My Zoom R16 report card

[Jeffguitar]

Here's my report card after a couple months of owning the Zoom r16. I am giving an A- While there are things Zoom could and should do to make it better, like Midi sync, audio scrub for precise location and marker control, swapping stereo tracks, I can't stop grabbing this sexy little recorder.

I actually can lay on my bed with my R16 and headphones and mix. that is just so cool. One of the things I love is that it's so light, so portable. I grab it with one hand and lay it on my chest or lay it on my desk.

I now love the swap feature. It is faster now than any recorder I have ever owned. On the Roland and boss units you can send the input to another track, but that process actually takes longer than just swapping tracks on the R16. I can now swap without even looking at the screen. Hit swap, hit enter, lights blink, choose your swap tracks, hit enter, then escape. I do it without even looking at the screen. On the old Roland units I had to press one button while hitting another, several steps. This way is so much faster than assigning inputs to different tracks.

What do you guys like and dislike after owning your R16 for a while? Even though I want some fixes and additions, I can't stop grabbing for this baby. As I write it's laying right here on the bed next to me. I watch TV a bit, then pop the cans on and mix a little with it laying on my chest. Now that's portable, and it blows me away that it's 16 tracks at 24 bit. Let me say that again, I am recording and mixing while in my bed with a 16 track 24 bit recorder with 8 xlr inputs, yet she can sit on my chest for hours while I mix. It's mind boggling. I have actually held it with my left hand up in the air while lying on my bed and make track changes with my right hand. It's stunning that I can do this with a 16 tracks 24 bit recorder.

I can take my wavs right off the R16 and put them in my daw for mixing there with my plugins. I can even edit and use my lugs, save them back to the R16 card and I am right back to recording on the go. back and forth with the files as much as i want. Plug the USB cable in and it's a card reader, no taking the SD card out of the R16, no need to. i can take my project folders right off the R16 and save my projects on the computer or DVD's for storage. The convenience is absoluttely shocking. I sometimes think of the things I wish it could do, yet it has become like a part of my body. It sits next to me all day, travels with me. I woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago and popped my cans on and went to mixing right in the bed. I take it with me while I wait for my daughter to get out of drama club at school. i sit in my van and mix and even record.

After two months with it, I am married to it and see it as a partner, not just a unit. It still needs some updates and functions added. A real bummer about no midi sync, but they should be able to implement that in the future using a usb to midi adapter. No reson the units hardware couldn't do that.

[Saudade]

I am counting the no. of times you used the words "bed" and "lay" - talk about gear porn

Seriously I agree with you (though I don't own one, yet) it is a very well thought out product that raises the bar for other manufacturers to match. Mark my words, there will be a MkII with more features because afaik it is selling like hotcakes, just like their H4 when it came out.

[chiro]

can it run on battery power?

have you dropped it?

how expensive was the memory card?

I recently second guessed myself and decided not to get one in favor of the ART tubefire. they are the same price, i have a DAW im comfortable with on my lappy, the preamp and phantom power situation seems a bit better on the ART and the tubefire is not made of plastic.

however, i do like to record in strange places around beijing where i live, and I do wonder about how else I might have been freed up to roam and explore if I could get myself completely free of extension cords, but Ill have to be content with my Sony PCMd50 for that right now.

[kismet110]

Originally Posted by chiro

can it run on battery power?

have you dropped it?

how expensive was the memory card?

It can run on battery power (if you use the specified battery type supposedly good for 4-5 hours usage). I dropped mine & suffered no ill-effects & nowadays 8/16GB SDHC Cards are very cheap (32GB still a little steep comparatively speaking).

I've had mine a few weeks, so far am pretty happy with it but bear in mind usage has only been a few hours due to other commitments and I'm a n00b when it comes to mixing/recording so nothing for me to compare against.

The menu isn't easy to navigate & the manual (although it has the info in it) is pretty poor in its layout and explanations.

Mixing on it as long-winded & not very pretty but you get Cubase 4 LE bundled with it; very easy to move your .wav files to a PC & mix ITB if need be.

Things it lacks (for me) are some Jeff mentioned (stereo-track swapping, scrub function) but also punch-in/out via pedal control + a decent headphone out; fine via the main outs but even with top-notch headphones it sounds muffled & volume is very low; I know I could add a headphone amp but surely I shouldn't need to!

MIDI not an issue for me as don't use it but I can see why this is missed by many, ZOOM had it on the HD16CD so a retro-step.

Overall though for the price it's a bargain & the sound quality (24-bit, XLR/balanced cables & cautious gain-staging) is excellent.

All I need now is to improve my poor musicianship ...

[chiro]

Originally Posted by kismet110

It can run on battery power (if you use the specified battery type supposedly good for 4-5 hours usage).

this sounds like you havent tried it much...

and what is the 'specified battery type'

i hope its not 4 hours and youre out an 8 pack of Ds like a 1980s ghettoblaster

[kismet110]

Originally Posted by chiro

this sounds like you havent tried it much...

and what is the 'specified battery type'

i hope its not 4 hours and youre out an 8 pack of Ds like a 1980s ghettoblaster

Not run it on battery power at all but the specified 'type' iirc is 1.5volts (as opposed to 1.25volts? Not sure, will dig up the info again.

You can use rechargeable batteries? They're cheap as chips from plenty of online retailers ....