E-MU TrackerPre USB

Riichard
August 25, 2009

Rating: 9/10

This is a good product. I bought it to complement Logic Pro 8 and GarageBand on my new Applemac.
I attached an XLR microphone and headphones by Numark to create a home studio of the best quality according to a low budget.

Warning! One of the additional discs that came with the EMU interface blocked both Garage and Logic Pro from starting up.. This was the production tools software disc. Do not download it! I wasted 3 days finding out why Logic stopped working. Apple help-desk helped me put this right.

Overall I am happy with the EMU interface, the previous interface was not working and for my budget this did the trick quite professionally.

Andy Barratt
November 11, 2008

Rating: 9/10

If you want a USB audio interface that\'s got reasonable mic pre-amps, and accepts phantom-powered mics without an external power supply, then this is it. There\'s not really any competition. Get the latest drivers from www.emu.com and you\'re laughing.

Phill
September 27, 2008

Rating: 4/10

After struggling for months with my laptop\\\'s built in sound card cutting out whilst I was using Cubase SX3, I decided to get something that I assumed would make alot of difference to my music production. I emailed a member of the dolphin music team to whom replied that the EMU Trackerpre would solve my problems and that this was the bit of kit I was in need of. Hmmm. Once I received the EMU; nothing but problems for me! \\\'Plug in & play\\\'?..I think not. See the problem is; I use more than one audio program i.e. Cubase, Fruity Loops, Wavepad etc, mostly alongside each other...BUT..EMU being so advanced & fantastic have designed a product whereby the drivers are unable to support more than one audio program running at a time?! C\\\'mon, even my built in HP soundcard drivers managed this!! I really cannot see how something that costs as much as this has the inability to do such. VERY disappointing. In addition, I spent weeks with a friend of mine (a lot more equipment literate than myself) trying to tweak all the settings in each program, download the latest drivers, download \\\'ASIO 4 All\\\' drivers to no avail. I only found about this EMU glitch after we exhausted all possibilities and I decided to contact EMU \\\'support\\\'. Now I appreciate they may be busy people, but; just over 3 weeks later I receive this reply:

\\\'Dear Valued E-MU Customer;


ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Driver, and ASIO Multimedia Driver are not E-MU related. They are Steinberg drivers. We only have support for E-MU drivers. The E-MU Tracker Pre is not capable of being used with two audio programs at the same time. Only our PCI audio interface products can be used with more than one audio program at the same time with one being an ASIO program and the other a WDM program.

** Please retain all previous correspondence when replying to this email.


Regards;


E-MU Systems Inc.

Advanced Technical Support Group \\\'

3 Weeks?!.. For that? Hardly considerate towards a \\\'valued customer! \\\'

Anyway I could rant all day (because of the weeks of torture Ive endured, money I\\\'ve wasted & lack of customer service I\\\'ve received so I\\\'m going to quit there.

In summary, I don\\\'t advice anyone looking to upgrade a poor soundcard to buy this, unless you solely use one program at a time. Otherwise it\\\'s a waste of time & money...also beware, my friend has an EMU card and failed to run Cubase SX3 and Fruity Loops together. As you can see you need one of EMU\\\'s PCI audio cards for that. Well Im glad that was made clear to me from the outset. NOT.

What is interesting though is that the Cubase LE this is bundled with will work alongside FL etc..but being the lite version it is no good for me to work with...I hope you are beginning to understand my headache with it all by now. Oh, and sometimes...only somtimes..it will allow Wavepad and FL or Winndows Media Player to run alongside each other...sometimes.

Right that\\\'s enough EMU bashing for one day.

Anyone want to buy a trackerpre? lol

Chris North
April 5, 2008

Rating: 9/10

UPDATED REVIEW Emu Tracker Pre

When I wrote my first review of this unit back in February I mentioned that I had not been able to test it with a balanced condenser mic - only with an unbalanced dynamic mic and an unbalanced condenser mic, which did not give very strong signals for quiet speech at 25cm from the mics. Well I have now put the Tracker Pre through its paces with my Audio Technica balanced condenser mic - the ATM10a. This has a sensitivity of -45dB (5.6mV re 1v at 1PA) when powered with a 1.5v AA battery and gives a much sronger signal than the mics used in the earlier test. Quiet speech recording at 25-30cm from the Audio Technica mic gives a good level with the Emu gain knob set to about 4 o'clock (the next to last mark on the dial) and with the mic sensitivity setting in the computer's audio setup at 50%. Typically my recording levels centred around -9dB peak with virtually no audible hiss. So this is fine - even for quiet storytelling ! Sensitivity is slightly higher on 48v phantom power supplied through the Tracker Pre - giving around -6dB peak and of course much higher if you hold the mic closer.

Used with the right mic this unit can cope with quiet voice recordings as well vocals. It produces very good quality sound from your PC or laptop without the dreaded hiss when there is no 'physical' sound being input. Of course the signal to noise ratio of various mics will differ but with a reasonable mic you should not be disappointed. Well done Emu !

Just a note about monitoring though. You need to turn up the Direct Monitor knob as well as the headphone level to monitor your input from the headphone jack on the unit. And beware when you are checking your recording on playback - you need to turn down the Direct Monitor level (or the mic level knob) - otherwise you will get sound from the open mic as well as your recorded track down your headset. Users on other forums have found the Direct Monitor knob a little strange because it has no stat and end stop - it is continuous turn round and round. This is apparently because it is in the digital circuit.

So all in all I think I'll now have to give the Emu Tracker Pre at least 9 out of ten. For me it's an excellent buy for the price producing really clean sound.

Chris North
February 27, 2008

Rating: 8/10

The Tracker Pre USB 2 is the latest addition to Emu\'s USB 2 audio interfaces (in fact it was advertised on the Dolphin site before it appeared on the Emu website !) I decided on Emu after having researched the sound quality and price of similar interfaces - but the 202 version had only one mic input and no phantom power and the 404 could not be bus powered - I wanted a hybred. What a nice surprise then, when the Tracker Pre appeared a few weeks ago. It seemed to meet all my requirements - including the option of an external PSU so it could be used as a stand-alone mic pre amp. I do not need optical inputs or midi - just crisp clear sound with no hiss on the pre amps - and this is pretty well what you get with these interfaces.

OK, the box is plastic but it is very well finished and accurately made. The design is smart and professional, so it won\'t look out of place on your desk, but it\'s not really robust enough to take out on the road. The tactile torpedo shaped knobs are sensible, firm and positive. The rear socketry is plastic, which is a shame, and the jack sockets do not have any nuts to fix them firmly to the casing (unless they forgot to put them on mine) but otherwise the finish and construction seems fine.

Initial sound tests confirm the quality of the pre amps for both mic and line. An unbalanced line feed from my tape deck only required the gain knob to be turned a few degrees up from the minimum position to get the clip level LED to light - but this was sufficient to enable me to trim it back to get the signal below clip/overload. On the other hand, using unbalanced mics - dymnamic and powered - required the levels to be turned well up (to 5 o\'clock) for quiet speech recording at about 25cm which gave very low peak levels around -20dB. I have yet to try my balanced condenser mic, which may be a little stronger. Nevertheless the mic signals were clean and there is no noticeable hiss at all until the 5 o\'clock position, when it starts to be \'just\' audible to a keen ear if there is no audio input sound to mask it. At the 5.30 position there is an abrupt jump in sensitivity and an abrupt jump into the realms of hiss - the maximum gain being at six o\'clock, so for me the near maximum gain position is unusable.

The preamps are fine for vocals and close mic work such as voiceovers - and for other recordings where the levels are not too low. At this price bracket there is bound to be a bit of a compromise - but the fact that you can turn up the gain to about 90% without getting ANY audible hiss is pretty good.

There is, of course, loads of LE software bundled with the unit, but even with Audacity you can record the two outputs (say a voice and an instrument) onto a stereo track and then \'split\' L and R to change the levels and process them separately.

Unlike the 404, this unit does not have a set of LEDs to allow you to see the sound level as you adjust the gain knobs - just a red clip LED and a -12dB signal indicator. But in practice I have found no difficulty in judging the levels by turning up the gain until the red clip LED lights and then just turning it down a tad so that only the green -12dB LED flashes.

Installation on my Vista Dual 2.2 Intel laptop went without a hitch - and the following day the latest Vista drivers were made available on the Emu website. Fortunately you do not have to uninstall the old drivers before running the update - it does it all for you.

All in all this seems to be a pretty good unit for mic and line recordings (and no doubt instruments too according to the reviews of the 202 and 404) but you will need the latest Windows updates if you are running Vista.

I have knocked off a point for the slightly low sensitivity of the pre amps for reading text and the jump to hiss near the maximum and another for the plastic socketry, which does not appear to be bolted to the casing. But perhaps I am being a bit mean for something in this price bracket.