Zoom R20 16-Track Multitrack Recorder, Audio Interface and Controller
The R20 is the multitrack recorder that stopped pretending a two line display is enough. A 4.3 inch colour touchscreen runs the whole unit, so tracking, editing and mixing happen by dragging, pinching and swiping.
- 16 tracks: enough for a singer songwriter stacking parts or a full band tracked live.
- Eight inputs: six XLR inputs and two combo inputs, so a drum kit, a bass and a couple of vocal mics all go down at once.
- The best preamps Zoom has put in a multitrack: the R20 has the best preamps and noise floor of any multitrack recorder the company has designed.
- 4.3 inch colour touchscreen: navigate and edit directly instead of paging through menus.
- Editing on the unit: cut, copy, combine and loop regions without moving the session to a computer.
- Colour coded workflow: faders, gain dials and on screen track regions share colours, so the channel you adjust is the channel you meant.
- Audio interface and controller: connects to a computer as an interface and as a control surface, and works standalone when you want to be away from a screen.
- Mass storage: file transfer over USB for moving finished tracks off the unit.
Multitrack recorders have traditionally asked musicians to learn a device before they can use it. The R20 is Zoom's answer to that, built around a 4.3 inch colour LCD touchscreen that behaves the way people already expect a screen to behave. You drag regions, pinch to zoom, swipe through a song, and get on with the music.
Sixteen tracks and eight inputs
The R20 records 16 tracks through eight physical inputs, six of them XLR and two combo jacks. The input count is what really decides what you can do in a room. Six XLRs takes a drum kit properly, or covers a live band with a microphone on each source, and the two combo inputs handle guitars and line level gear. A singer songwriter builds a song up a layer at a time across the 16 tracks. A band plays a take together and keeps every source on its own track for mixing later.
The preamps
Zoom describes the R20 as having the best preamps and noise floor of any multitrack recorder the company has ever designed. That shows up most on quiet sources, acoustic guitar, close vocals and room mics, where preamp noise is the difference between a recording that sounds finished and one that needs cleaning up before anyone hears it.
Editing without a computer
Cut, copy, combine and loop are all done on the touchscreen. Regions are handled visually, so comping a vocal or looping a section to test an arrangement idea happens in the room rather than after an export. Colour coding runs through the whole unit, with faders, gain dials and screen regions sharing colours, which sounds cosmetic right up to the moment you reach for the wrong channel during a take.
Interface and controller
The R20 also connects to a computer, working as an audio interface and as a control surface, and it handles mass storage transfers for moving files off the unit. That makes it a standalone recorder when you want to be away from a screen and part of a computer setup when you do not.