The Acoustic Guitar Forum

Go Back   The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > RECORD

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #1  
Old 11-29-2021, 02:55 PM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default A friend just bought a new zoom r24, the interface (UI) looks ancient....

Is there a more modern unit? My quick looking around indicates these units were designed 10 years ago.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 11-29-2021, 04:34 PM
KevWind's Avatar
KevWind KevWind is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Edge of Wilderness Wyoming
Posts: 19,878
Default

Wondering why you are asking (which might influence the replies)

First by interface (UI) do you mean the little display ? Or just the look of mixer itself ?

the Mixer would not surprise me if the design is 10 years given there is only so much you can do with a mixer design

But I think more important why you are asking are you thinking about getting a mixer for recording for live use e? because depending on what you are looking to do there are all kinds of options .
__________________
Enjoy the Journey.... Kev...

KevWind at Soundcloud

KevWind at YouYube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD

System :
Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1

Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 11-29-2021, 06:07 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 8,794
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Is there a more modern unit? My quick looking around indicates these units were designed 10 years ago.
Zoom recently rolled out the new L series Livetrak mixer / recorders. I bought an L8 for my own personal small space use. The L20 is the closest thing to the R24 as far as abilities.

The R series haven't been upgraded in several years but they still work very well as a multi-track recorder, provided you use condenser mics. The pres are a bit noisy if you're tracking with dynamics. I owned an R24 and did live band recordings, transferring tracks to a PC for editing.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 11-29-2021, 06:26 PM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default

Thanks, it's more the UI that's on the built in LCD I'm concerned about. I looked briefly at the L units, they didn't seem to include the pad for drumming.

I'm interested in interfacing to DAW on my mac, and have looked at units like the Scarlett 2i2 and the Presonus Audiobox i1 as well.

I'm not ready to buy, just kicking tyres and seeing what the options are. I have a zoom h5 and have interfaced it via USB to garage band.

I'm getting to the stage where I know my future will include mixing to improve my audio and video recordings, at the moment I'm just using my H5 stand alone.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 11-29-2021, 07:20 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 8,794
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Thanks, it's more the UI that's on the built in LCD I'm concerned about. I looked briefly at the L units, they didn't seem to include the pad for drumming.

I'm interested in interfacing to DAW on my mac, and have looked at units like the Scarlett 2i2 and the Presonus Audiobox i1 as well.

I'm not ready to buy, just kicking tyres and seeing what the options are. I have a zoom h5 and have interfaced it via USB to garage band.

I'm getting to the stage where I know my future will include mixing to improve my audio and video recordings, at the moment I'm just using my H5 stand alone.
The R24 has nested menus to deep dive into control of the recorder's features and parameters. The Livetrak series was developed so users would not need to use tiny little menus. Conversely, the Livetrak has very little user control over any of the device's minimal effects.

Beware of purchasing any of these types of things based on the number of things they do. Usually the more options included the least likely they are to do any of them well. The drum pads on my R24 NEVER got used, but that's something I'd have no use for. Drum machine programming is a huge time suck, so you have to consider how much your time is worth. Plus the mechanical aspect of machine drums just sounds bad.

The R series Zoom recorders can be used as a control surface for your DAW, but I don't know too many folks who think it's a great thing to have. A good DAW is already pretty easy to use with a mouse.

The Presonus and the Scarlet are audio interfaces, so that's a whole other thing outside of looking for control of your DAW.

The best use of a portable recorder is for audio capture and then port it to your DAW for edits with or without video to sync up with your tracks.

Last edited by Rudy4; 11-29-2021 at 07:27 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 11-29-2021, 07:23 PM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default

Thanks, good points to consider. Seeing the UI on the R8 / 16 / 24 made me wary of the units as the UI looked archaic to me. Like I said, just kicking tyres at the moment. Keen to hear of what other units there are to consider.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 11-29-2021, 10:39 PM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 2,301
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Thanks, good points to consider. Seeing the UI on the R8 / 16 / 24 made me wary of the units as the UI looked archaic to me. Like I said, just kicking tyres at the moment. Keen to hear of what other units there are to consider.
Rather than hear about specific hardware yet, it would be helpful to know more about what you already do and your current workflow, and what you want to accomplish down the road. That will help folks recommend gear that would work best for you.

You're already using an H5 into Garage Band. What sorts of music do you record? How many tracks? What kind of processing in GB currently?

Then, how do you see yourself recording in the future? Do you need portability, to record live performances, or do you want to set up a studio in one location? How many things do you think you'll need to record at one time? The answers to these questions will help steer you to the right equipment for your situation.

Edit: Oh, and what's your budget? We could help you spend lots of money.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 11-29-2021, 11:30 PM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default

Great questions.

Been playing and singing for nearly ten years. Recently started doing a lot more recording and my wife is now singing along with me and she's learning bass.

Here's a song I uploaded recently...

https://youtu.be/_lbXroRVYqg

Mostly my recording is straight into the zoom. Recorded my wife and I singing a song we've played many a time, at places my voice was too soft, other places too strong, same for her voice and the guitar.

So I realize I need to do some mixing after the fact as it's clearly too hard to work it out / adjust while we are performing.

My connecting of the zoom to garage band was some time ago, it was mentioned more because I'm aware of that capability. I'm also currently trying to figure out if I want to either purchase logic pro or use whatever comes with whatever device I purchase.

Currently we are doing what's affectionately called "The big lap". Traveling around the continent of Australia in our RV camping trailer (aka caravan).

I've also hooked my zoom up to my digital camera (Sony A6400) and was underwhelmed with how it sounded. A little more fiddling to do but also another nail in the coffin of recording straight to the zoom h5.

We'll be on the road for another 2 years. or so. My hope is to record a variety of the songs I do and put them up on youtube for others to enjoy. When we finish our travels, our house has a somewhat sound proofed room that I'll use for a studio.

My main interest is to improve my musical ability by recording myself fairly well. I don't tend to use FX. I also own the boss drs01 drum gadget. And want to experiment with that on my recordings but am skeptical as to whether I'll like it.

Hope that is enough rambling details.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 11-30-2021, 04:53 AM
dnf777's Avatar
dnf777 dnf777 is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: NW Pennsylvania
Posts: 3,655
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Thanks, good points to consider. Seeing the UI on the R8 / 16 / 24 made me wary of the units as the UI looked archaic to me. Like I said, just kicking tyres at the moment. Keen to hear of what other units there are to consider.
I agree with what Rudy said. As with many things in life, the more tasks a device claims to do, often they do none of them well.

As far as archaic displays, many dedicated, quality interfaces have NO displays. I am currently learning a new Zoom L8, and it seems a perfect fit for a home acoustic studio. It does interface with my mac (and iPad) but I still prefer my Audient box for that. The display is small, and basic, but it conveys the info it needs quite well. For interface use, it really just shows the status. Most on the fly data you need will be on your DAW screen anyway.

From what I gather in your posts, a Zoom livetrack series mixer/recorder might work well for you. tascam makes a Model 12 that is similar, but a little more pricey.

Edit: oops, your last post just popped up, and it seems you are far beyond my feeble observation! Im sure my envy is shared with others on the AGF! Who wouldnt want to caravan around a beautiful country, recording music?! Please post links to your page when underway!
__________________
Dave F
*************
Martins
Guilds
Gibsons
A few others
2020 macbook pro i5 8GB
Scarlett 18i20
Reaper 7

Last edited by dnf777; 11-30-2021 at 05:24 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 11-30-2021, 10:40 AM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default

Quote:
Edit: oops, your last post just popped up, and it seems you are far beyond my feeble observation! Im sure my envy is shared with others on the AGF! Who wouldnt want to caravan around a beautiful country, recording music?! Please post links to your page when underway!
Thanks for your comments. Life on the road is good, so much beauty in the natural world and the magic of impromptu jams and such is great fun. A friend who did the big lap a couple of years back commented to me last year that I'll be popular on the road when the guitar comes out. That's certainly been the case.

The traditional happy hour where people gather communally in their camping chairs seems to be dampened down a fair bit, likely due to covid concerns. Had one happy hour experience where another camper asked to use my guitar and he played Don't let the old man in (Toby Keith) which has now become a standard for my wife and I to play and sing together.

Another campground I was playing quietly in the camp kitchen and heard a voice behind me say 'That sounds pretty good'. It was a young boy of 12 or so years old, next thing he was back with his mates and a couple more fathers and we had a real hoot, got them up on the tables hollering along to cowboy songs and such. fun fun fun.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 11-30-2021, 10:58 AM
KevWind's Avatar
KevWind KevWind is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Edge of Wilderness Wyoming
Posts: 19,878
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Thanks for your comments. Life on the road is good, so much beauty in the natural world and the magic of impromptu jams and such is great fun. A friend who did the big lap a couple of years back commented to me last year that I'll be popular on the road when the guitar comes out. That's certainly been the case.

The traditional happy hour where people gather communally in their camping chairs seems to be dampened down a fair bit, likely due to covid concerns. Had one happy hour experience where another camper asked to use my guitar and he played Don't let the old man in (Toby Keith) which has now become a standard for my wife and I to play and sing together.

Another campground I was playing quietly in the camp kitchen and heard a voice behind me say 'That sounds pretty good'. It was a young boy of 12 or so years old, next thing he was back with his mates and a couple more fathers and we had a real hoot, got them up on the tables hollering along to cowboy songs and such. fun fun fun.
Ok so if you are basically looking to get your recordings into a DAW and not looking for an 8 mic mixer to use for live performance as well.

Me personally I would forget a mixer altogether

Then
Decide how many channels you want to be able to record simultaneously, either now or in the near future . For example 1 for guitar 1 for your vocal =2 ,,, or and one for your wife's vocal = 3. Or say 2 for guitar (for stereo) 1 for your Vocal and one for wife'a would = 4. So for a 4 mic pre interface in the same price range as the Zoom mixer
if it were me I would take a real a serious look at this MOTU 4 mic pre interface

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...udio-interface
__________________
Enjoy the Journey.... Kev...

KevWind at Soundcloud

KevWind at YouYube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD

System :
Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1

Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 11-30-2021, 01:49 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 8,794
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Great questions.

Been playing and singing for nearly ten years. Recently started doing a lot more recording and my wife is now singing along with me and she's learning bass.

Here's a song I uploaded recently...

https://youtu.be/_lbXroRVYqg

Mostly my recording is straight into the zoom. Recorded my wife and I singing a song we've played many a time, at places my voice was too soft, other places too strong, same for her voice and the guitar.

So I realize I need to do some mixing after the fact as it's clearly too hard to work it out / adjust while we are performing.

My connecting of the zoom to garage band was some time ago, it was mentioned more because I'm aware of that capability. I'm also currently trying to figure out if I want to either purchase logic pro or use whatever comes with whatever device I purchase.

Currently we are doing what's affectionately called "The big lap". Traveling around the continent of Australia in our RV camping trailer (aka caravan).

I've also hooked my zoom up to my digital camera (Sony A6400) and was underwhelmed with how it sounded. A little more fiddling to do but also another nail in the coffin of recording straight to the zoom h5.

We'll be on the road for another 2 years. or so. My hope is to record a variety of the songs I do and put them up on youtube for others to enjoy. When we finish our travels, our house has a somewhat sound proofed room that I'll use for a studio.

My main interest is to improve my musical ability by recording myself fairly well. I don't tend to use FX. I also own the boss drs01 drum gadget. And want to experiment with that on my recordings but am skeptical as to whether I'll like it.

Hope that is enough rambling details.
Here's a review I did to highlight using the Zoom Livetrak L8, especially combined with video shot with a smart phone.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/....php?p=6799250

Since you're attempting to record live performances then a mixer that records your inputs seperately pre-EQ / effects seems like an ideal solution. Zoom, Tascam, others all make similar devices that will provide what you need.

I can highly recommend doing all of your audio capture on some sort of mixer / recorder or multitrack recorder and then doing any further edits by bringing the tracks into a DAW. I use Reaper and like it a lot. It also handles video at the same time as audio once you progress to wanting to do that.

Since you're basically mobile, using a computer / interface / DAW would just be a giant PITA for you at present.

The important thing is to enjoy yourself, and that doesn't seem to be an issue for the forseeable future!
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 11-30-2021, 07:14 PM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default

Thanks for the detailed reply and link to the review. The Maggie Cameron video sounded good. Do you have any video that includes vocals?

Quote:
Since you're basically mobile, using a computer / interface / DAW would just be a giant PITA for you at present.
I'm not convinced of that. As long as the interface unit isn't too large. I'm a retired software developer so am used to using computer and do a bit of video editing using final cut, I guess having more control is what I'm after.

I've also looked at devices like the Scarlett 2i2 and Presonus Audiobox, am concerned they have 2 few input channels.

Perhaps I need to better understand the multi track recording process. If there are good resources / tutorials to suggest I'd appreciate it.
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 11-30-2021, 08:45 PM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 2,301
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Mostly my recording is straight into the zoom. Recorded my wife and I singing a song we've played many a time, at places my voice was too soft, other places too strong, same for her voice and the guitar
Some of that can be fixed by practicing your performance. Every good engineer knows that the better your source material, the better the outcome you can achieve. But yes, you can also fix a lot of that after the fact.

In the recording process, though, it's much easier to make those sorts of adjustments if everything is recorded at separate times, on its own track. If you try to capture live performance, it can be more difficult as any mics will also pick up other performers. The upside of "live", of course, can be the immediacy and energy of the performance. It can be harder to find the same emotion when you're just performing along with a previously recorded track. It's all trade-offs (and, again, may help guide what gear you want).

For example, if you really want great separation and to record tracks separately, you may not need more than 2 inputs at a time. But if you want to record guitar and two vocals at once, your mic selection and placement becomes very important.

Quote:
My connecting of the zoom to garage band was some time ago, it was mentioned more because I'm aware of that capability. I'm also currently trying to figure out if I want to either purchase logic pro or use whatever comes with whatever device I purchase.
Tbh you can get good results from most DAWs, from Garage Band up to Pro Tools. It's really a preference of workflow. I'd say you could easily begin with a "starter" DAW if one gets included with something you purchase, but you won't go wrong with Logic if you get it. It may be best to get Logic and learn it, rather than try to jump to different DAWs.

Quote:
My main interest is to improve my musical ability by recording myself fairly well. I don't tend to use FX. I also own the boss drs01 drum gadget. And want to experiment with that on my recordings but am skeptical as to whether I'll like it.
I think a lot of the advice you'll get is that the gear isn't as important as learning the process, as you mention in your last message. Finding the best available acoustic space to record in, mic selection and placement, using EQ, compression and other effects for a more "professional" sound. You can get plenty good enough gear these days that it can be towards the bottom of the list, frankly.

For example, I have a 2i2 and a small inexpensive laptop with an 11.6" screen to do my tracking. For a "live" performance that I'm also taking video of, I will plug in two mics set up for as much separation between guitar and vocals as possible. For other projects, I will track everything separately (stereo guitar, vox, bass etc). While I could also do my editing on that little laptop, it's easier to transfer the tracks from the laptop to my more powerful desktop computer, with good monitor speakers, big screen and more processor.

There's no reason you couldn't even get a couple nice mics to plug into the Zoom, record, and then transfer the tracks from Zoom to computer to do the mixing. That wouldn't solve the problem if you really needed more inputs, but it's a lot harder to record multiple acoustic sources at the same time in a small space.
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old 12-01-2021, 03:04 AM
tonyo tonyo is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Tyalgum New South Wales, Australia
Posts: 1,096
Default

Thanks Chipotle, that's very much the sort of guidance I'm looking for, it makes sense and gives me more to think about and experiment with.
Reply With Quote
Reply

  The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > RECORD

Thread Tools





All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:29 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright ©2000 - 2022, The Acoustic Guitar Forum
vB Ad Management by =RedTyger=