To all you bands out there … throw away your hand-held recorders, a new toy is available – the Zoom R16. First of all, no I’m not sponsored by the Japanese to advertise this device. I just think it’s so great i wanted to share this with all you bands out there struggling to make some decent rehearsal recordings without bringing out the computers.

So what makes this device so great, well the price for one, but definitely the features are killer. With a price in the same range of those tiny, hard-to-handle-with-their-clumsy-navigation hand-held recorders, you get a device with A LOT MORE features.

The best things is that this device is very intuitive. Sure, there are a lot of menu’s, but after playing around with it for a couple of hours you are ready to go and surprise your band fellows.

After struggling for a couple of years with laptops and external sound card and connector cables or messing around with those tiny recorders I’m considering myself a happy camper with this mini studio.

Some of the features:

• 8 XLR/Line inputs (2 of them are phantom powered) – you can plug in just about everything with an output: guitars, microphones, bass amp line out, keyboards or piano.
• 2 build in microphones through which you can record – this feature comes in handy when your at home and in a lazy mood and you just want to capture some new idea quickly without loosing your inspiration by setting up some mic’s and connect cables … just power on, new project and go …
• Record up to 16 tracks (max 8 tracks at the time) – this is great for recording the whole band in one go and can be used perfectly for demo-making – after laying down the basic tracks you can still punch in overdubs or use the remaining (up to 16) free tracks to record or re-record certain parts or redo vocals and backings.
• Recorded music is stored on a SD card – easy for transfer of data or copying projects to your computer – this cards come in all different sizes nowadays, this device supports SD cards up to 32GB of data. Standard, this device comes with a 1GB SD card.
• There’s a setting where you can choose to record in 16bit or 24bit/44.1kHz and all files are stored as WAV, so no lame-ass mp3 support here.
• All recorded tracks are organized in a project folder (as separate tracks) with a possibility to do a quick mix down (1 stereo track) but you just as well copy the project to your computer and continue in your DAW to do some mixing or rearranging of the song.
• Metronome for click track recording – handy when you want to lay down a basic track during pre-production a move everything to the computer later on.
• Insert / send effects (guitars/basses/fx/mastering effects) – which you would probably not use when recording your band in the rehearsal room, but easy when composing on your own.
• USB connection for moving files between this device and your band members USB sticks or if you connect this device to your computer via USB, it functions as a card reader.
• Powered by batteries (up to 6 hours, not included), an adapter (included) or usb from a computer.

So, that’s it ? Well no, this device can also be used as a controller for your DAW and you can also use it as a sound card for direct recording music onto your computer.

So what else do you need after buying things (whenever you buy something there’s always this other thing you require to get going)? Well, in order to make some decent recordings i recommend you get a few XLR mic cables, 2 omni-directional microphones (Audio Technica AT-2020′s will do a great job) and a headphone.

I don’t go to a rehearsal without this device anymore …