Choosing between BR-800 and Zoom R-24 - comments welcomed

[FastnBulbous]

Hey folks

New to this forum, and impressed by the amount of info on here.

Apologies if this has been covered in previous posts. 

Looking to take the plunge & get a portable self-contained multi-tracker.  Something I can set up quickly, that's less hassle than worrying about laptop and interfaces etc.  Partly for solo use, and for songwriting/jam sessions with mates.

Would like the convenience of more than two simultaneous inputs, and it would handy to have a quick route to setting up drum & percussion tracks.

So looks like it's come down to BR-800 or R-24.  Ideally need to play with them side by side for an hour or so, but that opportunity is hard to find!

Anybody out there who's looked at both and decided one way or the other - and if so, why?

Any comments on comparative advantages/disadvantages would be greatly appreciated.

I've read the various reviews out there, but would good to hear from anyone with direct experience.

Thanks!       

[FastnBulbous]

Managed to try a BR-800 in the flesh today, thanks to a very helpful music shop.

The guy opened up a fresh one, powered it up, plugged in some headphones and let me explore it for a while.  Good service.

Liked the general concept, looks and feels well built, and the drum patterns sounded pretty acceptable for my purposes.  I can live with four inputs, and I think the four-mono, two-stereo track configuration would also be ok most of the time.  Suits my guitar rig fine, and my mate's stereo keyboards.

Anyone found the 4 + 2x2 format a particular hassle?

Hope to try an R-24 somewhere over the next week or so.  If anyone out there has any specific feedback on the Zoom, would love to hear.

Cheers.

[Blooby]

I think you will find most of the folks here are more familiar with BOSS products (myself included) as this site started as a BOSS Micro BR forum.

Can't speak specifically to the Zoom, but I can say with certainty that you'll have a multitude of informed resources should you go the BOSS route.  We tend to be a pretty friendly bunch here.

Perhaps this thread will help a bit.

Good luck with your decision.

Blooby

[FastnBulbous]

@Blooby

Many thanks for that. 

Yeah, realised this was pretty much a Boss camp - but nothing wrong with that!  Appreciate the depth of experience that's available here. 

Was quite impressed with the BR-800, and nearly waved my credit card there and then.  Suspect it's the optimum set of compromises for what I'm looking for.  With the Boss, I know I'll need to run the files through the WAV converter to transfer to a DAW, but the Boss avoids the "input-is-the-track" restriction of the Zoom.  Swapping tracks on the Zoom so my guitar can stay plugged into the Hi-Z i/p could get annoying...  And although the Zoom's track count is impressive, in all honesty my ideas will probably run out long before the BR-800 will run out of tracks!

More research...

Thanks again.

Cheers
F   

[Geir]

Choosing between BR-800 and Zoom R-24

A frind of mine aske me the same question the other day. Can anyone with experience with both Zoom and boss recorders elaborate a bit about the differences, the pro's and con's of the two worlds?

[64Guitars]

I just stumbled across this...

WIRED magazine chose the BR-800 as their Editors' Pick over the Zoom R24, Tascam DP-008, and Fostex MR-8 MkII.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2010/09/pr_review_digitalstudios/

[SdC]

There is a specific scenario where the Zoom is the proper choice:
when you want to record a small band session live (for instance in the practice room or on stage): you can record all the instruments individually (either with MIC's or with Y-adaptors on the instruments) and create a good mix later at home. PA-mix or dual mic "raw" recordings pretty much always sounds crap.
That being said, I agree that in over-all flexibility and feature wise the Boss rules.

[Oldrottenhead]

this was recorded live on geir's br800 me on vox, flash on bass and geir and tharek on guitars all parts to seperate tracks.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYbcvfKXids

[Kenny B]

The Boss / Zoom recorders seem to be going in different directions.

I have the older hard drive Zoom with all the bells and whistles ... which are disappearing.

Zoom seems to be going in the controller / live recording direction.

I believe you need to use 2 tracks per pattern on the Zoom R24 if you're
trying to use the stereo drums for playback / mixing without recording them first.

The Zoom doesn't have v-takes but I think you record and assign
the tracks as you need and don't think it has editing functions.

Why can't these new recorders include editing like copy/fade/trim
from-to like the older machines???  Do you need a hard drive to do these functions???

I obviously also prefer a standalone recorder ... 

Is there a thread for a dream recorder?

Kenny B.

[64Guitars]

The Zoom doesn't have v-takes but I think you record and assign
the tracks as you need and don't think it has editing functions.

Why can't these new recorders include editing like copy/fade/trim
from-to like the older machines???  Do you need a hard drive to do these functions???

A hard drive isn't required. I think Roland and Zoom just figured that people would want to do all of their editing on the computer because it's easier. When they introduced the BR-800, Roland learned that people want to be able to use the computer for editing but they still want editing capabilities in their recorder too (at least I hope they learned that). I don't know if Zoom has realized that yet.

Is there a thread for a dream recorder?

This one was started for the dream Micro BR, but it can be used to discuss any dream recorder:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=704.0