Product ReviewsZoom R16 Digital Interface Controller SD Recorder

A lot more bang for your buck.

I've been looking to buy an interface and a portable recorder, this combines both and at about half the price of buying the combination, plus it also works quite well as a controller in the DAW. Why no one else has come up with a competing product is beyond me, but with 8 inputs, a controller interface, and an onboard recorder(16 tracks worth), you can't beat the value on this. There's absolutely nothing close to it in the price range as a single unit or otherwise. Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: tokky-plus

It is good, if it is brand new!

This is a good product, if it works right. I ordered this product, and it only works half the time. It powers down by itself at random times. The reason I bought this is cause my friend bought one (A brand new one), and I used it and liked it. I was going to buy one. This product is discontinued, so I decided to buy a used one. I risky move. So, I found one at a reasoning price, and it was listed "mint", so I bought it. Now it doesn't work half the time and there are no returns on this product. So, this is my review. Like buying a used car, is it a lemon or not! But life happens!Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: miamitape

Not the R24 minus 8 tracks and drum machine

It's pretty good for the price. Definitely does a lot. I read that it was basically the R24 (which i already own) minus the 8 extra tracks and drum machine, but that's not true. It's more different than that.

It has a much worse screen, terrible menus, and a very strange "insert" naming convention where every time you go to change a letter it actually adds one so you either have to delete all the extra letters or end up with a bunch of weird names. I would have bought the R24 again I'd known it was going to be this much worse of an interface. The R24 is a solid 5-star device.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: ultradeluxe73

Lightweight, compact, versatile, and easy to use.

I purchased this unit to connect it with another r16 for simultaneous 16 track recording. So far it has worked flawlessly. It is lightweight and has small physical footprint. There are two suggestions I could make to the company. First of all, it would be a good idea to have a -10 or -20db switch for the input as sometimes the input signal, especially if you are getting a feed from a mixing board, such as during a live performance, can be too "hot" and cause the channel to peak. If it's only peaks occasionally you will not get distortion. Secondly, the VU meters are a little difficult to see if you are recording outdoors during the day. I know this unit was meant for multi-track, studio recording, and it works very well for that purpose. I've been using it for live recording and have no complaints except the two suggestions mentioned above.Read full review...

Lightweight and great suplement to existing kit

I find this very helpful when making videos, I can use all types of microphones as well as using the camcorder mics to establish time code so I rarely have the need for ADR. It is great to use for capturing live sounds for effects and foley.. It has blended well with my existing studio equipment.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: watchshop_japan

Great starter studio

Great starter studio setup, all in one, very portable, my use is for recording music, speeches, etc. for video. I looked at many and tried a few others in this range, prosumer class, this is what I chose to stick with for ease of use, lightweight, portable and enough features at your fingertips to make it all the better, need more features? Connect it to your computer and use with your fav DAW program, integrates well with my FL10, Audacity, ProTools programs, use with decent mics and some experience and it will sound very professional.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: gramfl65

Excellent: practical and affordable.

If you are into recording multiple tracks live but can't afford a laptop+software+interface-mixer this is your best shot.
Easy to operate, light as a feather, practical and affordable, it has all the tools you need (metronome, tuner, eq, reverb, delay and mastering effects, phantom power, USB connectivity and memory card slot) to make it your battle-horse.
It also can link with other R16 to make 32 tracks available. Plus it can be used as an 8x2 96 KHz Audio Interface and as controller surface. I use it with SONAR and runs nice and smoothly.
Once again, if affordability and practicability are an issue and quality is a concern, this is the thing.I highly recommend it.Read full review...

R16 digital multi track recorder

A very nice unit once you figure it out. Here's a tip. When recording (bounce) to single track do the first page then the second right after. The directions are kind of confusing. It has great multiple effects and 8 inputs for multiple instruments. Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: engorako82

It's not professional, but for the price it's the best out there. Buy it!

This is a fantastic unit for budget and portable use. Although the pre-amps aren't the most fantastic in the world (obvious because it's so cheap), it's convenient features more than make up for it. The faders are very smooth and not clunky, which is much better than every Behringer console I've ever used.

The use of the SD card and Zoom projects takes a little bit to get used to, and you have to name folders correctly to be able to access files, but once you get used to it it's a really wonderful feature for doing your basic mixes. Stay away from the effects, they are really terrible, the reverb is fake and glitchy and the dynamic processing is limited at best (mind the pun).

As an interface this is just fantastic. You can chuck this and a laptop in a backpack and it will be a light and durable portable recording studio. The internal microphones are actually really good, they're not studio quality but they work quite well as room mics. Only having 2 channels with phantom power is a little bit annoying, but with only 8 channels I guess that's all you need. If you really want, spend the money you save on some outboard condensor power supplies.

As a controller surface, it's pretty fantastic. It works really naturally with Logic, plug and play style. With ProTools it takes a little bit of a workaround and an external program called MidiPipe, but DON'T GIVE UP! It is definitely worth the trouble. It is a tiny bit annoying not having controls for panning, but the convenience of the transport controls once again makes up for it.Read full review...

brilliant

you can get a great profesional sound with this , would not recomend trying to upload the free cubase that comes with it , i had 2 days of mayhem trying to upload cubase , and as for trying to link cubase on your laptop/ computer , i just could'nt get it to work , but as for the recording studio zoom 16 track it is well worth the money 5 stars from me . tony .Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: nig252aheywjij