Zoom HD16

As you pull your shiny new Zoom HD16 recording studio out of it's box, you may feel a little overwhelmed. You now have a huge musical resource in your hands. You've got sixteen tracks to fill, and your mighty anxious to dive in.

I HIGHLY recommend utilizing your instruction manual at this point to ensure proper operating procedures and conditions to avoid damaging your machine. After your familiar with the start up procedure, go ahead and power your unit. After a brief loading period, you'll be ready to start. To begin with, press the Project/Utility button located in the input section of your recorder, just under the word “Zoom.” Press the enter key in the transport section (round button in the middle of the menu selection arrows) to create a new project. I strongly urge you to name each project as you make it to avoid disorganization and lost projects. Use the jog wheel to select your letters and press select. The machine will take a moment to create the project. Once it has finished, you will be ready to truly begin!

Let's start now with tempo. You can tap it in on the tempo button in the drum machine portion in the upper right hand corner. After you get it close, I would recommend rounding it off to the nearest whole number, as the machine is accurate to the tenth decimal point. Next, select a pattern for you to sync with during your performance. I like to start with the metronome. You can access the metronome in the under “Pattern.” In the drum pad section, hit the shift key+7(Tom 1)pad. In the l.c.d. Readout you will see a number followed by the pattern name. Cycle through and notice they are organized by genre and beat count. There are also intros outro's and fills for each pattern. After you choose your pattern ( again, I like to start with the metro), your ready to perform.

The machine has eight balanced/unbalanced inputs via combo jacks. That is to say, either a quarter inch unbalanced guitar cable or a balanced XLR, or microphone jack, can be inserted into the same jack. Also, one of the greatest features of this machine is the ability to record eight inputs simultaneously. If plugging in a microphone that uses phantom power, press the phantom power button on the channel the microphone is plugged into. Otherwise, if using a dynamic microphone ( such as a Shure SM 58) do not use the phantom power. If recording a guitar directly without a pre-amp, or through an amplifier, use either channel 1 or 2 to facilitate the use of Hi-z. I like to start by setting me record level to around 75%. Set the track's gain to 0% and turn on the track. Set your fader to the “0” position on track one, or whatever track you are recording into. Slowly turn up the gain in the input section. Avoid clipping the track. If the red light on your track input or by the record gain pot light, you are clipping. Just ease your gain down if this occurs. Alright, ready to record!

Once your track is leveled properly, your ready to lay down your first track! Firstly, start by arming your track. The arm button is the small square button just above each track's fader. Press it a few times. You'll notice that it turns green, red, and then off. Press it until red to arm your track. Your track is now armed and ready to be recorded. Now all that is left to do is press record and play! Your machine will give you a precount of four beats. On the fifth beat the recording begins.