Versatility for the On-the-Go Pro: M-Audio Firewire 410 (w/bundled software)- $499.95, M-Audio

Goodbye AC Adaptor, Hello Firewire
M-Audio's Firewire 410 forms the heart and soul of the most versatile audio solution profiled in our series on making music with your Mac. Combined with Ableton's Live software, the FW410 provides an extremely versatile, portable setup for recording, mixing, and playback of music with up to four channels of pro-quality input and eight channels of output. The 410 can, in fact, be used with OS 10.3's DVD player to drive a full-digital 7.1 surround sound (AC-3 or DTS) setup for the home theater buffs out there.

Really, though, with features like 2 x 8 24-bit/96kHz analog I/O; 192kHz stereo out, two combo mic/line ins w/ preamps and phantom power, 8 line outs to mixer or direct surround output, S/PDIF digital I/O w/ PCM, AC-3, and DTS support, and a 1 x 1 MIDI interface, you wouldn't want to relegate this sleek little number to powering the audio half of your home a/v system. The 410 was made to make music, however you want to go about it.

Like the Digidesign Mbox, the FW 410 can record two channels of live audio at a time. A very nicely designed software control panel (see picture below) controls audio I/O routing, and the 410 supports ASIO 2 as well as Mac OS X Core Audio/MIDI. M-Audio teamed up with Ableton to send us Live 3, Ableton's "sequencing instrument" app, which I happen to be pretty high on. Live can be used to record, edit, and mix live audio as well as prerecorded loops, MIDI sequences, and sound from Rewire-based sources such as Propellerhead's popular Reason virtual studio software. While Live 3 lacks some recording studio cachet associated with ProTools, Ableton just took the wraps off of version 4 of the software, which promises to be a major upgrade. I got to play with a beta version of the software, and I can't wait to get it hooked up in a full MIDI studio environment. There's also a very informative, if also very large (24 mb) Live 4 Overview QuickTime movie posted to the site.

Live 3, however, is more than passable for most home studio recording, and once I got a handle on it's somewhat quirky interface design, I grew to really like it's drag-and-drop implementation of audio effects and loop building. Beyond that, Live was designed to keep pace with the innovative world of electronic music and each subsequent release has attempted to further blend together real-time live audio and MIDI functionality for recording and live performances alike. M-Audio distributes Live, Reason, and other music-making apps through their Website, and works together with software makers and electronic artists alike to design to products.

Take that less as a plug for M-Audio than as a backgrounder on where they're coming from with these new products. Digidesign's ProTools system is the industry standard for recording studios worldwide, so products like their Mbox are designed to bring the ProTools experience to the home studio at a reasonable price. M-Audio's products are geared from the beginning more towards the electronic musician working on stage and in the studio (home or professional). Working with Ableton and other software makers, M-Audio has really been making a push towards the computer-based DJ and electronica scenes, producing and marketing products that incorporate all facets of computer music making (live audio, virtual instruments, sampling, MIDI), often in portable packages that run well off of laptops. This isn't to say that ProTools doesn't work well within a MIDI setup, or that M-Audio boxes aren't good for mixing live band recordings -- rather each company is known for slightly different areas of expertise within a lot of common ground.

Flexibility and Innovation
Unless you're looking to record a live band to three or more separate channels all at once, there's not much you can't do with the FW 410. Front-panel combination 1/4" XLR/TS 66db-gain preamp jacks with global phantom power let you plug condenser mics and instruments directly into the unit, or press a button to switch your source to one of two rear-panel line-level jacks. Dual headphone jacks with independent volume control are great for partner recording sessions (think one pair of phones for the artist and a second for the producer, etc), and S-PDIF digital I/O lets you transfer music directly to and from a digital mixing board without any signal degradation. And, oh yeah, the integrated MIDI interface has a bypass switch so you can use it independently of the digital audio features.

Sure, sounds great ... but how does it work? Like a charm, for the most part. I hooked the 410 up to my iBook G4/1.07 and played around with Live 3 and the beta of v.4 using live instruments and vocals, canned samples, and MIDI-triggered virtual instruments in Reason. My only complaint is that I didn't have the time and means to setup and mic' my live drumkit in time for this review. The 410 can easily serve as the core of many a home project studio, and it's easily hauled to a field recording session, as well.

Eight discretely routed outputs may sound like overkill at first, but the more I play around with this stuff, the more I understand why my audio-nerd friends prefer to mix their tracks using mixing boards instead of mice. The 410 allows you to map each track of your project to a separate output (up to eight) so you can then pipe them to individual tracks on your analog or digital board. Nice. Of course, you can also do the reverse and mic a whole bunch of instruments and voices, mix them down on a board, and send a stereo pair of tracks to the 410. If you want more channels of input, you'll have to step up to M-Audio's FW 1814 (or similar systems like Digidesign's 002 or MOTU's 828 mkII), which retails for around $750.

The 410 features low-latency software recording and near zero-latency hardware monitoring, which basically mean that you hear what's being recorded as it's being recorded with as little delay as possible. This may sound like a no-brainer to the uninitiated but digital audio workstations have previously suffered from latency issues as hardware and software both struggled to keep up with the demands of creating, recording, and processing digital audio all at once. I noticed very little latency -- almost none at all, really -- even when attempting to max out my test system.

A Solid Choice Among Solid Choices
M-Audio now offers three Firewire-based audio interfaces; the FW 410 rests in the middle of that lineup. For $499.95 MSRP (street pricing is up to $100 less), it gives the home studio musician plenty of flexibility, two high quality preamps, and crisp, clear sound no matter how you use it. The Firewire interface not only improves audio quality and sampling rates, it also lets you power the unit without an AC adapter, giving M-Audio a leg up on USB solutions like the Mbox when it comes to portability.

My only hesitation in recommending the 410 -- and it's a small one -- came when I looked at M-Audio's two other Firewire interfaces. For $299, the Audiophile Firewire wraps 4 x 6 I/O and 1 x 1 MIDI interfaces into a smaller package. What you lose in preamps and extra outputs you gain in portability and price, which is appealing to the musician who knows he won't be working with live instruments or vocals much or at all. The $749 Firewire 1814 steps up to a whopping 18 channels of input and output including 8 x 4 analog I/O and 8 x 8 ADAT Lightpipe, which gives you all kinds of power and flexibility if you're setting up a serious recording studio. Again, these are retail prices, so figure the Audiophile will run you about $150 less than the 410, where as the 1814 is about $200 more than the 410. All three are solid choices for an audio interface; M-Audio did well in pricing them close enough to each other to make buying the "next one up" a tempting option once you've got the debit card out.

The M-Audio Firewire 410 audio interface comes packaged with M-Audio's Maximum Audio Tools software bundle, which includes limited versions of Live and Reason, as well as other software. The 410 requires a 500 mhz G3 or G4 with a native Firewire port running OS 9.2.2 or later; it is also Windows compatible. For more information, consult the M-Audio product page.

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Noah Kravitz is the author of the book Teaching and Learning with Technology and he runs the Technology and Culture blog Threebase.com. He is an educator, musician, and writer who now lives in Oakland, CA.