Description
Zoom R8 multitrack SD recorder controller and interface.
From the manufacturer
The Zoom R8 Multitrack Recorder
Recorder : Sampler : Interface : Controller
The compact and versatile R8 is a great choice for home recordists and road warriors alike. Not only is it a full-featured 8-track recorder with physical faders, it’s a pad sampler, a rhythm machine, and a loop-based sequencer, too-plus it can serve as a DAW control surface and audio interface. Advanced features include built-in stereo condenser microphones, dual mic/line/instrument inputs, and over 140 onboard DSP effects.
- 8-track playback, 2-track simultaneous recording to SD cards up to 32 GB
- Dual mic/line/instrument level inputs on XLR/TRS combo connectors and built-in stereo condenser microphones
- Dual balanced output jacks and headphone output with dedicated volume control
- Over 140 onboard effects, as well as a built-in metronome, chromatic tuner, and variable playback speed with or without pitch change
- Full control surface functionality (Mackie Control emulation), plus mixing and transport controls for Cubase, Logic, Ableton Live, and other DAWs
- Operates off AA batteries or power adapter
Complete control
If you use DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software but hate mixing with a mouse, the R8 provides the perfect solution. It can act as a full-featured control surface for popular DAWs such as Cubase, Logic, and GarageBand, adding real faders and transport/status buttons that streamline the process of creating the perfect mix.
Multitrack recording has never been easier
The R8 provides eight tracks for recording and playback in full fidelity WAV format, making it ideal for both professional production and for use as a musical sketchpad. Battery operation allows for field recording and enables you to capture your ideas quickly. You can connect external microphones, instruments, or line-level sources directly to the R8, or use the built-in stereo mic pair for minimal setup. When your multitrack recording is complete, you can use the R8’s internal mixer, complete with physical faders, equalization, panning, and built-in effects-including amp models and mastering effects like multi-band compression-to create a stereo mix with studio-quality sound.
Create music any way you like
However you choose to build your musical productions, you’ll find the R8 to be the ultimate creative tool.
Eight velocity-sensitive pads enable you to trigger samples, drum sounds, or loops—you can even create your own custom samples and loops from recorded audio tracks. Quantization and time-stretching can be applied to ensure perfect synchronization, and the onboard audio sequencer allows step entry when absolute precision is required.
The R8 also provides more than 140 great-sounding DSP effects, including guitar amp, bass amp, and mic preamp models, plus mastering algorithms such as multi-band compression. Effects can be applied during recording and mixdown, or can be used for playback only. In addition, the R8’s USB port allows it to act as a 2-input/2-output interface for DAWs such as the Cubase LE.
yep –
Portable, battery-powered studio-in-a-boxThis thing is awesome.But let’s start with the bad, before we get to the good. The Bad:- The preamp quality is not that great. I want to be careful not to over-state this too much: they are certainly not BAD preamps, and they are certainly competitive with other preamps that can be bought eight at a whack for $300, but they are not fast-response, high-headroom, ultra-clean studio preamps. They are more like the preamps on a decent portastudio (duh). They have a bit of a tendency to flab out on DI bass tracks, and can turn a bit crunchy/hashy at the top with difficult program material such as cymbals or detailed condensers. Backing off the input gain and recording at lower levels helps but does not completely solve these issues. And ribbon mics are pretty much right out: there’s just not enough clean gain to drive low-output mics while preserving sound quality. But they are perfectly adequate for midrangey, high-output dynamic live mics, such as Shure SM57s and 58s, and considering the price point and what you’re buying, they are actually quite capable: VASTLY better than the 1/8″ mic/line input on a typical consumer soundcard, and comparable with a typical budget/prosumer mixer or live console.- Phantom power on only two channels. I imagine this is a limitation of using USB/battery power, and it’s frankly kind of amazing that they can deliver 48V at all. But it is still a limitation. If you want to use this box for full-blown studio recording, for this reason and the above, you’ll probably want to have some outboard preamps or a mixing console or some such (soundcraft makes some inexpensive mixers with pretty good preamps).- Zero midi anything. I’m not sure if this is a “bad”, so much as just something to be aware of. Inclusion of a simple GM synth or drum machine, or even the ability to record MIDI would have expanded the usefulness of this box, but also would have added a lot of complexity to the little menu-based LCD interface. Overall I think it was a better decision to leave it out, and keep the device easier to use, but it’s worth being aware of: if you want to record midi instruments with this box, you will be recording the output as audio.- Usability/latency problems as a computer audio interface. I found this box to be unsatisfying as a laptop audio interface using early 2010 drivers. USB audio interfaces can be iffy compared with firewire or PCI, and this was no exception. I experienced intermittent problems with crackly audio, dropouts and skips, and had to frequently adjust latency settings and/or restart the hardware. Such problems were intermittent, but even occasional meltdowns can make such a device almost unusable. It’s easier to simply record standalone to the Zoom R16 and then dump the files into computer via USB for editing and mixing in your favorite DAW software. Bear in mind that every computer is a bit different, so YMMV, and future firmware or driver updates may help the situation. But for now I cannot recommend it as a primary multitrack audio interface for computer-based recording (although I certainly recommend it as a portable multitrack recorder that can integrate with a computer setup).So much for the bad. The good:- IT RUNS ON FRIGGEN BATTERIES. If you are new to recoding, it may not be clear what a revolutionary thing this is, to have a complete recording that you can leave on the coffee table or stick in a backpack and take a full project from recording, through mixing, with effects, and run the whole thing on six AA batteries. Battery-powered recorders are obviously not new, but this box is genuinely a full-capable recording studio that achieve the magic 8 simultaneous inputs, with effects and mixing. And battery life is actually quite good. The more tracks and more processing and effects you’re using, the faster they deplete, but even at full load you’re changing batteries maybe every two hours, more than enough time to re-charge a spare set of rechargeables.- SD storage. Using SD cards as the storage medium means cheap and easy storage, but even better, no fans, no motors, no whirring/clicking hard disk… this box is *silent*. It also means that it records like tape: there is no saving, no file-management… just hit record or play, turn power on and off whenever you want– no worries, and no inspiration-killing hassle.- Ease of use is really good. Text- and menu-based LCD windows can be a nightmare to deal with, as anyone who was recording in the early days of digital knows. But if you’re familiar with multi-track recording generally, this device is easy to use right out of the box. Reading the (pretty good) manual is not required to start recording and mixing, but it does reveal a LOT of deep functionality. If you are new to recording, this is a pretty easy way to get started: it doesn’t have the graphical point-and-click simplicity of a computer-based interface, but it also skips over all the issues of latencies, drivers, file-management, and various computer-related headaches. The R16’s true 8-input recording and 16-track playback allow it to skip/simplify internal routing, bussing, etc, making it very straightforward to use: every physical channel is a track, and there is a bank up/down key to determine whether you’re working with tracks 1-8, or 9-16. Couldn’t be simpler. Each channel has a play/mute/record toggle button with a color-changing LED to tell you what state it’s in, and the transport controls work just like a tape machine. The menus for effects, project selection, track swapping, etc are all straightforward and well-thought-out, with clearly-labelled buttons for each menu. Connections are extremely simple and obvious. Each channel has a gain/trim control and a mix fader with a 4-LED meter that automatically switches from record level to playback level depending on the track status, and channels with switchable input status use separate physical switches to flip between phantom power on/off, built-in vs external mics, or instrument/mic inputs. Easy peasy, with no obscure or hidden settings or parameters to drive you nuts.- The built-in mics are an outstanding feature. They are your basic electret omni mics, which means they are quiet, accurate, and have good dynamic response with both low- and high-volume material. Just flip the switch and set them to record and you can track all your rehearsals, live shows, living-room practice, whatever. You can make full multitrack demos using just this box and a pair of headphones.- Built-in effects are comprehensive, quite good, and very well-thought out. The presets are very usefully-constructed for a box of this type, designed to minimize menu-based tweaking. The main “default” effects configuration is set up for semi-automatic per-channel eq/compression, a master reverb/delay with per-track send, and a full suite of guitar and bass effects on the hi-Z “guitar channel”. Digging into the menus further allows you to assign any effect to any track, to change whether insert effects are “hard-coded” onto the incoming audio, or just applied as a bus effect (for example, if you wanted to hear the effect during tracking and playback, but keep the underlying audio “clean” for later processing in a computer DAW or whatever). There are also a host of nifty extras including preamp modellers, guitar and bass amp emulators, wah/modulation/etc “special effects”, acoustic guitar and bass simulators, and so on. Not 10 years ago, this box would have been worth the price as a single-channel multi-effects processor alone. Some of the settings are a little weird, and I’d much rather do a full mixdown using hardware processors or computer plugins than using menu-based text inputs, but the effects are all real-time, and you can hear your changes as you make them, so it’s certainly possible to do a full record with this box alone, and effects quality is comparable to other digital hardware processors.- Overall sound quality is quite good. Even factoring in the preamp reservations above, 15 years ago you could have spent 10 or 15 thousand dollars EASILY and still not had the sound quality and capability of this little box (plus you would have needed 20 electrical outlets and a room to store it all in, not to mention hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of racks and cables). It probably won’t replace your RME interface or Apogee converters, and it certainly won’t replace a collection of API and Telefunken mic preamps, and you’ll probably want to hang onto to your UAD card if you have one, but good luck sticking all that in a laptop bag and taking it to the beach.This plus something like a Tivoli Audio iSongBook (or even a pair of headphones) makes a complete, battery-powered multitrack studio that fits in a backpack or laptop bag, with room left over to hold spare batteries plus a couple of mic cables and SM57s, if you want them. Laptop-based mobile DAWs have always seemed like an awesome idea, but in practice things like boot times, dongles, limited mobile interface options, mixing and control via mousepad, short battery life, self-noise, computer-related reliability and stability issues, etc have always tended to keep it a good “idea” as opposed to a truly mobile “on your lap” studio. This is perfect and easy to take on the road, record in the tour bus, in the rehearsal space, in the hotel room, at a picnic table, a house party, wherever.
Bernard Duhickey –
Great for making guitar loops!I have always had problems with looper pedals because I could never time them right ha ha! I tried to make my own guitar loop after reading The Better Zoom Manual(Thank you!) I could not believe how easy it is to make a guitar loop! Perfect for practice and jamming. The drums could be better but they do the job. Also this is a bit more fun than a DAW. The manual can help but the book mentioned is a great option to get up and started. The recordings are good and man there are lots of distortions and good EQs. The EQs really help with mixing and mastering. There lots of algorithims for ranging from distortions to mastering and mics. I bought this from Amazon back in July and it just sat in my closet cause the first time I used it I thought was too cheesy and too complicated. But finally I decided to give this thing a try. Finally on December 11, 2021. Glad I did!
D. Tu –
Very descent recorderThis recorder almost didn’t happen for me, but once I sent a faulty one back and received a replacement (thanks Amazon, you did a great job!), everything worked great! The first recorder, which turned out to have some electrical problems affecting the right electret mic, as well as XLR connectors 5-8/13-16/21-24, seemed pretty good at first until I went to record some drums with XLR mics and discovered that the 4 right XLR connectors gave nothing but a buzzing sound. After digging around online a bit, I determined that it wasn’t an oversight on my part about its functionality and promptly returned the faulty unit for a replacement. After the replacement arrived, I immediately tested all line-inputs, XLR inputs, L & R built-in mics, and all 6 phantom power connections. With this one, everything worked great. The only thing to do was flash the firmware from 1.00 (which is what the replacement unit had) up to 1.12. I believe the original unit came with 1.10. The instructions on the Zoom website made this real easy. This fixes an issue where tracks get filled with noise if they’re restarted after being paused, at least from what I’ve read online. So far, with several songs I’ve recorded in the last 3 weeks, there appears to be no problem with the audio disappearing into noise under v1.12.I do wish that the effects worked with the 48kHz sample rate (not that they’re supposed to – the unit is only advertised for effects to work with 44kHz sample rate), but they work pretty descently under 24-bit/44.1 sample rate. All tracks do have panning ability in the menu, whether you run them as separate mono tracks or as linked stereo tracks. As I’ve read in other reviews, there is some static when the gain controls are turned almost all the way up, but it doesn’t keep crackling, it only makes that sound when turning the knob into the top of the range. Other than that, it doesn’t affect (or hasn’t so far) any recordings I’ve made (no related noise in the recordings, in other words). I also tried putting all gain knobs and volume sliders at their topmost positions when checking the replacement unit. On the original unit, there was some crazy buzzing that never fully went away. With the replacement unit, I can certainly hear the noise floor with that appraoch, but there’s no abhorant buzzing – thankfully, that appears ok.All recordings I’ve tried so far have involved a full 8 tracks at one time, plus some external preamps, but some have only made use of the onboard preamps. The onboard ones sound descent for the most part (unsure about nature recording yet, but I suspect too noisy for nature use). Sound quality for live music is great, of course, because volume levels are quite high and I tend to run everything in through the line-in jacks: 2 jacks were just XLR mics, 2 used a battery-powered stereo mic to capture audience sounds, and 4 were line-in from peavy amps. Worked great for the volume levels I tried it in (meaning somewhat loud levels, roughly 100-110 dB A-weighted (had to use ear plugs on my part, but I just prefer protecting my hearing). Anyhow, it worked great in the live situation; and, for recording in-house (not live), it also worked really great. I do rough mixes in the Zoom R24, but prefer to dump all tracks into my prefered DAW software (Samplitude, Audacity, Adobe Premier, etc.) to do the actual mixing. Until something like this supports plug-ins (highly unlikely given the lower price range), it’ll have to be an audio-collection tool only for me. That’s just my requirements, though. Others may find it okay for their mixing requirements, though, and for smaller mixes, I would likely use it to mix down songs more easily.Each track does have a menu-based, 3-band eq… bass and treble have either dippable EQ’s or roll-off EQ’s. The midrange is parametric and allows you to set a fairly wide midrange frequency area – frequencies are preset, but cover a lot of the main harmonics used, and all with variable width (Q). I think the farthest it lets you cut or boost the midrange is +/-12 dB. Not the most dramatic amount, but it’s descent. I’m not sure on how sharp the bass/treble roll-off filters are. They sound like they’re in the range of 9-18 dB possibly, but that’s just my halfway guess.Also, each track has a send/return setting for reverb and chorus. These work pretty descent. Lots of different types of reverb and chorus to choose from, and both can be used together per track. I wish the compression was a little more accomodating, but I think I may just need to explore that further before declaring that it’s not as useful for me.Overall, a great unit for live recording and group recordings (meaning, not in live environments). I haven’t tried recording on batteries yet, but look forward to it. I’m not sure the noise floor would work for the super-quiet levels needed for field recording, as I also use a Marantz PMD661 for field recording (which is a good bit quieter), but I expect I’ll be trying that out soon (may even try a Blumlein array with 4 mics for fun!). In my estimation & experience so far, a very descent, solid unit.
Greenhaw –
Great portable DAWA great product for home recording. The drum kit is a little weak and slightly confusing at times, but the built-in effects and mastering along with the acoustic and bass simulator make this a worthwhile buy for anyone looking to get away from the mess and complexity computer based DAWs can have for beginners.
Michael Palmer –
Does not come with the advertised usb cableFor the price they could include the USB to connect to the pc and a 2gb SD card it does not save anything without one or the other and comes with none
Quentin L. Benedict –
Great recorder and great front end for Reaper.Good ability to copy wave files for each individual channel.
M Rossmore –
A very useful and capable portable studio.The Zoom R8 is an incredible, inspiring piece of equipment. I won’t go into the tech details–you can find all the specs elsewhere. I’ll just talk about how it’s fit into my workflow.* The ability to record in .WAV files is excellent. It’s one of the main reasons I chose this over other options, like the Tascan DP series. If you recorded it on the R8, you can just copy it off and use it anywhere.* Its timing–as in BPM–is rock solid and matches up to DAWs. For instance, If I record a demo in the R8 at 120bpm, I can create a 120bpm project in my DAW (Sonar X3) and import the R8’s ,WAV files directly into it. It just syncs perfectly. No need to re-record. No need to edit or time-stretch.* The onboard mics are great. Just ensure you have a seriously quiet space (They’re very sensitive and omni-directional), and you’ll able to capture some great performances. They’re also very convenient if you just want to lay down a scratch track anywhere, noise-be-darned.* I use the onboard drum machine all the time. I can’t in good conscience call it realistic-sounding–kind of like a late-90’s Boss DR or Alesis SR-16-type sound–but it’s very useful for creating something to play against. They’re also good for figuring out what kind of rhythm/feel you want for your song. I always record my own patterns, but the R8 brings a pile of stock ones.I used all the above on one of my most recent songs. I created some drum patterns in the R8, then proceeded to record electric bass via the 1/4″ input, and two acoustic baritone ukulele tracks (lead and rhythm) via the onboard mic. I also recorded a couple of vocals tracks to finish out the composition. When I was ready to do a full production version of the song, I was already happy with the bass and uke tracks, so I just imported those into Sonar X3. Then I re-recorded the vocals, and recorded full drums and synth in the DAW. However, the original instrumentation–bass and uke–are the originals from the R8.I’ve also recorded a few finished tracks inside of it, making good use of the onboard effects and mixing capabilities. There’s plenty of tweakability to the effects, and some hidden gems. For instance, you can do a tempo-synched delay, which is not obvious. Also, when you bounce down tracks, the original ones aren’t destroyed. You can just go back into the file system and recall them. The machine simply has a ton of depth. I’ve had it a couple of years and keep finding new things inside of it.Tips:* I’d recommend pairing it with a good vocal preamp or processor. I like the TC Electronics Harmony G-XT personally.* Use rechargeable batteries. It runs fine on 4 Eneloop AAs.* For a case, I use the Case Logic LNEO-10 . It’s a Netbook case that fits the R8 and its manual perfectly in the main pocket, and has a side pocket for the USB adapter and cables.* The Volca Keys is an amazing sound companion for the R8, . The Keys can produce everything from shimmery synth pads, flute-like sounds, hard leads, and really good bass sounds. It’s very easy to play and a lot of to tweak. When I travel, I take a solid body electric ukulele, the R8, and Volca Keys. I’ve got a tiny, battery-powered studio everywhere I go.If you’d like to hear an an instrumental I wrote on a cruise ship using just the R8/setup described above, search SoundCloud for “markrossmore travel 03 demo”. It’s a simple little happy song using the uke (both clean and distorted), the Volca Keys (both as bass and synth lead), and the R8’s drums.Drawbacks? Maybe that I wish I’d gotten the R24 instead, as it’s easy to run out of tracks quickly, and that I’d like to have the eight simultaneous inputs. Each drum pattern requires its own track, so if you have three patterns (say, a verse, chorus, and a bridge) you’re down to three usable recording tracks. Depending on the song, this may not be a big deal. I’ve recorded a few songs on the R8 using a single four bar drum pattern for the entire song. Like I said, I can always import the audio into my DAW and build a full drum track. Again, not a deal breaker.However, I prefer the small size of the unit. It travels beautifully.
drad –
Incredible product, one of the best purchased of my life.I bought this product for 300 dollars, and have recently seen the price drop to only about 200 dollars. I thought at 300 it was a steal… but for around 200? If you’re even just considering this recorder, go ahead and buy it. It’s incredible.I bought this recorder because I was just tired of using my computer for music production. I don’t have a great computer, so I experienced many problems right off the bat trying to use my computer to record. I experienced latency while recording, which set off the timing off all my tracks. My sound card was a piece of crap. I also suffer from severe OCD, and really wanted something simple and clean to organize all of my recordings on.This did all of that and more.The recorder itself will do exactly what most of you what: record from a connected condenser microphone, and allow you to mix and pan all of the tracks. You can also connect various other hardware such as synthesizers, drum machines, and more. But there are SO MANY cool features on this device that expand beyond that including:- A built in guitar effects processor. You can plug your electric guitar directly into the device and it has digital amp settings in there with loads of effects you can play around with. You know those digital pedalboards by companies such as Digitech? It’s very similar to something like that.- Mixing… the mixer and mixing capabilities on this device are amazing. You can of course do simple edits to adjust the panning, adjust EQ… but there are tons of other really amazing things on here, such as the “effects” section. There are “mastering” effects on here, which are presets that will automatically make your mix sound professional and incredible. If you record vocals and an acoustic guitar track, and then turn on the “warm” or “live” mastering preset, the difference is night and day.- Sampler. I haven’t gotten into this feature as much as I’d like, but this device functions as a sampler. My favorite part about recording with this recorder at first was how easy it is to loop tracks. You can play a simple riff on guitar and loop it on one track, and use the other tracks to record tracks over in real time. But you can use this principle to use this as a sampler in live performance situations. I can take an MP3 of a song, load it onto the recorder, chop the part of the sample I want to use all ON the recorder, set it to loop, connect my drum machine, and play the drums live with the sample. If you have a very cheap, basic drum machine, you can effectively turn it into an MPC style device just by attaching it to this recorder.The one issue that stopped this product from being the absolute best purchase I’ve made in recent years is the drum machine. It includes a built in drum machine with drum pads along the bottom… but the included drum kits SUCK. It doesn’t include drum samples you can just mix and match to make awesome drum kits. It includes a handful of really digital sounding, crappy kits that sound very un-even and stand out in the mix. In theory you “can” make your own drum kits by saving drum sounds onto the SD card and programming them to the pads as “samples”, but it sounds and plays like s***. You can look up videos online of people trying to do this, it’s a lot of hassle and doesn’t work.It’s nice that they included the drum machine, however. There are maybe one or two kits that are usable. But it’s a great feature to have when writing songs and brainstorming. If you’re already working out guitar parts on the recorder, it’s so easy to just record a hi-hat rhythm with a kick and snare that will be perfectly synced up to your recording in a matter of seconds.I am extremely tired and feel like I’m rambling on, but this device is so much more than just something that will record and playback what you send through it.It’s truly a home studio in a box.
NK&MD –
A Great, Simple Digital MultitrackI bought this device to replace my aging computer based digital audio workstation. The R16 boots up in a couple seconds and has no latency problems that I can hear – two of the most painful things about working with my old computer system. Another Zoom user did an experiment and found the latency compensation is only off by 1.3 ms.The way the R16 handles stereo audio is not always intuitive. When I initially plugged my keyboard into my Zoom R16, and adjusted the levels, there was horrible audio quality for the lower notes. It turned out this was because the stereo output from my keyboard was being mixed as two mono signals. After configuring the inputs as a stereo pair the audio quality problem was fixed.I e-mailed tech support with a couple questions and have yet to hear back. However, there is a user forum: […] that is very active. The manual is laid out well and is easy to understand, but the menus can get a little confusing. Remember that the arrows navigate the menus and the jog dial changes values. Once you get the hang of the menus, using them is pretty easy. For example, there are no dedicated knobs for EQ, but once you’re in the EQ menu, you just select a track by pushing the Play/Rec/Mute button, and then spin the jog dial. Use up and down to select High, Mid, and Low EQ.The feature that really sold me on the R16 is the memory card format. It uses an SD card, so I can use an extra card I had for my camera to plug into my R16. I can also pop the card out of the Zoom and put it into my laptop. Zoom records everything in WAV format, so I can play music straight from my laptop, and my favorite audio file conversion software will let me quickly make MP3s to e-mail to my friends.The 8 XLR+1/4″ combo plugs mean that I can get rid of my mixer entirely and just plug all my devices into my zoom. It even has phantom power on two of the inputs so I can use my condenser microphone. At first I didn’t know what combo plugs were. This miraculous invention allows you to plug in a 1/4″ line level input or a balanced XLR (microphone) cable. You can also plug in a high-Z 1/4″ input (e.g. electric guitar) into channel 1.Mastering, as far as I can tell, is only done in real time, but it’s as simple as arming the master track (with a dedicated slider) and pressing record.I have only begun to explore the possibilities of inserting effects on the tracks. In addition to chorus and reverb for each channel, you can also add fun distortion, wah, and compression effects. Audio can be recorded dry while monitoring with an effect on. Adding some chorusing to a vocal can really give more confidence to the singer, and this allows you to do that and record it without the effect so that you can perfect the chorusing later.All this and I haven’t even touched on the Audio Interface and Control Surface capabilities of this device. However, like I said earlier, I bought this to replace my computer, and it’s doing a great job. I don’t plan to use either of those features any time soon.Now, go make some music!
Pandora Black –
R16 – Honest reviewThe Zoom R16 is great for home studio recording. I love the fact that you have 8 dedicated inputs for keyboards, mics, guitars and other gear. Though it only has one phantom power it does work well. I give this 5 starts for 2 reason only. The dedicated inputs are a MUST HAVE compared to the Zoom R8 which only has 2.The second reason for the 5 star rating is that it has a dedicated USB host to PC, This is great for REAPER, ABLETON and STUDIO ONE.The downside is simply this. It will not work with Audacity, Ardour, LMMS or FL. (latest driver release).You have to download and install the Zoom driver for windows 10 even though it says it will install it automatically. This is NOT true if you have your firewall active on Windows 10.The other issue is that the unit has not updated the firmware since 2018 and that is a huge issue when connecting to a dedicated DAW like a Roland Fantom or Motif.I will still give this 5 stars for fact that Zoom has good products and they pack their multi-track recorders with features that others like Tascam simply do not offer.The price is a bit high for an older unit however ask yourself a simple question? How many Multi-track recorders today offer more than 2 inputs for the price of the Zoom R16?Lastly the R16 is a dedicated Audio interface for PC & Mac. It will run very well on software listed above however some older versions or “open source” software may not work or have issues.Out of 9 DAWs (digital audio workstations) here is the ones I have found to be MOST reliable in the order I have listed.1. – REAPER (5 stars)2. – ABELTON (4 stars)3. – STUDIO ONE 4 or 5 (5 stars)4. – Steinberg Cubase (4 stars)5. – Apple Logic Pro (3 stars)Others not listed have not worked or connected properly to test. REAPER by far was the winner for conneciton, control, ease of use and mix down.Hope you found this review helpful.