The goal is here to supplement the mouse, not replace it, and AlphaTrack's main buttons are exactly what you'd expect to find on your tape recorder: remind, fast-forward, play, stop, and record. These buttons in particular restore much of the tactile experience to recording that was lost when the process became driven via GUIs instead of buttons. The larger fader knob works great with mixing individual tracks, or the volume of a bus full of tracks: in either case, just arm their panning or volume automation, and ride the fader.

Wired Or Wireless?

AlphaTrack builds on Frontier Design's previous TranzPort product, which covered somewhat similar territory; the big difference is that Tranzport is wireless and battery-powered, whereas AlphaTrack is powered by its USB tether, which gives it a maximum range of about 15 feet. However, Tranzport lacks AlphaTrack's motorized fader. It's more a matter of horses for courses: Tranzport is an ideal product if wireless remote control of up to 30 feet from your DAW's PC appeals to you. (Say, inside of a vocal booth, or if the idea of turning big swatches of your home into a recording studio is your thing, ala Led Zeppelin and Headley Grange.) But AlphaTrack may be more flexible for those who normally do everything in front of their DAW, which, presumably, would be the majority of home studio users.

AlphaTrack also has a jack built into the front of the unit for a footswitch, very useful for punch-ins and punch outs. Which illustrates yet another advantage of PC-based recording: because it's possible to slide audio around and easily insert microscopic fade-ins and fade-outs, it's infinitely easy to get an imperceptible punch than with traditional audio tape, especially on a cassette four-track, if my experience in the 1980s was any guide.

Frontier Design's AlphaTrack is a well thought-out, well-engineered product that takes personal recording out of the realm of the mouse, and restores a great deal of tactile interaction to the process. It's highly recommended to those with personal studios who don't want/don't need a full-blown mixing desk, and especially to laptop recording aficionados.