What do you think about M-Audio MobilePre USB?

In my opinion, I wouldn't consider any USB interface. Take a look at the Edirol FA-66 and The PreSonus Firebox. Both small, firewire and have good reputations. Less than $400 street.

I have used an M-Audio Firewire Solo, and it's fine - not as much quality as the two listed above, but cheap. $200 street.

I have been considering getting this too. All the firewire seemed too expensive. Could someone explain the advantages of haveing a firewire interface? I know they can transfer data faster, so would this help with latency, or is that just the computer's speed? Thanks.

I have the MobilePre and I'm pleased with it. The latency is not really an issue for me. It's low enough that when I record direct with my bass, I don't notice it at all. If you use the hardware monitoring headphone jack, be sure to turn off software monitoring, or you will notice a very brief echo/reverb sound due to the latency. I don't use the hardware or software monitor when recording guitar, and I either plug the amp's line out into the preamp or mic it. For vocals I just turn off my monitors (or you could turn off software monitoring in Logic) and plug in headphones to the zero-latency jack. Sometimes I will turn off hardware monitoring and add some reverb to the vocal track while recording, and the software monitoring works just fine too... I don't notice the latency.

One nice feature is you can plug in two mics, and two instruments and record them all at once, but you still only have two channels and can't separate them into four signals. That means you need to adjust your instrument volume and the preamp gain before recording since you can't adjust the mix later.

But I do have my complaints with the MobilePre! The biggest annoyance is that after a while the device will make bizarre noises that get worse and you must reconnect the device. This happens after a few weeks maybe. But what's more annoying is sometimes after I reconnect the device my iBook will hang for several minutes before recognizing the device. On one occasion it caused a kernel panic and I had to reboot! I really hate this, since I take my iBook to work every day and have to reconnect when I get home. Plugging the device in while the iBook is still sleeping, then opening the case seems to work better.

Another thing to beware of is the preamps aren't the best quality (obviously, for $150!). When I turn them up past 3/4 they introduce noticable noise and at night they pick up some weirdo radio station. I rarely need to set them past 1/2 though (which is low enough that I can't hear the radio station interference) and can boost the signal in Logic if it's necesarry.

Overall, the MobilePre was so cheap the small problems weren't enough for me to say I regret buying one. I haven't heard anyone else have the same problem with reconnecting the device so I can't say you'll have the same problem. I've had mine a year and I'm looking to get a Firebox soon, since I have started to outgrow my MobilePre. But it has served me well.

I'd have gone with a firewire myself if I'd have had the money at the time. I think one of the advantages is they don't rob CPU power from the USB connection. That said, I have been pretty happy with my Tascam US-122, which just a little more than the Mobile-Pre, and I think it has slightly better specs. As I recall the Mobile-Pre is only 16 bit, while the US-122 is 24 bit. If you plan to take advantage of LE's 24 bit recording, I'd go with the firewire or at least the US-122. Otherwise, I have heard some decent sounding recordings done with a Mobile-Pre on GB.

Scott is absolutely correct. I have used the MobilePre and now use the PreSonus FireBox. Although the MobilePre will work you will be happier with a FireWire connection. Save yourself some frustrations as mentioned by Scott and record at a higher bit rate.

I used to use a MobilePre, but I have to say that I really started to notice the quality differences when I heard things that other people were doing on different soundcards, so I upgraded and upgraded, and eventually landed myself a Firepod. I found the MobilePre to be very useful, and exceptionally portable, but I just found that the preamps were too bad to be excused. Obviously it's a very cheap piece of equipment, but the truth of the matter is, when trying to put a song together, you will never get it to sound better than the original audio itself, no matter how many plugins you throw at it, no matter what you do. If you want a high quality result, you need to make sure that the audio being recorded is high quality, and for me, I found that spending an extra £100 really made the difference. Check out what other people on this forum are using... I have heard that Edirol FA-66s (?) are very good for the price (£250ish), and have more inputs, and are Firewire. Have a look around, but don't always go for the cheapest if you want quality results. All the best, Fred

I have exactly the same problem with re-connecting the MobilePre to my iBook, it causes kernel panics, or halts the computer. So you're not the only one suffering from this problem.

Marc