Livetrak L-20 Input Signal can't be stopped!

Z

Zoom Dave

New member
Hi All,
New to the forums and looking for some help as I'm not getting any answers from the manufacturer or the seller on this one.
So I got a Livetrak L-20 as I do a bit of home recording and also needed something that could record a whole band in a live set-up... it seemed a reasonable choice. As we're still locked down, I set the L-20 up at home to do some solo stuff. I connected amps, mics and a drum box and set about recording a basic pass of vocals and guitar wearing headphones for monitoring. Great sound... was very happy with the on board effects as it made me sound like I can sing.
Now here's where things went wrong.
I wanted to overdub some keyboard so I set the kb channels to REC (red) and set the vocal, guitar and drum tracks to PLAY (green). As I was no longer needing the headphones I turned on my live monitors and was instantly greeted by the howl of feedback from the vocal mic. It seems that there is no way to turn off the input signal. If I mute it or turn the volume down, I can't hear the vocal playback. I even hear the signal if the REC/PLAY selector is off.
I had a Zoom R-16 a while ago and I seem to remember that if the channel wasn't red you couldn't hear the input signal. The L-20 seems to always pass this signal through regardless of what your trying to do. Idling or recording... it's always there. I can turn the gain right down but it still ain't off off.
Can anyone help? Is this a design flaw or design fact? Why would you ever want to hear the playback and input on the same channel at the same time?
The firmware is v1.14 which is up to date as far as I know.

If I'm missing something simple then I can't wait for my stupidity to be cured because I've given myself brain block just thinking about it.

Zoom D
 
Thanks guys.
@bouldersoundguy Yes, page 5 of the user manual says that input signals are disabled when the channel is set to play but that is not my experience. To reiterate the input signal is always present unless the channel is muted or the fader is slid right down. The signal won't be recorded when it's green but that doesn't mean the signal is disabled.
@keith.rogers If I mute the channel, I can't hear it playing back when I'm recording other instruments. There are many things I could do like unplugging the mic's before using live monitoring. My point is that it seems counter-intuitive to have to do this when the R-16 had this nailed on. Even my Fostex 280 didn't do anything as stupid as this and that was 30 years ago.
I just can't believe that it is supposed to work like this. Anyone got a number for Zoom's product development department?
 
I have experienced the same behaviour with an L-12. As I was using a condenser mic I could turn off the phantom power to avoid the feedback when listening to a freshly recorded vocal through the monitors. Of course this is also easy to forget and won't work with dynamic mics. I hope a firmware update will bring a solution for this.
 
Thanks Kheylen. I was beginning to think mine was broken.
Maybe an update might make it do what the user manual says it should... We live in hope.
 
Disclaimer....I don't own an L20 nor have I played with one.

The block diagram sort of suggests that the 'REC/PLAY' switch can disable the path of the input through to the L/R master buss. However the is a software switch called 'REC SOURCE' that depending where it's set sends the input to the SD Card. What happens with the audio when it's sent to the SD Card isn't shown on the block diagram and I wonder if somewhere the audio gets back to an output buss to enable monitoring of the input(?). The 'REC/SOURCE' is in a menu where it can be accessed and changed and might be worth a try to toggle it to another state.

If the L20 is set for 96 kHz recording, it appears some monitoring and overdubbing functions change. If presently set at 96 kHz, try a lower rate. May not change things, but worth a shot.
There is an 'OVERDUB' button that I'm not totally clear on what that does and perhaps playing with either its ON/OFF setting may do what you want. Punch-in seems to make use of the 'OVERDUB' function button also.

The L20 is also intended as a live mixer besides being a recorder. If a channel is in either 'PLAY' or 'OFF' mode and the input signal did not pass through I'm not sure how that would be useful for a live mixer. For use as a live mixer the input needs to pass through somehow.

Does lowering the channel gain knob to minimum kill enough of the input so as to not cause feedback?
 

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Hi Arcaxis,
The REC SOURCE simply toggles whether the recorded signal is pre or post compressor. That would be a weird way for the problem to be solved but I'll give it a go.
I have the L-20 set to 44.1kHz at the moment. I'm not sure I've had it up to 96kHz yet... or if I ever would. Seems to require reformatting of the SD card to do so.
The OVERDUB button has to be on to prevent the L-20 automatically creating a new project when you set any channels to REC... it essentially means 'I'm still working on this track!'
As a live mixer then yes, I see your point but I want to either record a signal, play it back or pass it through. I don't see why I can still hear it during play back? That's the one situation where I want it off. The REC/PLAY has three states and it seems like this could be achieved if setting it to play did what it said in the manual and disabled the input signal.
Turning the gain down does attenuate the signal... but the purist in me is still concerned that it is still there. And if I want to rerecord on that channel, I need to set the gain again.
As previously mentioned, there are workarounds but I'm surprised I'm having to even think about them.
Zoom Corp are conspicuously silent during these proceedings.
ZD
 
Hi Dave, I just found this group and wanted to chime in to say I've found the SAME darned issue.. getting feedback and trying everything to fix it.. as you say, even with gain all the way down.. I had to unplug my mic inputs.. am testing again this weekend and will post if I find a fix.. it IS frustrating because I have 8 drum mics and don't want to have to pull them out every time I want to try some overdubs.. the vocal mics with switches, no prob, my sm57s for amps, also an issue. Hope we get this sorted out!
 
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