after some research I found out that the Zoom R16 is a tricky device. It seems that it has been unsupported for quite a long time, but since 2013/14 a good progress has been made.
Just an update for my fellow Zoom R16 owners - it seems a patch was accepted a few days ago that gets playback working too It is in linux-next now, so hopefully it will all work out of the box with kernel 4.4. It's funny just how happy this makes me. Wish I could buy the guy who came up with the patch (Ricard Wanderlöf) a beer. But then I guess I'd have to buybeers for the people who got input and midi control working with the R16 last year. Onward and upward.
eric71 wrote:Just an update for my fellow Zoom R16 owners - it seems a patch was accepted a few days ago that gets playback working too It is in linux-next now, so hopefully it will all work out of the box with kernel 4.4. It's funny just how happy this makes me. Wish I could buy the guy who came up with the patch (Ricard Wanderlöf) a beer. But then I guess I'd have to buybeers for the people who got input and midi control working with the R16 last year. Onward and upward.
Yeap, this made me also very excited. Many thanks to Ricard!
I've seen so many mixed reviews on that particular item. Some people say it's great, but a considerable number say the build and sound quality is crap. And it's quite expensive where I live. Would you (Zoom R16/24 owners here) like to share your views on the matter?
I bought mine maybe 3 years ago. I was looking to do multitrack recording of at least 4 tracks at once, preferably 6 or more. For my budget, there was nothing comparable. The fact it can act as a portable recorder recording 8 tracks at once without a computer has proven handy for recording gigs. I know the preamps aren't great, and I really haven't looked at what is currently available, but for me the value was hard to beat ( I got it for about 300 euros here in Finland). Everything that offered similar amounts of inputs were at least 500. It was a tough decision, because I had been using a laptop with only Linux on it for a number of years and had settled on Reaper with wine/wineasio as my DAW of choice. But I needed to record drums and couldn't afford another option, so I pulled out an old copy of Windows XP and shifted my recording to Windows. Now I'm elated to get the chance to go back to Linux fulltime and am trying to ditch Wine along the way as well. Loving Ardour 4.4 right now and also enjoying its Alsa backend since I have always preferred keeping everything in the DAW vs linking apps externally - I'm looking forward to seeing the R16 available for both input and output.
I should note that I often loan the R16 to a friend who is quite resistant to change (including moving from 4 track and 8 track tape based recorders) and he has taken to using it in the same way he has made his recordings for years. He's even done some nice mixes right in the R16, and other times exported the track to his computer. I haven't done that myself since I have used it mostly as an interface and control surface except for the occassional gig recording, but it seams you can get quite a lot accomplished with 16 tracks and the internal effects and mixing as a digital recorder on the sd card.
edit - and regarding build quality, I'm completely happy with it. Yes, it is plastic, but it is sturdy and it has held up well.