possible outcomes:
1) The box is recognized, but barely works. Noise, drop outs, poor audio quality.
2) The box is now a doorstop, not recognized by the host at all.

It seems that many folks have asked AVID for help, and the response is that "There is no way to update or go back to a previous revision of the firmware. Send us the unit and 100.00 and we'll fix it."

How thoughtful..

The unit might be worth 50 bux. I realize that this a very old product, and that AVID 'inherited' the legacy support, but the cavalier attitude from the support folks really sours me on the company. There are a couple of threads on several recording and support forums that are well over a year old. Still waiting for AVID to address the issue.

I also realize that I could have researched the driver before I installed it and saved myself the grief, however, when was the last time you did that??? If a driver is on the company's website and is the latest recommended driver, you have to assume that it is functional at the very least.

At this point I would absolutely never buy an AVID product. If they'll do it to you once, they'll do it to you again.

Just in case you have a working Fast Track Pro interface, DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL VERSION 6.1.10 for Windows.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 7 Sep 2015 5:46 am

FWIW, M-Audio is now owned by "inMusic" which also owns Alesis, Numark and others.

http://www.inmusicbrands.com/

Bill Terry · Post by **Bill Terry** » 7 Sep 2015 6:06 am

Thanks Jack.. It's confusing, I'm not sure how they split the company, but apparently (based on what I could see on the M-Box support forums) they just point the guys with this problem directly to the AVID support page, where they don't seem to care. It looks M-Box has washed their hands of several of the lower end products, and AVID isn't too interested in supporting them either.

The driver I used was here:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_U ... ro-Drivers

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 7 Sep 2015 7:23 am

It's highly possible that the drivers were not complete from the get go. Blaming Avid , who probably has zero knowledge of the former driver base or ability to support issues , especially on an older product , just seems a bit extreme.

Avid has a strong support team for there own legacy products, I know this first hand.

MAudio made the handshake with Avid products back with Pro Tools 8M , that was I believe 2009. Avid didn't write the drivers. PT 8 ran on XP systems, not even compatible with forward versions of Windows. Who can say if the drivers for products back then were even compatible with forward versions of software, they may very well have tested for a few things but at the end of the day probably did not test 100%.

Bill Terry · Post by **Bill Terry** » 7 Sep 2015 7:36 am

Maybe so Tony, but the driver is dated June 20, 2013. I agree, it's old, it's not their product, but despite the obvious issues that have been documented multiple times via various forums, direct support questions straight to AVID etc. they don't even have the time to go pull the driver off the web page? Or at the very least put a warning with it?

Sorry, I've been in a customer support role in the tech biz too long to buy that.. somebody has just made a conscious decision to blow it off. Too few users to worry about. I guess the 100.00 fix is their answer, but it's not a good one.

I'm sure they're good with their products, this is a step-child they probably didn't want to begin with.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 7 Sep 2015 9:21 am

Avid has kept the support for older products, not sure why when the M-Audio line was sold. I used to have a Fastrack Ultra 8R unit. The drivers, available from Avid, were valid for Windows OS up to and including 8.1. I sold the unit early this year as it became surplus in my studio.

I too have been in PC support for a long time (until I retired). I was the mid-west regional LAN/WAN Network and hardware help desk manager for a Federal Agency. A blast from the past, I was even Novell CNE certified.

Tommy Detamore · Post by **Tommy Detamore** » 7 Sep 2015 12:05 pm

Typical attitude and behavior for Digidesign, which morphed into Avid, so no surprise there to me. So glad I left them behind at Pro Tools 3.1...

They (and many others) should take a page out of Metric Halo's playbook. They are known for going to great lengths to keep users of "legacy" products up and running.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 7 Sep 2015 5:11 pm

Not an argument , not even meant to be.

MBox is not an Avid or Digi Design "legacy" product. The fact that it ( MBOX) was sold off or "morphed" is the problem. Thats a death for any product that requires a driver or updates.

I too come from a technical field support role with a major corporation, a BIG corporation...this is not uncommon these days for products that are on the other side of the door. A date of 2013 may very well mean that was the last update, not the first.

I have run into these issues with many brands of software and drivers.

For sure it can cause a headache.

Tascam and Zoom come to mind right now and both with out of the BOX products. I dumped the Tascam interface but will not dump the Zoom R16 just because a so called driver feature is not clean.

Try going on the Avid Facebook support page for the Mbox question, there is generally a very good tech "live" many times. You may run into a tech who can offer some wisdom.

Even in the company I just retired from, the "newer' employees are not really up to snuff on previous products , and thats the same everywhere now.

My personal experience with Pro Tools (Avid) support is excellent. Versions 8 and 12...

Bill Terry · Post by **Bill Terry** » 8 Sep 2015 4:44 am

Yeah, I realize that M-Box is not a legacy product from AVID, it was inherited, but they are the only source of support, and describing what they provide as lackluster would be an understatement. I get it, they don't want to have anything to do with the product. Fine..

But the fact is despite being a busted piece of software, they leave it on their website, with no warnings, and apparently have little or no concern that what happened to me is still happening to folks every day. That's wrong, I don't care whose product it is, and if the company is ok with that I'd just as soon not deal with them.

BTW, I did try posting on the AVID Facebook page, crickets... other than some other folks who said "yeah, happened to me too"..

I'm sure this isn't unique to AVID, it's a rapid changing technical environment today, and keeping drivers etc. up to date has to be challenging, but this (propagating known broken software) is really offensive.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 8 Sep 2015 6:53 am

Bill, I hear ya and I am not in disagreement..regarding the company I just retired from, one of the TOP companies in the world in the field of products they design and manufacture , on the support side they list all sorts of older products as being supported, fact of the matter is none of them are and there are no parts for any of them ! They term support as " best effort" .

And these are there own products ! But in fairness, most corporate industry support for products ceases at around 7 years. It would cost a small fortune to keep older products supported plus people would never upgrade. Software and drivers are the biggest curse...

By the look of the way the music industry items go it appears it may be shorter, 3 to 4 years. The same deal applies. I read somewhere recently that the DAW software companies are looking at upgrades in 2 to 3 years max. IF you do the math for the licenses, upgrades and subscriptions, it comes out to approx 36 months where it all balances out.

As we used to say back in technical field support..Welcome to the 80's !