Anyone here use the Zoom R24 to record?

cyber3d

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In my workflow I need to mute on and off a channel. I am wondering if the button is completely silent or does it click (in the recording). I could use the fader slider but I find it hard to get it back to the original level consistently (I do my final edits on the computer BTW).

Is this product built really well? It's setup looks very confusing. Is it?
 
In my workflow I need to mute on and off a channel. I am wondering if the button is completely silent or does it click (in the recording). I could use the fader slider but I find it hard to get it back to the original level consistently (I do my final edits on the computer BTW).

Is this product built really well? It's setup looks very confusing. Is it?

I don't own nor have used this unit, but have used similar units from Tascam, Roland and Fostex over the years...but most of them work in a similar way.

Are you muting/unmuting while recording? (This is also typically referred to as 'punch in' or 'punch out' if you need to redo a phrase on the same track and overwrite a section that was previously recorded with a new 'take')

If not muting/unmuting while recording, when you 'arm' a track for recording, prior to hitting the REC button, there should be no click recorded.

If you are not selectively arming and dis-arming tracks, and instead muting them, with all tracks armed but muted, you are in fact recording 'silence' and filling the unused tracks, which if using the microSD card, will reduce your recording storage time.

If instead of all the above you are muting only on playback, and hear a click when doing so, this should not effect anything that was previously recorded.

Did you buy and use this already, or are you trying to figure out if it would work for you, before buying it?
 
Hey Booli, yes. checking it out. I need it to do double duty and in the field. Want to record 1 vocalist and two amped or mic'd guitar/ukes. I also want to record 2 wireless lav mics, 1 shotgun condenser, and 2 wireless handhelds for these workshops I record. For the workshops I want to reduce the handling noise of the two wireless handhelds (Sennheiser mics with 835 capsules). If I can mute those two feeds in between speakers on my end with the mute button that would work well for me - if they are silent! Normally faders would be ok but, I never could get them back to the original levels by hand. Editing out the mic noises is such a pain in the butt. These workshops are 3 to 4 days long.
 
Hey Booli, yes. checking it out. I need it to do double duty and in the field. Want to record 1 vocalist and two amped or mic'd guitar/ukes. I also want to record 2 wireless lav mics, 1 shotgun condenser, and 2 wireless handhelds for these workshops I record. For the workshops I want to reduce the handling noise of the two wireless handhelds (Sennheiser mics with 835 capsules). If I can mute those two feeds in between speakers on my end with the mute button that would work well for me - if they are silent! Normally faders would be ok but, I never could get them back to the original levels by hand. Editing out the mic noises is such a pain in the butt. These workshops are 3 to 4 days long.

Ahh, ok I see, primarily for field recording of multiple input sources to discrete tracks - this means that automation is not going to be an option.

Automation will let you adjust things like gain, and effects, but this is usually done in post.

if there is a noise-gate built-in with the R24, you could put that effect first in the chain (for each handheld mic track), and for a second effect, then use a limiter to prevent volume spikes and clipping and set the threshold of the limiter to -3db, which will quiet the peaks but still allow headroom for normalization in post.

I am assuming your are going to record to the internal microSD card in the field, and then do some cleanup in post on the computer? Correct me if I am wrong.

This actually becomes easier if you are going to use the computer, because of that automation I spoke of.

Most decent DAW software will let you set automation curves, and for the discrete tracks where the handheld mics are used, you can set the automation to basically null the gain of each track where there is undesireable handling noise, and then 100ms before the speaking or singing is to resume, your automation curve can have the gain back to -3 db or 0 db again for normal levels.

Once you set the automation curves for each track, when you mixdown to stereo, it's like a magic robot was riding the faders to control the levels, and your exported track will have this all done for you.

Also, on the computer, if you use a limiter or normalization to -3db on the 'master output', your volume will be even all across the runtime of the exported audio file, regardless of any spikes or peaks, and this will sound MUCH better than without.

Is this audio going to be married with video footage later on?

Have you done any of this before, like am I preaching to the choir, or is this all too techie for you right now?

Please let me know and I will do my best to help further. :)
 
Ahh, ok I see, primarily for field recording of multiple input sources to discrete tracks - this means that automation is not going to be an option.

Automation will let you adjust things like gain, and effects, but this is usually done in post.

if there is a noise-gate built-in with the R24, you could put that effect first in the chain (for each handheld mic track), and for a second effect, then use a limiter to prevent volume spikes and clipping and set the threshold of the limiter to -3db, which will quiet the peaks but still allow headroom for normalization in post.

I am assuming your are going to record to the internal microSD card in the field, and then do some cleanup in post on the computer? Correct me if I am wrong.

This actually becomes easier if you are going to use the computer, because of that automation I spoke of.

Most decent DAW software will let you set automation curves, and for the discrete tracks where the handheld mics are used, you can set the automation to basically null the gain of each track where there is undesireable handling noise, and then 100ms before the speaking or singing is to resume, your automation curve can have the gain back to -3 db or 0 db again for normal levels.

Once you set the automation curves for each track, when you mixdown to stereo, it's like a magic robot was riding the faders to control the levels, and your exported track will have this all done for you.

Also, on the computer, if you use a limiter or normalization to -3db on the 'master output', your volume will be even all across the runtime of the exported audio file, regardless of any spikes or peaks, and this will sound MUCH better than without.

Is this audio going to be married with video footage later on?

Have you done any of this before, like am I preaching to the choir, or is this all too techie for you right now?

Please let me know and I will do my best to help further. :)

Unfortunately, the R24 has not noise gate, no notch filter, just effects. Now, I DO make extensive use of Adobe Audition for my productions. And Premiere Pro to handle the video end.

Thank you so much for your time and expertise.

The R24 still seems like the best "bang for the buck" I might go ahead and get it. My next gig will in in April. I'll have time to suss it out.
 
Unfortunately, the R24 has not noise gate, no notch filter, just effects. Now, I DO make extensive use of Adobe Audition for my productions. And Premiere Pro to handle the video end.

Thank you so much for your time and expertise.

The R24 still seems like the best "bang for the buck" I might go ahead and get it. My next gig will in in April. I'll have time to suss it out.

If the built-in effects do not have a noise gate, that's not a big deal if you are going to process the audio in post.

You can just record everything raw, and just watch your levels and keep at a max of -3db to prevent clipping, if you are worried about peaks and spikes you can always set the max levels for each track and for the master to -6db (which will give you more headroom before clipping), and the gain you can 'make up' in post with a 'limiter' and a 'leveler' in your effect chain on each track. Then you can normalize the 'master' when exporting.

I do not use Audition, but have watched a handful of videos on it. IIRC it had automation, can you confirm?

if Audition has automation, then it should only take you one full pass for each discrete audio track to create an automation curve for the gain levels, or you could BUS your tracks that need this to a new 'group', on another pair of tracks that has all the automation and effects on it, which sums the output. One other benefit of doing it this way is that it will consume less CPU resources and RAM than having to run each track with discrete effects and curves, which requires multiple instances of each effect, unless after you apply the effects to each track you 'freeze' the track with pre-renders the effect, and this saves resources while doing other edits.

There are a couple other ways to do this as well, but that is a very long post and maybe for another time...

I like Zoom products and yes, for me, they provide good value for money.

My only thing I'd want to confirm with the R24, is if you can retain the discrete audio tracks from the recordings on the microSD card and import them as discrete tracks or 'stems' into you DAW (Audition) - if so, and when you do this, they should all line up perfectly in the timeline when left- justified to 00:00:00 so you dont have to nudge or time-shift anything, which can get very wonky very fast and end up with a warbling sound due to the time-shiifting processing.

Either the discrete tracks are just WAV files in a folder on the microSD card or in some multiplex proprietary format, for which you need a program on the computer to split them out to individual files, OR there is some VST, AU or other plugin for your DAW that does a direct-import and the end result is that your project in the DAW automagically shows each discrete track similar to when the audio was recorded live to the microSD card.

Some research may be necessary...
 
FYI. I went with the Tascam DP24 (DP-24). After perusing the pro audio forums and watching YouTube videos by Phil Tipping, it is the better choice FOR ME over the Zoom R16.

Also, in my experience the S/N ratio of Zoom products are not as good (quiet) as Tascam products. That was my biggest struggle with the Zoom HN6. But, also, that interface of the Zoom R16 is just horrible IMO . . . well, relatively speaking. I guess any interface is going to be more complex when you try to put that much functionality into such a small footprint. Though still complex, the Tascam is much more thoughtful in it's UIX. To minimize the number of controls they both layer their functionality in deeper and deeper layers. The LCD screen of the DP24 is higher resolution, colorful and logical. So much easier to glance at and understand what is going on.

The features that the Zoom R16 has over the Tascam (that I won't miss that much at least for my purposes) are: stereo microphones built into the chassis, Drum pads (buttons), and a metronome.

Why not go for a desktop, MacBook, or iPad DAW? I have not found a suitable (price/performance) XLR interface with 6 inputs. I have to feed and mix 6 sound sources in a live environment. And the fact that I am old school and want those faders I can actually touch and slide!

There is, for me, one downside of the Tascam. It is a big device at 20" x 13" and 14 lbs.

It should arrive on March 12 so I have a few weeks to get up to speed on it. We'll see.
 
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I have an R16.

I haven't compared the Tascam DP-24 but the zoom seems pretty well laid out to me and I haven't noticed any SnR type issues either. The Zoom R series double as an interface BTW using Native drivers or ASIO4ALL

If you are using a DAW then this is a great option for recording direct instead of saving intermediate wav files first. If you do decide to record direct into the unit, you can punch in and out or mute tracks without concern about "clicks or pops" as you mentioned, but I would be inclined to just set your levels and let everything record and mute the necessary parts in post after export. That's way easier.

If you were to punch in on a track during recording, that track will still be the exact same length as all the other tracks. It automatically adds the silent bit to the beginning of the project timeline. This keeps everything synced up.

One caveat about exporting using the R24 - it's probably not a concern for your purpose but if you work with drum tracks etc, these export only as samples, not the full project length. You can get around this by bouncing the full performance of the looped/sequenced drums to a new track prior to export. This sounds like a pain but that's the best way I can think of.

One other nice thing about the Zoom R's, you can slave them together to get 16 physical tracks.

My gripes with the R16 are you only get phantom power on two tracks (5,6) The Tascam can supply power to ALL tracks, which can be good or bad depending on how careful you are! The insert effects only work on one track at a time and you have to reassign them to the input if you switch from record to playback, which is a pain. The send return effects are more useful to me since they are always on and available to any track. They have some pretty nice reverb and delay type global effects. Once again though, these are only working during playback unless you want to burn the wet sound into each track. I don't recommend it. Better to get the dry sound from each track when you export.
 
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