ZOOM R8 - Mini Multitracker/Sampler

[boombapp28]

Zoom is owned by Samson which in turn is owned by Sam Ash.

[springwater]

yeah, its just not one around pittsburgh. One in philly tho. Ill find one somewhere around here.

[Ill Green]

Musician's Friend (owned by Guitar Center) and Sweetwater have the R8 listed but not in stock yet for $299.00. ZOOM hasn't shipped them yet as it appears.

I wonder if you can sample a portion of a track like the MV/MPC. Resampling could be differently termed for Bounce, just like Recording the Main Outs on the MPC means resampling.

I might cop one from Musician's Friend since they got that 45 day try before you buy deal, but I still need more info.

[formal]

Here's a new R8 demo video. http://youtu.be/2w5vGP5MO4w Not much info, but at least something till we can get our hands on one.

[formal]

Here's a preview writeup of the R8 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/06/p ... l-surface/

[a.D.]

this settles it..lol...gotta get this

[Ill Green]

Here's a preview writeup of the R8 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/06/p ... l-surface/

Thats the type of review I was expecting, very good things. I don't mind if the internal drum kits can't play along your own samples, but it will once you put them on seperate tracks. Its small so I'm not expecting something above and beyond, but with the right ingenuity, you can most definitely pump out some bangers.

Musicians Friend will have them in stock by tomorrow. I will most likely cop it with my vacation money in July, but we'll see.

[1_inch_punch]

I don't know where the "30 seconds sample time" is coming from.
It doesn't *seem* to work that way.

Firstly, it's an 8 track mono/4 track stereo recorder.

How do you get a sample into it?

2 ways - you can import directly via USB or you can record through the stereo inputs.

There's no 30 second limit on that I'm aware of - it's as long as the file or recording you make.

You assign that file to a track (whether recorded or imported) - then designate that sound file as a "loop" - that tells the machine to trigger the file by the track pad.

Resample is basically doing a bounce. You can hit that with Send effects.

The difference between importing a Wave file and recording thru the inputs - you can hit the inputs with onboard Insert effects which can only be done at record stage.

Programmable drum machine - comes with kits that everybody will say suck.

So you layer drums from different kits, eq differently - hit with send effects and bounce to make up different drums.

The nicest thing I like is while each project is limited to 8 tracks - a project is not a fenced off yard - you can import audio files from any other project -

so you make a single project for your kicks, one for your snares, one for your bass whatever....dig?

You make a bounce of each project and import those files into a bigger "shell" project. If you're not happy - go back to the instrument project, change that and bounce it out again. It allow for more modular concept of composition. You might have different projects for each section of your song etc.. bring them into another via the sample pads.

You could keep yourself very busy with just this and an ipod going thru the inputs.

[Ill Green]

The 30 sec sample time came from ZOOM engineers themselves, by email and its mentioned on a couple NAMM videos but not all so I see what you mean. The pdf manual is still unavailable to confirm the sampler section but if anyone has the R24 version, the sampler is pretty much the same but only 8 tracks. Sweetwater has them in stock, but the pdf manual will be ready by July.

[1_inch_punch]

sorry Ill,

i saw those vids myself last nite - wasn't trying to slam you on that.

I'm wrong anyway on the Insert effects - it seems you can use *some* of them on imported wavs.

manual now at -

http://www.zoom.co.jp/downloads/r8/manual/

peace.

[Ill Green]

No offense taken, just as boggled about this device as you are. I hear the R24 has timing issues but got resolved with an update, hopefully this ends up flawless. A good in-depth review is what I'm looking for now.

Thanks for the link will look into it when I get home.

[Ill Green]

Ok, I just went through the manual and it says nothing about sample time. But the sampler section seems kinda cool to use but this is not a hands-on review.

From what I read, you sample by recording stuff to a track first, then you mark up whats to be looped (start/end points) and voila, its playable on a pad. So if you play guitar, playing random tunes on a spirit-of-the-moment tip, then you can record your little 15 minute session and loop up the dope part later after listening. However, once you loop a part within the track, you can't use the rest of the guitar riffs to loop on other pads, so you would have to copy the performance to the other tracks in order to "chop" it up to the other pads. Look at it as this, track 1 for pad 1, track 2 for pad 2, track 3 for pad 3 etc. Trimming the loop can delete the unused parts of the track so be sure to copy before trimming if you don't want to lose the entire performance. Also there is only a Gate setting, so you'll have to hold down the pad to let it loop infinitely.

With a SD card you can import your own loops, files must be [email protected] wav. only. Other types of files will not be recognized by the R8.

There is a rhythm section where you can use the drum kits and using all 8 pads to record to 1 or 2 tracks, and the sounds react as One Shots. Not too sure if I can import my own kits but you can play the rhythm on one track and play the loops on another.

Still reading it and looking for up-to-date videos so stay tuned to see if this is worth it or not. But definitely seems to call for ninja-skills.

[timfromtexas]

anyone ever get this thing? im thinking heavily about picking one up

[formal]

anyone ever get this thing? im thinking heavily about picking one up

Still haven't seen one in the store. I played with the bigger version r16/r24 and it seemed like a very nice machine. I would seriously buy the r8 but I'm in the process of paying off an mpc1000 my friend hooked up. (well I haven't paid for it yet, but I know the mpc is a much better choice for about the same price) if I wasn't diggin the mpc so much this would be next on my list.

[timfromtexas]

they have it at the sam ash by me.