New Zoom HD16 User

[Occupanther]

Hi Guys,

I've just joined here too and am considering a HD16 as my first venture into Recording. I was hoping that you might be able to describe your setup with reagards to the Zoom and what else you might be using as far as monitors, phones, mics - basically all accessories - are concerned.

I've already posted (my first) elsewhere and Brandon has kindly led me in the direction of the ATH-M50 phones, thanks Brandon, and now I'm just scouting for setup configs that won't break the bank and will have me recording sooner rather than later ...
...
... now if I could only find a few more chairs for that 40-piece orchestra ....

[CPACURRIE]

Hi. I am a new user to the Zoom HD16. I have had some sucess with the new unit but I have one question. The reason I bought this unit was to be able to edit recordings on my PC after the recording was conveniently made using the Zoom Recorder. It seems that there is not a way to have the drums set up in a track and tranfered in to the cubase software along with all the other tracks. Does any one know how to create a drums track that will tranfer to cubase?

[lamberl]

Originally Posted by CPACURRIE

Hi. I am a new user to the Zoom HD16. I have had some sucess with the new unit but I have one question. The reason I bought this unit was to be able to edit recordings on my PC after the recording was conveniently made using the Zoom Recorder. It seems that there is not a way to have the drums set up in a track and tranfered in to the cubase software along with all the other tracks. Does any one know how to create a drums track that will tranfer to cubase?

Have you tried saving the drum track to a standard track and exporting it as a wave file?

[lamberl]

Have you tried saving the drum track to a standard track and exporting it as a wave file?

[Bootstrapped]

Hi HD User

i have HD16 and love the unit. IF you want to bring your drum track into Cubase you first have to realize they are MIDI information, You are triggering Samples of drum like a synth, You can however convert the trigger drum sample to an audio file just like anything else you record and then once they are a standard WAV. file they will come into cubase like any other guitar or vocal file. Best to find the drum kit and effects you like on drums first before you convert to WAV. as you cannot take off after.

Here is a tip that allows you to get better control of you drum mix. Go into KIT mode and then hit the edit key. Now the 12 black faders become the level controls for the first 12 pads on the drum kit. If you tap the pad of the drum you want to edit, example " pad 2 snare and then curser left or right you can control other feature like " Pan and REverb" on each drum individiually. Example, put reverb just on snare and toms and not Kick and Hats. If you turn down individual drums when you transfer the files to Wav. you can end up with seperate WAV. files for each drum. Keep in mind you have to record a pass for every drum you want seperate with its own WAV. file but when you bring in files to CUBASE you have FULL control. Really cool

Hope you find this usefull.

[jackstrat]

Originally Posted by Johnny U

I wish somebody here would create a You tube Video TUtorial here
about how to:
A) use the tracks 8 - 16 ?
B) burn Wav File on the CD Burner?? if it is possible ?
C) get the tracks off the Unit into a COmputor for Wav file ???

HELP

I am brand new to the HD16, but regarding (A) above...

To record an input to a channel 9-16:

1. You cannot be in 8 track mode, make sure the button indicator is off.
2. Select your input, two if you want stereo.
3. Select the recording channel, 9/10 for instance, red for rec enable.
4. Press rec-play to start the recording.

To bounce from 1-8 to 9-16:

1. Press bounce
2. Select the channel to be bounced (green for play)
3. Select the dest channel (red for record)
4. Press rec-play to record/bounce

[Bootstrapped]

Hi everyone

There are a couple of basic videos on the HD16CD at the Samsontech site as they distribute ZOOM in US.

Samson - Zoom - HD16CD

I have HD16 and agree that it is in most cases a better creative tool that using my DAW. its like old school recording to tape. NO worries about latency etc. Here are a couple of tips that i found make the recording better.

1) you can improve the quality of the HD16 somewhat if you use better Mic Pre amps and go into the unit at line level. The on board Pre's aren't bad but i have a TOft ATC2 and a JOe Meek One Q. You can get different colors and a more vintage vibe etc.

2) As a guitar player the ZOOM has on board modeling and Multi FX which are equivelant to thier G2 guitar and B2 Bass pedals. Not bad but there are a couple feature i use that improve on the quality. Firstly you can choose to record the signal dry even though you hear the models etc and FX. I do this to one of the first 8 mono tracks. Don;t worry about the tone focus on performance first. Then bounce the track using the internal modeling to one of the stereo tracks. You can set up Reverb, and other Delay FX etc specifically for the guitar track as they will be printed to the stereo track. You can then use the FX later on drums, vocal etc. Sometime i do two bounces with different guitar models and mix the two. I still have the original track dry so i can go back and rebounce any time if i donlt like the result.

3) I also recently picked up the ZOOM ZFX interface wich has ZOOM latest stab at Guitar Modeling which IMHO is right up there. Also come with a light verion of GUitar Rig. Since the track i cut in the ZOOM HD16 are dry i can easly bump them across to the DAW with included Cubase LE4 and render them through the improveds models there.

The HD16 is really the best of both world in that you can focus on tracking and ease of use and then clean everything up and produce with the DAW. The fact that the HD16CD is also a Tactile Control surface for the PC is also a wonderful thing. I much prefer real faders even when i mix in Cubase etc.

I recently downloaded REAPER as i heard some decent thing with about it and the HD16CD was a breeze to set it up to control REAPER in Mackie control mode.

Hope you found this helpful.

Bootstrapped.

[lamberl]

Thanks for your advice Bootstrapped. I am so naive that I think something new is perfect out of the box. I have a PreAmp and I will certainly try this with the HD16. For mastering do you recommend using Cubase or another program instead of the mastering effects included with this box?

Thanks,

Rick

[Bootstrapped]

Actually the Mastering FX in the HD16CD are quite good. Run through the presets and you will see what i mean. Sometime i prefer them over what i can get out of DAW. There is some cool Dimension stuff I dig at times. Multi band compressor and normalization as well. When you are working within the HD16 i sometimes run individual track through the MASTERING FX at the single track bounce stage when taking a mono track to stereo. you can get some decent spacial stuff. Punch up the drum tracks etc.

Remember to always keep a dry version of the track so you can redo if you like. This is why there is 10 virtual track on each of the 16 track. experiment.

[lamberl]

That's a great point! The ten v tracks are the undo for this unit. I am working hard mixing my gospel songs but they still sounds a little amateurist. Is there a special feature I'm missing besides mixing them down to a left and right channel and equing all this in Cakewalk or Cubase. I haven't spent a lot of time trying to master because mixing is a BIG cow to eat.

Thanks,


Rick