[LAU] M-Audio Fast Track Pro: unreliable, distorted recording

I'm the (un?)lucky owner of an M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB audio interface and I'm having some serious problems getting this device to record audio reliably under Linux. I've been using arecord and occasionally Audacity for all of my testing. My problem is this: Recording a take works about 80% of the time. In the remaining ~20% of cases, the captured audio is extremely loud with severe digital distortion. Once this problem shows up, it persists for any subsequent takes. The only way I've found to make the problem go away, at least temporarily, is to power-cycle the Fast Track Pro. I considered the possibility that this particular device might be defective, but it seems to work wonderfully under Windows. I'm calling out to other Fast Track Pro users in the hope that someone out there has encountered the same problem and better still, found a solution. Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated! .lewis