Zoom R8

[Bluesberry]

i am seriously considering the zoom r8 over the micro br80 am i being daft? they are the same price.

and you can run your Juno keyboard through it for lots of crazy sound possibilities.........

[Oldrottenhead]

can run the juno through the br 80 too. looking in more detail but looks like the zoom doesnt have virtual tracks, so only 8 tracks to play with , might be wrong. i need advice.

[Gnasty]

Wish i could help you out ORH. I know nothing of Zoom for the last 20 years.

I`m sure you`ll go br-80 though.


Christmas came early for me. I`m happy!

[ODH]

can run the juno through the br 80 too. looking in more detail but looks like the zoom doesnt have virtual tracks, so only 8 tracks to play with , might be wrong. i need advice.

Not sure how the virtual tracks work on the BR, on my Zoom R16 it's possible to un-link tracks from their assigned slots so you can then record as many alternatives as you want with the same settings.  Then assign the one you like best to the track (you can only assign and hear one at a time).  Or you can reassign / bounce to an empty track for comparison. I find the machine versatile and fairly intuitive and can usually do what I need to.

If it's like the R16 you can also connect to the PC with USB and then in card reader mode you can play and edit any of the tracks through whatever wav software.  I guess this is the same for R8.

[64Guitars]

i am seriously considering the zoom r8 over the micro br80 am i being daft? they are the same price.

I've never tried a Zoom recorder but, based on what I've read, I think the R8 is a much better value than the BR-80.

Some advantages of the R8 over the BR-80:

• Real faders
• Audio interface and control surface capabilities. The BR-80 can be used as an audio interface but not a control surface.
• 8 drum pads and 8-voice sampler
• XLR mic inputs with phantom power
• Footswitch option for hands-free stop/start or punch in/out.
• Location markers. You can set up to 100 markers per song, then move instantly to any marker at the touch of a button.
• Writes directly to WAV files. No proprietary audio format like the BR, so no wave converter software is needed to import or export tracks.
  
• Headphone level control

Things to consider:

• The R8 is not quite pocket-size like the BR-80 and cannot easily be held in your hand while you sing into it. Of course, you could continue to use your Micro BR when handheld operation is desired (assuming that you're keeping it).
• Learning curve. Your familiarity with the Micro BR should make learning the BR-80 a breeze. But everything on the Zoom will be new to you (though the principals are the same). You might want to download the R8 manuals to get an idea of how much effort it will take to learn it.
• Effects. I've never tried a Zoom so I can't say how good the effects are. Anyway, it's largely a matter of personal preference, so you'll have to try them and decide for youself whether you like them or not. Maybe you should spend some time in the local music shop playing around with the R8 to evaluate its effects. Either that or take your chances and hope for the best. It's probably not much of a gamble if you're keeping your Micro BR because you'll still be able to use it for any favourite effects that aren't in the R8.

looks like the zoom doesnt have virtual tracks, so only 8 tracks to play with , might be wrong. i need advice.

There are no virtual tracks in the way that the BR implements them. However, each of the R8's tracks is written to a separate WAV file and you can assign a new file to any of the tracks. So, in that sense, the number of tracks is virtually unlimited because you can record as many WAV files as will fit on the memory card.

[chip]

Yep it does look good. Being one who has no time for cubase etc, I like to do the internal mastering and just export the wav file and rip a cd off windows media player/.nero. The mbr is great for that, can this do that without all the sonar/cubase hassle?

[Oldrottenhead]

thanks 64. i think i need to get my hands on both to compare. but i think size and ease of use and familiarity might make me plump for the br80. r8 looks awful clumsy in comparison, never felt the need for faders since i got my micro br, zoom looks very retro like my old fostex 4 track portastudio.

i think being able to bounce to virtual tracks and the drums on the mbr not taking up tracks is gonna be the winner for me. from what i gather the r8 if i used 6 tracks i could bounce to tracks 7 and 8, but 2 of the six tracks would be the drum track. where as i can use all 8 in the br80 before i have to bounce and the drums are still seperate.

[Tony W]

thanks 64. i think i need to get my hands on both to compare. but i think size and ease of use and familiarity might make me plump for the br80.

Jim, the level of familiarity with the BR-80 will actually be a deterrent in the beginning. The biggest commonality between the MBR and the 80 is the size alone. The rest has changed quite a bit. My MBR was returned to me, and I was going to use it the other day, and almost couldn't figure out how to record a song. Switching between the 2 is frustrating.

After owning the BR-80 this long, I say it's a total win, even without some of the features that were in the MBR. I barely touch the 800, and if I weren't going to record the band, I'd sell it.

[64Guitars]

i think being able to bounce to virtual tracks and the drums on the mbr not taking up tracks is gonna be the winner for me. from what i gather the r8 if i used 6 tracks i could bounce to tracks 7 and 8, but 2 of the six tracks would be the drum track. where as i can use all 8 in the br80 before i have to bounce and the drums are still seperate.

Good point. I hadn't noticed it but it does seem that the drum patterns are written to audio tracks. The R8 doesn't seem to have a separate rhythm track like the BRs do. Also, it's not clear to me how the R8 does bounces. The manual says you have to specify source and destination tracks. Does that mean you have to reserve two tracks for the bounce destination? If so, then you can really only record four tracks at a time because you'd need two reserved for the bounce destination and two for the drums. On the other hand, the manual mentions a bounce destination track setting. The default setting is Mute which mutes the bounce destination track. The other setting is Play which allows you to "Play and record the bounce destination track". Does that mean that any previously-recorded audio on the destination tracks is included in the bounce so you don't have to reserve tracks? I don't know.

[cuthbert]

The price is certainly nice.

Size-wise, it looks closer to the BR-800 than the BR-80, if portability counts. I'd be interested to hear if any Songcrafters have this and what they think of it.