Zoom L-20 Live Track

[hooper]

Gotta love all those real sliders, buttons and knobs!

[StephenM]

Gotta love all those real sliders, buttons and knobs!

and it has a cool thing when you turn the device on as it boots it does a "wave" of all the lights from left to right... obviously that isn't a reason to get this but it's cool anyway

[Ferryman]

Knobs KNOBS KNOBS!!! You can never have enough.........

[StephenM]

It's taken me a while to get all this that can be done on here.  As a mixer for live performance there are some nice features such as 6 separate monitor outs.  This means that 6 different monitor mixes are possible.  The kicker is that these outputs (1/4 inch) can drive monitors, wireless headphones, or can power headphones.  This can be handy live but in the studio, a small studio it eliminates the need for extra headphone amps and allows various musicians to hear what they want better.  The down side to these is they are eq'd the same as the mains.  You cannot change these without effecting the mains.  That is not going to be a big problem for me but for some it would.

It's easy to get wav files off the board onto a thumb drive.  It's not hard to do it via a USB cable to the computer direct but does require turning off the device and moving a sw, then powering back on.  Not crazy about that.  It takes too long.  So I use the thumb drive.  It's easy. 

[kenny mac]

Just realised what gear you got stephen,thats an incredible  piece of gear.
Nice one.

[StephenM]

After having this for a number of months now I can safely say that overall I am happy I have this.  It's very clean for recording and the numbers of tracks keeps me from having to use virtual tracks or select switches like on the R24, so if I decide to mix on board that makes it so much easier.  I have actually recorded a song using pretty much every track just to see how that works out.   
This has plenty of fun bells and whistles. 

I have not as yet had success getting the usb to be able to record direct to the DAW... I can get audio in from the computer but cannot seem to get the computer to hear the L-20.  I finally just take the files off the device and copy them to the computer and upload to the DAW...I don't think it's the Zoom's fault...likely me being technically challenged.

I would say if you want to to have a stand along recorder that you can loop and edit tracks on board...this is not for you.  You can only record to individual tracks.  If you want to move a track you have to put it on a thumbdrive (usb storage device) and move it back on the L-20...not a big deal but no editing features..

It's not that big.  About 18 inches (40 cm by 40cm) square.  Cannot battery power however.  Portable enough I would say.