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tonmazz « Zoom HD16 does the job and then some »
Published on 08/08/12 at 10:20The Zoom HD-16 has tons of great features making this an extremely powerful tool for any musician looking to record. It has Drum and Bass machine built in, digital mixer, CD-R/RW drive, built in effects. You can lay down 16 audio tracks, 8 simultaneously. As per the user’s guide, you can also do stretch/compression, pitch compensation and harmonization, although I have never messed with those features. Tons of input sources can be used from guitars, bass, high impedance instruments, dynamic and condenser mics as well as synthesizers.
UTILIZATION
My brain usually shorts out learning to use something like this but I was up and running laying down tracks in about 15 minutes, which is pretty good for all the features this has. The manual lays out a nice section on how to get started and makes laying down some simple tracks quite easy. This is great because unless they make it easy, something like this would have been back to the store in about a half hour. Was not the case with this unit. Guitar and microphone plugged in and the controls were easy to understand.
SOUNDS
I was immediately impressed with the drum and bass machine and how easy it was to manipulate if for no other reason than to give me a click track to play over. You can use the tab tempo feature to get the speed easily to where you want it. Sound quality was excellent. I miked a Marshall 4X12 and it recorded perfectly capturing the raw dynamics of that set up, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I love being able to work with audio files imported from the CD player to use as back up tracks. This is perfect for my purposes and probably way more sophisticated than I will ever need.
OVERALL OPINION
I love the simplicity of getting started and the knowledge that there are way more features to learn as I go along. I did get this used so I can honestly say it was worth the trade I made giving my buddy an Ibanez guitar for it. Definitely satisfied with the quality of what I have been able to do thus far. I had been using a DP-004 pocket studio prior to this, but this opens up a whole new world of possibilities and options. I would highly recommend this unit to anyone looking to make high quality recordings for a fair price. Perfect for those on a mid-range budget that can't afford a Mac and all of the other things needed to use the PC. This does the job and then some.
UTILIZATION
My brain usually shorts out learning to use something like this but I was up and running laying down tracks in about 15 minutes, which is pretty good for all the features this has. The manual lays out a nice section on how to get started and makes laying down some simple tracks quite easy. This is great because unless they make it easy, something like this would have been back to the store in about a half hour. Was not the case with this unit. Guitar and microphone plugged in and the controls were easy to understand.
SOUNDS
I was immediately impressed with the drum and bass machine and how easy it was to manipulate if for no other reason than to give me a click track to play over. You can use the tab tempo feature to get the speed easily to where you want it. Sound quality was excellent. I miked a Marshall 4X12 and it recorded perfectly capturing the raw dynamics of that set up, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I love being able to work with audio files imported from the CD player to use as back up tracks. This is perfect for my purposes and probably way more sophisticated than I will ever need.
OVERALL OPINION
I love the simplicity of getting started and the knowledge that there are way more features to learn as I go along. I did get this used so I can honestly say it was worth the trade I made giving my buddy an Ibanez guitar for it. Definitely satisfied with the quality of what I have been able to do thus far. I had been using a DP-004 pocket studio prior to this, but this opens up a whole new world of possibilities and options. I would highly recommend this unit to anyone looking to make high quality recordings for a fair price. Perfect for those on a mid-range budget that can't afford a Mac and all of the other things needed to use the PC. This does the job and then some.