It has very low noise. The preamps are pretty good. The effects are good as well, although the presets are set at ridiculously over-the-top levels.

The Fx routing capabilities are minimal. You have 2 sends per channel, but you can only have one reverb and one delay and not, for example, two different reverbs. There is also one insert effect per channel, whereas 2 or 3 would be preferable. You can of course get over this by bouncing down a track with Fx added and then adding Fx to another track. But this means that the original track is now stuck with that Fx setting regardless of how your mix develops. The drum sounds are pretty good, and sampler capability is great. Drum programming is a pain the wotnot, and if you write songs with different combinations of beats it takes a long time, and then you can't really edit afterwards, you have to start from scratch. Other than that everything works as you would expect, or better. If you're into using a lot of effects, and complicated routing, you're better off with a Yamaha AW16G or similar. If you are like me and just want to record guitars etc with the minimum of fuss then this will give you high quality recordings. One other word of warning is that THERE IS NO UNDO, which means you have to be quite careful not to accidentally erase things etc. Probably not a good purchase if you are a stoner and your mind and memory are shot to pieces. Also, if you are buying this, make sure you have the optional USB board if you have a PC. This will save you hours of time backing up your work etc, and it opens up loads more possibilities. USB works flawlessly.

Very easy to use. that's the best thing about it. doesn't take long to learn, and once you know how you can set things up and record very quickly. Can be slightly confusing when you forget that you have just been setting the EQ or panning and start pressing buttons as if you were in the normal mode, but this doesn't cause any major problems. I don't understand why some people have said it's difficult to use...

This is a difficult one for me to comment on: I bought an MRS1608 and I immediately had problems with it. It kept conking out unexpectedly, as if there was a problem with the hard drive or the power to the hard drive. Went back to the manufacturer twice (via the dealer). The first time they said it was fixed but it wasn't. The second time they kept it for so long I complained and in the end the dealer said I'd been messed around for too long, and sent me a completely new one. The new one has worked 100 percent fine for 6 months now, with quite heavy use. Never a single crash, glitch or anything. I've not heard of any other MRS1608 owners who had the problem I had with my 1st one, so I think I must have just been very unlucky and got a rare dud one. Based on the current one, it would be 10 out of 10, as it is sturdy, well put together and never crashes.

Definitely worth the price. Some of the recordings I've made have astonished my friends, who thought they were commercial recordings. Make sure you know what you want to record, and how, before buying this however. Great for people who want to record a demo with relatively little other equipment and no hassle. If you want to integrate it into a complicated studio setup it is maybe not ideal.

See above. They were willing to repair but took months trying, in the end taking so long that I was supplied with a new one.

It looks good. My only criticism is that it's a bit big, and is quite cumbersome to carry to rehearsals. My friend has an AW16G which is much more portable (but doesn't have drum machine, sampler etc etc etc)

Acoustic/folk musician. Play in/record a band.

Celtic Folk, and other acoustic based music

Ive had this unit for a couple of months and just started to really get into the deeper features. It sounds great plugged straight in. I use an sm57 and plug my guitar and bass straight through and the sm57 on my bro's kit and sounds excellent. the noise gate and compression sound awesome on my bass and drums. the guitar patches are nice, not as good as a mic in front of an amp but, nothing is. still have to explore the built in effects, reverb, chorus,delay and creating my own combo patches of these, but so far I love this unit. its simple to use, unlike what I have read before about this unit. I did find the smaller zoom 4 track harder to figure out than this unit, but the manual is great. I have a small suitcase i take this over to my jammin buddies house and we just start creating on the spot, set up in 5 minutes and go. then i can take it home and add to it or edit it as I please... 40gb provides alot of room.

Since i really havent needed to use the built in drum section I cant say wether this is the coolest feature, since ive been mainly recording with real drums so far. but Im sure it will come in handy and i do like real time input, (but like most drum machines , the maximum bar length stops at 4) this is an important fact. Someone should come out with a drum machine that is programmable up to the machines memory , so that you could quantize and edit an entire song without repeating patterns over and over(message to manufacturers) the 1608 has everything i need, good sound, effects, drum machine and guitar amp sounds, 8 xlr's 8 track recording at once, and cd burner. remember to master your mix , then burn , then finalize cd. this stumped me for a few days. I love the features and quality. solid sturdy metal chassis, not the molded plastic stuff from boss and others.

I did think alot about the quality issue with this zoom unit. but, its got a warranty and its solid. the controls and faders seem sturdy , and all connections are solid. I would have liked if the front section where the headphone jacks are was made of metal instead of plastic as well but, still seems worthy. I

Im sure there will be something better in months, but for my purpose of use, which is to get great quality sounds in a portable unit without using alot of outboard gear and be able to work it, edit it, and burn to cd in one box, and have the least amount of diversions and distractions to get in the way of making music this is the unit with the most value for me. I dont need an external drum machine. I dont need a computer.

I called zoom maybe 6 times asking specific questions about this unit and always got someone to answer my questions. their good at support.

lets just say that i know zooms philosophy is to get the most bang for your buck by forgoing some of the features you may never get to use and keep the practical ones that are important, like the quality of sounds, hard drive space, multiple track recording, good effects and sturdy construction.

hobbyist, music lover

fusion,rock, jazz amalgamation

I have not owned this machine long, the sound is absoulutly clear, and I find it easy to thumb through the manual and learn to adjust peramaters as I go.

The features are astonishing, I have worked in and owned my own recording studio in the past. This little box kicks serious ass. I find it easy to edit, copy, backup material, load, burn finalize. The effects are great, EQ, drum and bass sound fab. i love this thing

I have owned tons of gear in my life, I am no kid, I had a commercial recorded almost immedeatly out of the box, I have had it a few weeks and have recorded commercials, music projects, guitars, vocals, phone interviews, I look forward to really haveing some time with this box under my built, again I Love It

I really worried about this. She is a stout unit, I would not want to usee it for live or portable work but in my studio I have no worries about the Quality

I can not believe this thing does not cost $5000.00 dollers, I can do more with this thatn my od otari 16 studio

Havent needed any

Buy this machicne, if you have a brain and can read you can work it. I am not super techno man, I struggle with gear, I have a Fantom XA and it gave me some fits in the beggining,(roland supprot was fab and straightend me out)This machine and manuale are very clear

Active Musican, Porducer, Recording Engineer

If it has note I like it

I was surprised by how good everything sounds through here. It actually sounds pretty good. The mastering program is decent but not he best. It doesnt make it as loud as a profesional recording would but it still comes out a good volume.

I love the features oh here. I just wish i could have more than 8 tracks to record. an example why...when your recording a whole drum set you only have 8 tracks to work with. If your a metal drummer or have a huge drum set. id advise buying really good over heads mics to make up for the missing mics you need. i do not like the drum machine. its too complicated to program and if you mess up you have to start all over again. also theres no undo function so if you accidently record over something or erase something or if you use the wrong fade in/out you have to redo the whole thing again

This is extremely easy to use. the manual does very well at explaining things.

the only reason why im giving this an 8 is because i have a few bugs in mine. When i try to do the scrub function it does everything else but that. i have to attemped it several times b4 the actual function shows up. also a lot of times when i hit the stop or play button it jumps to different functions. I used the cd it came with to try to fix the problem and it still does it. also the cd drive doesnt always burn the cd correctly, or maybe the cd drive that came with it is a p.o.s.

Its worth the price i paid for.

I got lots of help from the dealer emailing them questions about things. It may have took them a few days but they alwys responded to my questions.

it looks nice. it would be awesome if it had motorized faders

active musician, audio engineer

punk grunge industrial

I put 9 instead of 10 only because i may not have a wide range of comparison aside from my good ol' XT-20 ADAT. I have always felt the old Alesis sounded great, and the Zoom sounds at least as good right off the 'phones. I can say that the 1608 has more than pleased me with the results of our efforts. It is highly compatible with not only my style, but my recording dynamics. I am using both dynamic and condenser mics with great results, and have recently produced a remote recording with it. Good results. So far, no suggestion upon improvement.

Again, coming from the ADAT system where every single effect you wanted to add had to be purchased and bolted in-line with a tonne of wiring, snakelines, etc., i found the "studio in a box" features of the MRS1608 to be a real spoiler. And . . . the on-board drum kits beats the heck out of the DR-5 we toured with as far as sheer realism. I especially liked the ease at which you can "try" an effect, leave it be and live with it, then remove it if you change your mind. While this may be common to most DAWs of this type, understand that whenever we wanted to remove an effect from the XT-20 ADAT, it required a re-take of the entire track. I do like the front ports for the phones and instruments. Also like the phantom power availability. Keep in mind, we produced some great stuff on ADAT . . . but you had to have much more equipment and spend a heckuvalot more time to produce it. The 1608 is far more convenient. Not to mention the bennies of a 40g. HD. I do wish there was a direct USB connect instead of making it an option. I do not know if a PC based programme can process files from the Zoom. I know the optional USB board will permit downloading and backup onto a PC. I also wish that the 1608 had optical INPUT besides the output. Then i could take the work directly off the XT without going digital to analog to digital. It would be great to be able to handshake my two systems.

Everything modern has that "look" these days that just comes off differently than the sherman-tank look and feel of the older gear. So, yeah, i am a bit wary of dropping the 1608 off a table, but under normal use, and using normal care and precaution i would think this unit should last for years. Reliability? Hasn't failed yet. I believe it to be road-worthy in my experience.

I think for what you get, it's the best deal going.

I have not had need to call for support. Hmm . . what does that tell you?

Sexy to me is a rack of tube gear from the 1950s. Black wrinkle-finished boatanchors running 1500v B+ from off purple glowing 866's and huge modulation transformers facing class A amps using 811As. But that's just me. These little boxes all seem dainty, like if you had all 8 rear ports connected, would the weight of the wire make the unit slide off the table? Naw, but it did take me a while to get used to the small size. I have to remember i live in an IC world of chips and small drives. Zoom uses that silvery colour on all their stuff it seems. I wish it was darker, personally. I cannot say i 'lusted' after looks, because once you've been to the mountain top of glass, steel laminate and iron, the "Iron Maidens" and the bullet proof reel transports, brother, everything else just makes you feel old. <grin>

Active Musician, songwriter, and recording-engineer-wannabee.

Neo Celtic, folk, acoustic, with some industrial techno leanings

I've owned mine over a year now and don't really have any complaints. It does what I want it to do. I have recorded several songs on which I played all the instruments except for the drums but was able to program the drum machine to do what I would have wanted a drummer to do.

It's fairly easy to use once you do it a couple of times. You do have to jump around in the manual to figure some things out. Most of the FX of the 1608 do well. The toggle works well. Actually all features on this unit have worked well for what I've needed. I write songs in the rock genre with some pretty heavy electric guitar down to some really pretty acoustic stuff.

Like I said before, in the beginning you kinda have to refer back to the manual once in a while until you get it nailed down.

Well built. Mine has stayed in my studio but I would feel comfortable taking it out in a decent padded gig bag to do some 8 track simultaneous recording.

Definitely worth the price. I wasn't to sure until I got it and used it and heard the end result. I checked on some other name brand recorders and heard a lot of horror stories about hard drive crashes and decided for the price I would try this unit and it has performed flawlessly. Check the price of similar units to this one and you'll see what a bargain it is!

Haven't needed any.

I own it.

Bass player with 30+ years playing rock n roll and last 5 in a contemporary Christian group

Rock, R & B, Blues, Contemporary Christian.

We use this multi-track recorder in various places as well as our home studio. It works well with our needs to utilize talent in various states.

The ability to load material from a CD is a great addition to this new model. Also the ability to have multiple masters is fantastic. I like the repositioning of the headphones to the front. Having 8 inputs is another great feature. And pitch correct! We love it!

This machine is great for taking on the road.

Yes!

Zoom tech support has always been patient and helpful. Friendly and able to help us get through our questions.

When we got the 1608 running, it was like coming home to your own place...comfortable, and I knew we would be off and running in no time.

sacred

Sound quality if great for this price range. Internal effects and mic preamps are a bit lacking. I use external mic preamps, compression, and effects, rack units before the zoom recorder and the sound quality is night and day. Vocals are a bit lacking if using only the internal preamp and effects.

This is a great unit for a moderate studio beginner. It's set up with tons of presets. But sooner or later you're going to want to have a greater degree of sound control and precision that better units offer. For the money, this is a great deal.

The manual is lousy. Learning curve is steep because of that. Other brands have manuals 4x as thick. But it's easy once you get the hang of it. Just takes time to get there.

Rock solid. Road worthy. Hefty.

Outstanding deal for the money. Just going to want more in a short time.

Again. It's a great deal for the money. If you have the extra bucks, buy better. I spent an extra $800 for rack units to get better sound.

active musician, songwriter, composer, music producer

covers and originals, pop, rock, jazz, country, oldies, contemporary hawaiian, etc.

The sound is pretty amazing and very user friendly

the most useful features are the onboard effects

teh quality is very well put together.

yes very well competitive

yes very easy to attain info

yes,very appealing technical and aesthetic

active musician,songwriter

Rock and New Country

it is a decent sounding piece of gear. Nothing glorious or to-die-for. Built in drums sound good ,guitar sims are not going to make you sell your amp but are usable

the biggest screen with the least information on it. Can't view all panning assignments on it at once only one channel etc. Drum parts loop or step input but can't record while playing along to tracks. two headphone jacks are nice.

well the cd burner crashed within a month of startup. It wouldn't 'see' replacement by other manufact. Took it back to my dealer who sent it in no problem. 8 months laterstillno burner.

well it does do a lot of the things you need for recording all integrated

support seems to be to protect the techs from fixing problems. I called in the morning and my call was returned late afternoon. I was told that there was no one avai9lable who could help me . After some coercion a tech magically appeared on the line. Although sympathetic, all he could offer was "send it in". Do not know why they make devices proprietary with no chance of using aftermarket cd buner.

songwriter musician engineer producer by default

rock pop

Play back sound is fine. Playback through the headphones vs studio monitors is a whole different world. Do not depend on the headphone sound for mixdown.

Has a large bank of effects for guitar and drums. Some are just plain stupid and a waste of space. I have the cd burner which has so many bugs I whish I never bought the unit. With my unit I have to format/erase the cd at least 3 times & sometimes more before I can record a track. (I have tried several different brand cd's) Once you do finally get the track the sound is pretty good. (Forget trying to record several tracks as an album this has never worked.

For doing the basics the machine is okay. I'm not an engineer and I need to read the manual several times before trying anything difficult. Unit has more than I will ever need for recording demo's, practice and pretty simple to to basic recoring of live shows. They should have made all channels with the phantom power option.

The recording and sound of this is not bad. Like a said before the CD burining format is not a realiable function, If you want this for demo's... I would look elsewhere.

I would be happy with the price if the unit worked properly.

I have just started to reveaw their web page to try and figure out the cd burning issues. After reasing other reviews on the internet I see I'm not alone. No luck with a patch yet.

Machines don't have sex appeal to me. I would tilt the LCD screen so you don't have to hover over it.

Active Musician

Rock, Blues

The sound quality of this unit is really good.I have had mine since february 2005 and after studying the manual thoroughly before being tempted to start using it I learnt a great deal which helped me to produce some good early projects.Having had the MRS 1608 for over 4 years now I Have gained more experience and consider my latest projects to be quite competitive with commercial recordings.The sound you get is what YOU put into it and you just need plenty of patience.For example,a good guitarist doesn't necessarilly need to have an expensive guitar to put in a reasonably good performance.I agree that there are better recorders available and some say you get what you pay for but I am happy with what I have got for the money I spent!

I found most of the features quite useful.However there are a a lot of things on the MRS that I have never used.The drum programmer for example seems a bit complicated and I prefer to use my own drum loops and sequences and use my Yamaha keyboard quite a lot.The guitar patches are ok but I now mic my guitars through my amp.I use the patches for acoustic guitar sometimes if I am recording the instrument in stereo.

All in all it is quite easy to get what you want from the product.However I am not altogether 100% content to my personal taste and I have sometimes spent hours trying to reproduce what is in my Head.There is no substitute for the use of an external amp and effects pedals etc for me.The manual is quite clear once you have spent time in studying it and you can easily refresh a paragraph,especially when you have not done any recording for a while.I have had no problems with recording vocals whatsoever and always get good results without a lot of equalization and I'm using a very inexpensive condenser mic.

The product is really well made out of metal.I only use it in my studio but would have no worries about taking it to a live gig or whatever.I had a slight problem when I first bought it when it crashed and I could not get back onto my projects.Not having [and not affording a usb board ]I had to revert the unit back to "factory default"and in doing so lost all my data from the hard disc.Having learnt a lesson,and still not wanting to go to the expense of a plug-in usb board I now back-up all my finished projects onto cd's as it is cheaper and I find it more convenient to keep a "library" of my work.I have not had anymore problems with it since and it is coming upto 5 yrs old and is used regularly.

Ezceptionally very good value for the money and compared to what I have heard from others with far more expensive DAW'S,I think it was a bargain.

I got in touch with the retailer where I purchased the product when it crashed on me and the gave me the no:of someone to ring.However,as I did not get a prompt reply having left my no:I decided to revert unit back to factory default,therefore losing all my data.Someone rang me 2 hours later and said if I post it to him he would be able to save my data by using his usb plug-in board-Toooooooolate!!!

I think the MRS 1608 is a "beauty in a box" and looks better and more expensive than a lot of it's competitors in the market,especially the more expensive products.

"Active Musician","Singersongwriter""recording engineer wannabe"47 yrs playing guitar/vocals in live bands

Rock/pop,Country rock,ballads

I don't really have an opinion as I can't figure the damn thing out. The manual doesn't answer the few questions I have. How do I assign the front 1/4th jacks to separate tracks as i'll be recording an electronic drumkit through them? What get's me the most is i bought this 16 track unit and it's really only 8 tracks with 4 addtional stereo only paired tracks - so really only 12 tracks in all. I was under the impression that it also had another 160 virtual tracks. Well a "V" tracks is just some practice space and you don't really get all those extra tracks to record on and mix down. Their more like "Takes" and you get 10 per track and you pick your best version and mix that one down. Is that in addition to the 'regular' track you'd record on so you'd at least have 24 tracks? The manual doesn't say... I've emailed Zoom almost a week ago and have still yet to recieve any answers so I'm sending this useless piece of crud back and hope I can find a REAL 16 track unit. Or maybe i'll have to buy a 32 track deck in order to get 16 tracks? My main rant is because i got quickly tired of bouncing tracks (and losing mixing/eq control) on my old tascam DP01fx 8 track(s) so I thought I was getting a 16... So if you see a recorder with tracks labeled 1, 2, 3, etc and then 9/10, 11/12, 13/14, etc. your NOT getting what you payed for! Whoever came up with the idea for paired tracks should be flogged! What a complete waste!

years in bands as a guitarist, bassist & drummer. Currently a songwriter

almost everything

I`ve had the 1608 for around 2 months now, pretty good effects ( if you dont have any other outboard gear)for the price, believable recordings can be made on this machine.

Features include a "programmable" drum machine and Bass sampler, maybe its my inexperience with programming, but I`ve found it pretty tough to figure out, the manual is not very helpful either IMO. For instance, although there are a lot of beats for different music styles (rock,blues,hip-hop,dance etc) I have only found 1 TIME SIGNATURE, (4/4)-maybe I`m missing something, or maybe they aint there, either way, its frustrating.

Once you get the hang of tweaking the effect presets, its pretty easy to get some really decent sounds, OD & DS take a little more time but are worth the effort when u get the sound you need. Recording is easy, just arm the track u want to record to, press RECORD then PLAY and off you go. It`s worth downloading the manual as you can work hands free while working with the 1608.

The 1608 is built very well, it has a metal casing and is pretty heavy, so I think it will last for a good few years if looked after properly. You have to install the Hard Drive yourself, however if u can use a screwdriver and connect a cable it should present no problems, the mnanual describes the process perfectly.

For anyone on a budget, this machine is well worth its price, as I said earlier I`ve only had the 1608 for 2 months and its fine for my needs. My only gripe is some parts of the manual could have been more in-depth, but apart from that I`m happy with it

I`ve never had any dealing with Zoom cant say much on this 1.

I went for this machine because of the price, it is quite a good looking machine "in the flesh", but the roland VS STUDIO would have been my 1st choice ($$$ permitting)

Hobbyist

Rock, blues & a lil classical

Ilike this machine because its a all in one recorder. Ive had mine for about two years and its on eof my best recording tools. I record live bands guitar and even produced three albums with this machine.

mixing sounds and adding effects is really easy with great results.

the features are pretty okay, easily programmable drum machine with great bank of sounds and an inbuilt sampler.

I don't think it'll break down. It seems very stable.

It may be overrated when it comes to the regular pricing.

I have it and I thought about selling it. I should've purchased the BR1600 by Boss.

active experimentalist

minimalistic tekhno thrash + wave