| I called Allen & Heath's USA reps today asking about the R16 firewire mixer and could not get a release date, pricing etc as of yet.
I don't know how it sounds, but the workflow of MANY home studios is hit right on the head with this product. Features wise aside from the fact that it does not appear to have moving faders (there is no mention of this anywhere and you figure it would...) it really does have a lot going for it.
The EQ is analog from what I can tell (and having 2 fully parametric mid bands is good stuff), the signal flow is easily learned by following the original poster's product splash page link. You won't see support on it because it's a while before release. The rep I spoke to did say there was some kind of recent announcement made in the UK about it but could not elaborate.
I would hope that A&H would take this same concept further, with moving faders etc and please put the I/O jacks on the rear, make it 24 to 32 channels and release it targeted for pro studios...! There just isn't anything reasonably priced in that range (there isn't anything like this mixer at all in existence features wise from what I know, not this kind of mix of analog and digital). I would also much prefer stand alone conversion with either ADAT or AES (AES preferred) and forget all this firewire stuff. Let people configure their own connection to their setup and it will be more flexible for more people's needs. Or seriously, they could forget conversion all together and just make it an analog board with fader / pan / mute / transport control via MIDI and I'd still think there'd be tons of interest in it.
Actually, they could end up with a "Control24" type of desk but with EQ etc, and can be used with any DAW if they do it right.
If anybody from A&H is reading this post, chime in!
War
PS: The site claims 100mm faders but I swear, they look like 60mm to me based on the pics. |