BR1600 is it actually 16 tracks?

[stone4140]

I am fairly familiar with recording. I have worked with sonar for years but recently picked up a BR1600 for a good deal. I wanted to be able to record multiple tracks at one time with effects and my computer could not hack that or even get close. So now my ? is am I limited to laying down only 8 mono tracks. Say I have 6 mono tracks for the drums and 2 mono for guitar and vocal and then I want to go back and overdub a guitar solo. Is my only option to record in stereo on the 9/10-15/16 tracks. I know I could bounce some drums to those stereo tracks but how if I wanted to keep them all mono? Also CAn ya really even use 9/10 if that track has to stay open for mixing down to cd later on. Wouldn't that actually just make it a 14 track recorder? I love the thing so far and if I have to I will just record more stereo tracks for the drums. But I really was hoping to lay down solo instruments in mono after getting a song completed with drums,vocals and acoustic. My goal is to add atleast 1 acoustic solo track in each song and maybe some keyboard as well on some tracks. Thanks

 

[Lt. Bob]

well first off .... all a stereo track is, is 2 tracks panned left and right. So any two tracks can be used as a stereo pair.
So I'd use the stereo tracks for things that you want to be in stereo and save the others for your mono sources.

As for the last two tracks ....... I thought they had an extra couple of tracks available for the mixdown but I could be wrong. If you're mixing down internally then for sure you're gonna have to save a stereo track for that.
personally I'd mix it all down to an external CD recorder so I wouldn't mix to itself anyways.
If you want to clear some space just take those 6 mono drum tracks and mix them down to two tracks or a single stereo track and that'd free up those 6 tracks for something else.
Actually ...... I'd probably mix the drums to 3 tracks so one could be just for kick.

 

[clivus]

I think that the BR 1600 is a great piece of gear for field recording. I usually convert the tracks to WAV files and import them into a DAW for editing. Then I have unlimited overdubs.

 

[mjbphotos]

You can record on the first virtual level of 9/10, so for the first mix down you are going from 9/10V1 to 9/10V2, after that, no, you cannot use that track for more recording for subsequent mixdowns because you are using 9/10V2 already to go to 9/10V3, etc.
Yes, it's not really 16 track as it counts the stereo pairs as 2 tracks. But all manufacturers do that. My Mackie ProFX12 mixer has 4 mono channels and 4 stereo channels, yet they count it as 12 channel.