Zoom R16

macmike

New member
Hi, New to this forum. I have a Zoom R16. My personal opinion of the R16 manual is that it's not too good.

Where I'm having trouble is how to select an effect and to select it to a particular channel.
Also, how to modify the strength of the effect.

Also, after I record a master...and then turn the machine off and come back to it...I can't seem to play the tracks any longer.
I can play the master but not the tracks. I hope I've explained that ok.

I hope I can get used to this recorder. I really like the ability to record 8 tracks at once. And it sounds decent too.

I'm also having trouble bouncing tracks...still a mystery to me how to do that. The manual?..yeah right...

Thanks for any help.
 
Hi, New to this forum. I have a Zoom R16. My personal opinion of the R16 manual is that it's not too good.

Where I'm having trouble is how to select an effect and to select it to a particular channel.
Also, how to modify the strength of the effect.

Also, after I record a master...and then turn the machine off and come back to it...I can't seem to play the tracks any longer.
I can play the master but not the tracks. I hope I've explained that ok.

I hope I can get used to this recorder. I really like the ability to record 8 tracks at once. And it sounds decent too.

I'm also having trouble bouncing tracks...still a mystery to me how to do that. The manual?..yeah right...

Thanks for any help.

I've had an R16 for a couple of years now. It's a great little box. I haven't used it as a standalone in awhile tho. It's my interface and control surface for Sonar now (which is the original reason I bought it.)

You're right tho...the manual is pretty horrific. Here's a dedicated Zomm R16 forum....it's got alot of good info.

Zoom Gear & Home Recording Forum • View forum - Zoom HD8cd, Zoom HD16cd, Zoom R8, R16 & R24
 
The Zoom manual does make it a little tricky to take on board all the functions mainly because there is so much crammed in the book by virtue of the fact that the piece of kit has a lot of features. Playing tracks rather than the master is a case of depressing the button at the top of where the master slider is located. The same kind of button which is present for each track to allow the user to have tracks set in play mode/record or off. Depressing that button on the master will make the corresponding led either green for play, red for record or off, at which point the led's for the active tracks will illuminate to allow level control and subsequent recording.

Insert effects won't work unless you select the track/s correctly. You have options to select inputs for effects which becomes a bit confusing as depending on other settings you hear the dry sound while recording but the recorded track is wet. If you select track/s the effects are heard while recording and playing back. You must also correctly select either a mono or stereo option depending upon if you have tracks stereo linked. Once the correct option has been selected you can scroll down to and select edit which will enable the activation of effects which are relevant to your initial selections on the first effect page which appears after selecting insert effect. For instance if "stereo" is selected for a pair of linked tracks, the options below it will be different to if you select "distortion" and so on.

It's worth having a source play through a track or pair of tracks for a while and tinkering with how the options effect the incoming audio to get an idea of what's available. Selecting mastering effect will allow you to select a bank of tracks to apply effects to and so on. I'ts mainly hard to figure because there are so many options, and familiarising yourself by doing it with the recorder is probably your best option.

all the best

Tim
 
Thank you Tim,
I appreciate the advice.
One thing though that is driving me nuts is when I make a master, then remove the SD card and put it into My PC to run in Audacity...
Then find that I didn't bring the voice up enough...so I put the SD card back into the R16 to re-mix. I load the project but I can't hear any audio either from the tracks or the master. No matter what lights are showing, red, green or naught. The files are there on the SD card but the R16 won't play them...I see the counter clicking away but no sound. What happened? ...what am I missing here? I can't find anything in the manual that addresses this. Any ideas??
 
I think what's happening is that you are altering track parameters by using the SD card on your pc, and then the project info that is written by your R16 while the project is active is then not correct. When a project is open in your R16 it saves other data besides the audio. For instance, effect info, slider ride positions and so on.

Your approach needs to be, A record your tracks on your R16, B insert a USB stick into the Zoom's orifice and via the USB menu save either tracks one at a time or whole project to the USB flash drive.

C, work on your PC with the tracks, via the USB stick, saving any changes to that location.

D, plug your USB stick back in the R16 and select via USB menu file load, and load tracks into project (having aleady altered their file names in audacity by adding 1 on the end or similar or naming them, Vocal, Bass, Drums ect) just so you preserve the originals within the project.

E, load the tracks into your project, one at a time. F, push the button which is named "track" and select the new tracks you have loaded to the R16, one by one into the track positions you want, ensuring that you stereo link tracks which are going to have stereo files loaded into them.

You can then play around mixing your whole track using the R16 controls and the Job's a good un.

Obviously you don't trim anything from the starts of the tracks in audacity or you'll have some additional entertainment, but eq, compression and the whole array of other stuff available by using audacity can be used. it can be useful to have a couple of versions of some recordings which differ tonally after being manipulated in audacity which gives you the option to mix them on your Zoom to get another set of options sound-wise, when mixing your whole track, also useful for fattening up vocals by panning two tracks 10-20% left and right of center. Any additional duplicates must have different file names as already mentioned i.e drums1, drums2, drums3.

You can also mix some tracks together in audacity to free up tracks on your Zoom if need be, but be prepared to do that a few times as the requirements for those takes might differ slightly once you have all the animals in the zoo. There is no substitute for having full control of each individual take but if you do run out of tracks, master record a couple of takes on your Zoom and load that mix to one stereo track to free up a track. you can always re load the takes back into two tracks on the Zoom if you want to tinker again. You can even open a new project and load some of the same tracks and play around using two projects and then mix it all down in stages. Use what you have lol.

The same applies to any take that's a bit thin or you want to strengthen its presence in the overall track. Copy everything is a good start, and never mess with the SD card straight out of the Zoom other than copying from it. Exception being, using it on someone else's Zoom to save a copy of their project or tracks.

If you do, double up a number of takes to give you additional creative control, bear in mind that you'll need to drop the level of every track if you end up with a lot of tracks contributing to the whole. The reason being that you'll start clipping, as lots of quiet tracks can become very peaky when combined and soon max out your headroom.

all the best

Tim
 
I have since discovered the problem I've been having. My HP PC has an SD card reader built in. So it's very easy to pop one in and out just like a regular USB stick. That said, I would remove the card frequently and put it into my PC to edit further. Well, I have since found that if I don't save the card by pushing stop and then the project button or...switching the power off at the R16 power switch, I lose the track information.
Without the track information there cannot be any sound heard when trying to replay the project. I guess I've been simply popping the SD card out without saving. Hmmm big no-no :-)

Also, I have learned to re-assign the tracks after the fact by following the information on page 58 of the op manual.

Quite a lesson for this newbee to the R16.

I also learned about Audacity and how it can do just about everything including multitrack. It seems so easy to just load the mono tracks into Audacity and edit away. You learn something every day...this was a good lesson. Thanks everyone for helping.
 
macmike,
I'm glad you're finding your way. The R16 is good but not as inuitive as some other gear. I quite like it but you seem to have progressed further along than I have so well done mate.
Keep posting - don't forget the MP3 Mixing Clinic when you get a mix soorted.
 
RayC, Could you give me some more information about this MP3 Mixing Clinic? Maybe a link or something? I don't know where to start to find this. Thanks.
 
How can I assign an effect without changing the effects already on the other tracks? I'm having this problem when I attempt to record more than one track at a time.
 
Newbie, here.
Can't find where to start a new thread, so....
A friend is sending me a 16-bit, 44.1 .wav file.
How can I import it into my R16 so I can overdub additional parts?
Can I just copy an existing project to my pc and then replace one of the wav files with the new one and then re-isnert into the R12?
 
First you need to make sure its a mono file. If its stereo you need to split it into two separate mono files.

You cant just copy the file to a project and expect it to be seen. You'll need to create a project on the Zoom. Make sure you set it up so that its the same bit depth and sample rate. You should then be able to copy the file to the project/audio directory from your PC. From there you can import it into the project in the Zoom.

For the R16 its on page 64 of the manual.
 
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