For a long time I've awaited the production of a small audio recording device with expressive flexibility. The announcement of the Zoom R16 in January 2009 gave me hope that a manufacturer was working on the problem. Since then I eagerly anticipated any new information, and looked forward to the expected June/July release. But then I read the manual. When the R16 was finally available for purchase, I did not hurry to order, as I already knew it suffered a major flaw in workflow and was not my dream machine. But, as an early adopter of the Zoom H4, I know the process, and purchased anyways to help support the company. Hopefully we can help them with the design of the Zoom R16 so that it may improve with future updates of both firmware and hardware.
I received my Zoom R16 on July 30th, 2009. Although there are some problems, there is nothing else like it on the market. For individual recording artists this brings a whole new level of power and flexibility. Finally we can go anywhere and take a quality studio with us, without the need for a noisy, slow, and unergonomical laptop computer.
Stores
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Audio
- Acoustic guitar Default 16bit project at 44.1kHz using built-in stereo microphones.
- Synthesizers 8 tracks of synths with R16 reverb and chorus send FX, plus master insert.
Video
- Unboxing with first startup (This is 720p for high-quality playback fullscreen. There is a lower quality YouTube version for slower connections.)
- Test project exploring basics
Tests
- Latency compensation When you record on track 2 while listening to track 1, there will be ~1.3ms uncorrected delay between what is on track 1 and 2 in the final playback.
- Timing drift When recording audio for use as a soundtrack to a video source the H4 has timing drift, what about the R16? Yes. The recorded audio inconsistently drifts by ~3.6ms/min.
- Timing Hear the timing drift described in other tests.
- Frequency sweep See if the R16 has flat response at all frequencies.
- Crosstalk There's some crosstalk between channels, but way below the noise floor.
- Battery life How long can you record with NiMH batteries? Surprisingly, over 8 hours. That's not bad.
- Recording time: A 1GB SD card gives you 3hours 13minutes@16bit, 2hours 8minutes@24bit. But it seems you can only record up to 2hours per file.
Awesomeness
- Completely silent. No fans. No motors. Nothing. Most computers and portastudios have at least the sound of the hard drive spinning, and usually one or more cooling fans. The R16 is completely silent
- 24-bit recording. Finally. There is no other device in this class that records to 24-bit. It should be standard by now, but it isn't. Zoom is paving the way for the rest to follow.
- Powered by batteries. Not only is it the size of a laptop computer, but it is as portable as one too. Being able to use batteries as a power source means you can unplug those tangled cords, and disconnect from your work environment. Go for a walk to the park, mix in your hotel room, record from a center seat with no electrical outlets in sight.
- Built-in stereo microphones. The power of this device is amplified several times by the inclusion of built-in quality microphones. Now all you need are headphones, batteries, and a sound source such as your voice, and you can be anywhere recording multitrack audio.
- Tuner. When you're sitting on the grass with headphones and guitar, you want to carry as little as possible to make your experience more enjoyable. Now you don't need to pocket a tuner, as your R16 is ready to transform into one with some clicks in the Tools menu.
- Multiple editable FX. The MR-8 MkII has a single FX send with a few choices of cheap-sounding reverb/delay, and a master FX with no real ability to tweak anything. The result is, you never use them in the mix because they are essentially useless. The Zoom R16 on the other hand has 2 send FX, and an insert FX, which sound good, can be tweaked, and are routable in many possible ways. This allows you to actually use built-in FX. You can add some reverb only to the monitor section of an input so a vocalist can feel more confident while you catch the dry signal, or route to a track and use the bounce function to apply it to a .wav. When you're done with your project you can route it to the master track to boost the final mix and bounce to the final .wav.
- Load and Save to USB host. This basically makes this thing as powerful as a laptop for audio. I can record on my H4, plug it into the R16, and load my .wav into my project! Or I can make a beat on my MPC500, load it into the R16 as a stereo track, and I'm ready to overlay instrumentation. If I make changes to the beat, I just reload a file and assign it to that track. To be doubly clear, this is all done without ever touching a computer! For final distribution I can load the master .wav into the H4 and use the MP3 compress function to create a file for uploading to the web.
- Power off without thought. With the MPC500 everything is in RAM until you manually go into a menu to save to a file. That means if someone calls for you and you hit the power and run, everything is gone. But with the R16 it automatically saves the project and shuts down gracefully. That means when you return and power-on you're right back where you started.
- Master track is just like the others. The master track behaves similarly to the rest. That means you can arm it for record, and audio from the other tracks is instantly routed to that track. It also means you can route FX to it the same way as others. This was a smart design decision because it feels consistent and allows for flexibility that could not be achieved had they separated it significantly.
Problems
- Peak LEDs light up when there's no input . If you peak inputs 1/2, 3/4 light up partially. If you peak 1/8, 4/5 light up partially. Not a big deal, but distracting.
- Master fader not accurately calibrated. When I position my master fader so it is on the 0 line, the actual setting it detects is 104. That should be 100.
- Recordings limited to 2 hours. This isn't usually a problem, but might be something to be aware of for some situations. During the battery test the recording stopped at exactly 02:00:00, which apparently means if you were recording a live session longer than 2 hours you'd miss part of the performance. You'd have to restart the recording at the 2hour mark.
- No bank indicator in Controller mode. When acting as a control surface, you move through tracks in banks of 8. If you wanted to mute track 9 you'd have to bank up once from the 1-8 bank. But there is no indication anywhere of what your current bank is. Suppose you had 64tracks and wanted to control track 23. You have no idea where you are, or how many times to bank, in which direction. It's like trying to drive blindfolded.
- Can't preview .wav files in Load mode. When loading a .wav from a USB device or the SD card, the filenames are shown, but you can't hear previews. A button should be set so you can press and hold it to play the file so you know which one to load.
- Drivers do not install on Windows 64bit. I have a Core i7, using Windows 7 64bit, and when I try to install the drivers that came on the CD-rom it says:
R16 Driver requires an X86 processor.
- Recordings are not offset to compensate for internal latency. There is a certain amount of delay between when a signal is heard from the outputs, and a signal is recorded from the inputs. If you record a drum beat on track 1, and play it back while recording guitar on track 2, you want your performance to align perfectly as you heard it, just as if it were all done at once live. But the machine has a certain amount of internal latency, so what you record cannot align perfectly to what you hear. The firmware should offset the recording to compensate for this, but it does not, so your guitar chord and drum hit will be off by 1.3ms according to my Zoom R16 latency test.
- Inputs should be routable to every channel. Once I've plugged in my 8 inputs, I want to be able to assign them to any fader strip I want. Otherwise I have to constantly manage and plan for how to maneuver the future recordings. If I've already recorded two stereo tracks from the mics, there is no way to record more. So I need to move those files somewhere else. But I can't use the swap function because they're stereo. So I have to manually unassign those tracks, then assign to another. But then I have to set that one for stereo link and lose all my Pan/EQ/FX settings as seen in test project video @ 8:32 - 10:06. This greatly limits efficiency and flexibility.
- Stereo tracks should be able to use a single fader. The stereo link option causes extra mental work because you have to manage the idea that two strips can be set in a mode that causes them to become one. It also wastes a fader you could use for other tracks. I'd like to be able to assign a stereo recording to a single fader. That means if you used stereo files for all 16 tracks it would be 32 channels playing. There may be technical reasons for not doing so, but from an interface standpoint every fader strip should be usable for both mono and stereo tracks. The mode workaround is unintuitive and ruins the potential elegance of the device.
- Rewind/Forward should do live preview. When you hold down rewind or fast forward, you hear nothing. The Fostex MR-8 MkII at least lets you hear stuttering audio as it moves through time. But what I don't understood is why these devices have a nice big wheel, and all it does is move through menu options. A couple of buttons could do that just as well. It seems like false marketing, tricking people into thinking the wheel does something useful. The wheel should work like a jog/shuttle control, allowing you to move forward and reverse through the timeline, hearing where you are as you move.
- Menu navigation should be consistent. When I press 'Pan/EQ' the up/down arrows are used to move through the list of sub-menu items. When I press 'Tools' the left/right arrows are used to move through the list of sub-menu items. This is a major change, expecting me to switch from a vertical orientation to horizontal. This is like speeding down a hill and suddenly having to take a sharp left turn, it throws everything off and abrupts flow. Since the left/right keys are needed to change tracks in the 'Pan/EQ' section, all other menus should use up/down not left/right. Change them to be up/down and it'll be consistent.
- Some buttons should be customizable shortcuts. Optimally there'd be a button for every major function. If I want to set chorus send levels, a common task, I shouldn't have to click 9-11 times just to get to the menu option to do so. If there can't be more buttons, use combos. Or at least give a few buttons or combos I can set to go to my favorite menus. Efficiency of workflow is paramount. I'd much prefer memorizing a 2-key combination I can press and instantly jump somewhere than having to manually navigate into deep menu trees.
- Menu lists should loop. Do you want to set the chorus level for a track? Press 'Pan/EQ', and repeatedly click the down button 9 times. This is how we get repetitive stress injuries or lose creativity due to frustration with our tools. If the menu lists looped you could cut that down to 4 up-clicks, still too much, but an improvement.
- 'Pan/EQ' button should include the word 'FX'. That was initially the most unintuitive aspect of the device, figuring out how to turn on the FX. I spent too long searching through menus and trying different ideas for how you mix the FX wet/dry signal. This information was not in the manual under the Effects section. I had to search the PDF to find reference to the send level in the 'Pan/EQ' section. It was buried way down on the bottom below the EQ so I did not find it myself. I found everything else by myself easily, and read of another person with the same problem, which means this will be an issue for many people.
- Stereo tracks should be swappable. Until there are better ideas implemented, the track swap button is a primary tool for basic multi-track recording. But this is useless as soon as you decide to record stereo instead of mono.
- Tracks should have more tools. Being able to swap 2 tracks is a start, but there needs to be more functions. Delete a track, resetting all the values and unassigning the file. Copy a track, duplicating all its settings to another. Move a track, like Swap, but the originating track is reset to default not swapped.
- Fader response sometimes sluggish. As you can see in the test project video @ 4:52 - 5:23, sometimes there is a lot of delay between when you make a fader change and when you hear the actual change. It seems to have something to do with being in the menu.
- MIDI synchronization should be possible. This might be less important today. MIDI has a lot of problems, including latency. But it might be nice to be able to sync some gear with the R16. Rather than include MIDI ports, maybe they can do it through USB. Plug in a USB MIDI box for a PC and the firmware enables a sync option in the menu.
- Firmware source code should be open. When will they learn that all they really need to do is produce the hardware and we can do the rest. It would open up a new world in audio recording for the firmware to be open source. There's so much to gain, so little to lose. Like the AkaiOS initiative, we need one for Zoom too.
