Allen and Heath ZED-R16 16-Channel FireWire Recording Mixer
Capture 18 channels over FireWire to your DAW with the Allen and Heath ZED-R16, and shape your sound live or in the studio with 4-band, two-sweepable-mid EQ.
Overall User Ratings (based on 11 ratings)
Submitted June 6, 2012 by Jeffrey
"Zed R16"
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Written by one of our gear experts!
The ZED R16 is impressive for the price. It functions as a fully analog board but can be used as a control surface for most DAWs (It requires a 3rd party MIDI translator with Pro Tools versions 9 and 10). The variety of operational modes allow multiple ways to mixdown, whether it's live or you simply want to mix tracks you've already recorded in your DAW. Pre-recorded tracks can be routed to the ZED's channel strips to take advantage of its sleek EQ. You can choose to mixdown pre or post EQ if you would rather use your DAW. You can insert signal processors on the ZED's channels and record their output or, route your signal to your DAW to take advantage of your favorite plugins while returning the signal to the ZED channels for analog EQ/mixing. One of my only disappointments is the lack of a Solo button on each channel. However, with the MIDI mapping capability, you can use the "MIDI Control" pots to achieve this or simply use your DAW. Larger faders would also be a plus, but these will do. Overall, an extremely versatile piece of gear.
Musical Background:
Played guitar, bass, drums for 8 or so years.
Musical Style:
Rock, blues, folk, electronic, R&B, more...
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Submitted November 8, 2011 by a customer from upstaterecordings.com
"This thing is great!"
Sound
Okay, I want to set a few things straight from reviews I have read elsewhere. (most of the things I have read that people said this board cannot do, it can)
1) The board can be used as a sound card for your computer so you can play Itunes or cdroms or games through it. It very clearly lays this out in the instruction manual.
2) You can have the digital send post EQ. Again very simple and laid out in instructions.
3) Drivers are not hard to DL or install. I was up and running in just a few minutes.
The digital converters are great. I upgraded from a Presonus Firestudio Project. And it is night and day.
The EQ is awesome. I used to have to dup kick and snar a few times to get them to cut through mixes, now they cut just fine.
As well vocals sound a ton better through this thing.
Preamps again are worlds better than the presonus.
Price is great, I paid 1760 using a coupon, which was better than the 1999 it was selling for at the time.
Cons, MIDI mapping is a SOB. Partly because the Midi map in the instructions is laid out for the program that it comes with and Cubase uses a different format. But with that said, I only have Cubase LE and there is a xlm file that you can upload to map it for the real version of Cubase.
Manufacturer Support
Allen and Heath has a ticket system for tech support, no live person to call...
Musical Background:
Active musician/ engineer
Musical Style:
Rock/indie/ambient/hardcore
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Submitted June 29, 2013 by a customer from hotmail.com
"Great Board"
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This is a fantastic board. I just love it. There are some minor gripes and quibbles if I really wanted to nit pick, lack the lack of solo buttons. But for every complaint there is a suitable work around. I had the Aux sends 1 and 2 rewired to be post instead of pre so I could use them for effects. It's the perfect front end for my project studio.
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