Quote:
Originally Posted by microwave  Everything works on both my Mac systems and I have not (touch wood) experienced the problems some other users have been reporting. Integration with Logic 8.0.2 is good, the transport works fine, I have noticed that Logic has a tendency to "forget" some of the midi mapping occasionally but I would hedge my bets that the responsibility there is with Logic rather than with the R-16. I dont think that the R-16 can replace a dedicated midi controller such as a Mackie or Euphonix unit but it was never meant to - the midi functionality is a welcome feature that can be made to be useful depending on how you work.
Higher sample rates over adat are possible if the hardware has a protocol called smux implemented, the R-16 doesn't have it but for me its no big deal - everything I do is either for the tv/ film market or for CD/ internet release and I rarely work at higher sample rates than 48. Should you need to work at 96 you can use it in stand alone mode which gives you 18 channels, not bad at all!
I dont use the main faders as midi controllers so I cant report on that. All I can say is that I was very worried about having short throw faders before I bought the unit, but the 60mm faders have such a lovely, positive action that I forget about them being "shorties". As i said before, the conversion quality is good - I've also been using, when mixing on a bigger board, the R-16 as a 16 channels DA converter alongside a FF800 (taking the signal from the inserts out via a semi normalized patch bay), and the audio is crystal clear.
What I do miss and I would like to see in a future incarnation:
1) Word clock. It was silly not to put it there and the next model just has to have it.
2) SPDIF I/O carrying channels 17 and 18. Very useful.
3) Balanced inserts on the stereo buss that can be switched in and out, a la TL Audio. Again, very useful.
4) Buttons to switch between mic and line inputs. I REALLY miss them to the point that I've given up using the line ins because of the constant repatching and use the (albeit unbalanced) patch bay insert ins instead.
5) the possibility of having 16 channels of adat rather than eight. This should be possible with a firmware update and it would make me (and I suspect many other users) very happy.
Anyway, as it stands nothing can touch the R-16 for functionality, sound quality and value for money. I have recently had a rack summing box - in a similar price range as the R-16 - in my little studio, and was left wondering on who would pay the same money for something with no analogue eq or mic preamps given that the quality of the summing was very similar.
Cheers! |
Many thanks for your detailed reply!
I posted my query to the A&H support guys - I'm sure they won't mind me posting their response here:
"At the moment the ZED-R16 has a switch to set the sample rate to 44.1 or 48kHz in ADAT mode, but we could release some firmware for user upload to the mixer that changed the switch function to say 48kHz (16 channels) and 96kHz (8 channels). We haven’t done this yet because we didn’t think anyone would be ok with halving the ADAT channel count but it’s no problem to do... "
That would suite my needs absolutely perfectly! And on that basis I've already ordered my R16 !!
As I was typing this I got another response - stating an intention to develop a "suite of firmware variations for users working in different ways".
Absolutely brilliant!
cheers all