Zoom R16 16 Track SD Card Recorder Interface and Controlle

Prior to this I had a H6 which was very good for handheld use, but somewhat fiddly to navigate the menus. This purchase was a direct replacement for that and is much better suited for my needs which is as a portable studio but in a static setting if you see what I mean, i.e. I need to easily transport it around but when I actually come to use it I have a table and static wired microphones.
For this purpose this was a great purchase, the menus are easy to navigate, the faders are great, recording quality is great, and it is capable of playing a soundtrack on one or more channels whilst simultaneously recording on other channels.
Each of the 16 channels can either play, record, or be muted at any one time. There are physical 8 inputs, and these can be assigned to any of the 16 channels while the other channels play.
In addition it is easy to import music, and to save a track and record with a new name.
In short, it’s small but not too small, operates on mains or battery, and as good a quality as I need. I use it for doing pre-records in amateur theatre, and for this it is great, everything I could have asked for at this price range. Highly recommended.

El producto era recuperado, se vea que ya lo haban abierto.
Hace la funcin que se describe y de momento lo veo un buen aparato.
Tambin deca que vena un SD de 1GB y no estaba, supongo que al reembalarlo no la introdujeron. De todas maneras pensaba cambiar la SD por otras que tengo de ms capacidad (8GB dice que graban 24h, lo cual creo que est muy bien).
La principal ventaja del aparato es poder grabar las 8 pistas a la vez sin necesidad de ordenador para despus poder pasar las pistas a tu DAW preferido si quieres editarlo. En nuestro caso, la intencin es utilizarlo en los ensayos del grupo para hacer review en directo y tener pistas para crear tracks personalizados para ensayar individualmente.
Las 4 estrellas en lugar de 5 es por el estado en que lleg.

L’utilizziamo per registrare in sala prova, collegandolo all’insert del mixer. L’ideale sarebbe stato un 12 CH, ma si fa di necessit virt. La qualit ottima.

A quality bit of kit which does exactly what it says on the packet.

es bon produit pour ses enregistrements en home ou en studio de repetition et pour ceux qui aiment une bonne qualite sonore. bon rapport qualite prix..

Je ne m’en sortais pas vraiment avec Garageband, autre temps autre moeurs sans doute.
J’ai donc dcid de revenir une machine avec tout sous mes doigts!
Ce Zoom R16 se prsente bien: facile et ergonomique, on peut trs vite enregistrer ses dmos sans se retourner sans arrt sur un tutoriel.
16 pistes, a donne vraiment une marge suffisante.
Pas de latence constate, usage ais, qualit de son au rendez-vous, j’ai t conquis!

Perfect for what I need, connecting to theatre sound desks! Great that its also a recorder! Easy to use too.

Excellent produit d’une grande simplicit d’utilisation et avec des effets plus que corrects. Pour un groupe qui veut enregistrer chaque instrument en vue de retravailler seul leur partie = +++
Rapport qualit/prix = +++

Der Mehrspur-Recorder ist einfach genial. Die Bedienung ist intuitiv und sehr einfach. Es ist alles im Gert enthalten um eine komplette Aufnahme inklusive abschlieendem Mastering durchzufhren. Es knnen simultan 8 Spuren aufgenommen werden, was vor allem fr Schlagzeuger sehr interessant sein sollte.
Projekte werden auf einer SDHC-Karte gespeichert. Die darauf erstellten Wave-Dateien knnen anschlieend am PC auf eine andere Software bertragen und dann weiter verarbeitet werden. Das Gert akzeptiert SDHC-Karten bis zu einer Gre von 32GB. Damit knnen 110 Minuten 16-Spur Aufnahmen erstellt werden. Das Gert kann zudem auch als Audio-Interface genutzt werden. Dem Gert liegt eine sehr verstndliche Anleitung in Papierform bei, was heut zutage nicht mehr selbstverstndlich ist. Aufgrund des Preis- Leistungsverhltnisses ist das ZOOM R16 meines Erachtens in dieser Klasse konkurrenzlos. Klare Kaufempfehlung.

Lovely bit of kit ,would be better if it was MIDI

Bought this as a gift for my partner and it’s amazed him, does what it states and “the best track recorder” he’s ever used!..

Excellent for home recording and rehearsal. Very portable and surprisingly good sound

Really great and reliable tool to make home studio recordings on. Be that for band practice of serious productions it is brilliant …. So many facilities and effects options. I also used it to transfer and digitise old 8 track reel to reel master recordings for easy remixing in Cubase … Would have been painful to do it in other ways.

The Zoom R16’s key feature is that it permits 8-tracks of recording simultaneously. The R8 (which I also use) has only two simultaneous tracks. Worth noting, however, that of the R16’s 8 inputs only two supply phantom power directly. This need not be a drawback if you feed the inputs from line sources, such as external preamps, or use self-powered mics. The preamps themselves are OK. By that, I mean acceptable, but not wonderful. Gain is somewhat limited, especially with very low output sources. Residual noise becomes more obvious at high gain settings. Again, though, this can be largely overcome by using external preamps and going in via line level. Use with high quality preamps (for example Focusrite ISA’s and Universal Audio 610’s) this little recorder really shows what it is capable of. The combination XLR’s do accept balanced line level TRS jacks, incidentally. The onboard A/D conversion, while not up to Apogee standards, is quite respectable, and subjectively sounds good enough. Another advantage over the R8 is the limited – but still very useful – ‘meter bridge’, making it much easier to keep an eye on incoming levels. In most respects, operation is very similar to the R8. There are not too many nested menus, and most basic operations are fast and intuitive. The built-in FX are, as you would expect, not too much to write home about, and adjusting them (compression and EQ, for example) is not much fun. Real dials and knobs (or at least realistic on-screen representations of them) make a huge difference here. I suspect most will avoid these, and apply such FX via separate DAW later. Used simply as a machine for grabbing live tracks for later processing, this recorder is a real bargain. It does this extremely well. It is also very good for basic overdubbing on the move. Portability for a 16-tracker is outstanding. Operation for the most part is very simple and straightforward. If you have any recording experience at all, you should be up and running in a few minutes. If you have zero experience, then yes, you will need to study the manual. There is also a helpful Zoom recorder user forum. As a portable multi-tracker this recorder is well worth the money. Not too many years ago, you would have to spend many thousands to get something that is not even half as capable.

I bought one of these units going by the recommendations already here on Amazon.

First of all the unit is amazing for the price. The ability to record up to 8 tracks simultaneously and 16 in total is probably unrivalled for the price and this sort of capability would have cost thousands only a few years ago.

To produce a unit at this price there have to be a few compromises. An example of this is the lack of direct easy access to controls such as panning and equalisation. These are accessed via several button presses. However, the main controls are well thought out and generally quite intuitive. The built-in microphones are quite adequate but may be switched out if higher quality devices are being used. Mixing only becomes a problem if more than 8 tracks are used as each volume sliders is used for two channels (depending on which bank of 8 the controls are currently switched to) – it’s rather easy to lose a setting for a channel if you don’t remember which bank is currently switched in. However, in most cases you will be transferring the results to a computer and working on the final mixes there. The unit comes with a version of Cubase (LE 6) though, having experienced Cubase in the past and not liking it, I haven’t bothered to install that. I now use Reaper instead and the R16 tracks can be dragged into Reaper very easily for further processing.

The only problem encountered was that first unit I received was faulty – 2 of the inputs didn’t work. Amazon would only refund the price and not replace the unit as it was sold through a third party (Music Gear) so I contacted Music Gear and they exchanged the unit quickly without quibble and I was only without an R16 for less than a week, though I did have to pay for the return postage.

Amazing value for money and very easy to use. I haven’t used this enough yet to give a considered opinion, but these initial impressions are excellent. The first one that arrived had a dead screeen, but MusicGear replaced it without question, by return.

I thought very carefully before laying out 319 on this little beauty. The trouble with buying something new, meaning a new product to the market, is that it hasn’t been truly tested. Anyway I ‘bit the bullet’ and ordered it.

At first I just wanted to open the box and start playing without looking at the manual (so like a man I can hear the women saying) and because I am new to multitrack recorders, I gave in and picked up the book. The instructions were (mostly) clear and easy (easy-ish) to follow and I was up and running after just a few minutes.

I’ve had it now for just over a week and to be honest, I am liking it more and more. I did have a few problems loading Cubase LE4, but after I realised that the mistake was entirely mine, Cubase was up and running on my laptop. Again I needed to look into the instructions, this time not the manual that came with it, but seperate instructions that are to be found on the disc containing the driver for the R16. Once I had sorted all that out, magic!

On the plus side: Small, but not too small, portable, works on 6 AA batteries that seem to last for ages, loads of effects (although I will probably never use them as the effects on LE4 are amazing), clear screen, 8 tracks recordable at once (although I would never use 8 at a time), works well with LE4 as a controller, silent operation, records onto SDHC cards which have greatly come down in price recently, on board mikes if necessary and it looks good too.

On the minus side: Can be fiddly to use/get used to, the preamps are OK, but only OK (I use an external preamp for recording voice, an ART Tube MP, which is brilliant with it). Apart from that, no other niggles really.

I am not very experienced when it comes to multitracks and I need to learn the basics, but using the Zoom R16 can be quite straight forward SO LONG AS YOU READ THE MANUALS – why do we men do that? I have read the manual that comes in the box and the disc based instructions which I printed out, both many times now, and I am itching to put all my new knowledge to good use.

When I first looked at the possibility of buying a multitrack recorder quite a few years ago, it was a cassette tape version with 4 track recording. This unit is so far removed from that first ‘Portastudio’ that you cannot even begin to compare the two. For a little over 300 you get:

1 A 16 track digital recorder
2 8 inputs including Hi-Z for guitar and 48v phantom power (on 2 channels)
3 A portable silent recorder using batteries and SDHC cards
4 An interface to connect microphones etc direct to computer
5 A DAW software controller complete with Cubase LE4
6 Hundreds of effects built in

There must be more, but I have only had this unit for 10 days.

Bottom line then – this is simply AMAZING, it’s not perfect, it won’t take the place of professional equipment, but believe me, it comes close. If you are reading this, then I assume you are interested in buying it – so go ahead, buy it and enjoy it.