[Lee Flier]

Originally Posted by bbgunn

Sorry Lee, I don't have answers for your problem but I thought I'd jump on here to ask a few questions of my own. I am thinking about selling my Alesis Master Control and purchasing one of these ZED R16's as well. I really miss having eq's at my fingertips.

I don't think there's any comparison at all. This board sounds seriously good!

It appears to me the negatives of this unit are 1) no track solo buttons (would have to do that from Reaper with the mouse I suppose) 2) no track record enable buttons (again - use mouse), and 3) no motorized faders - although I seriously think they are over-rated anyway.

Personally I don't think they're over-rated at all - I love motorized faders and definitely wish it had them (read on and you'll see why). The new GS-R24 does have them, plus it's 24 channels, and I really wanted to get that one when I heard its announcement - but it's almost $10,000 with the motorized faders. Too rich for my blood, for the time being.

So I'm guessing the workflow is to record with the faders in audio mode utilizing the eq's and all the standard features of the mixer, setting up your audio channels in Reaper the same way you would with any firewire audio device. That seems fairly straightforward.

Yup.

Then during mixdown you change the faders to midi mode so you are controlling Reapers faders, right? I'm a little bit confused what happens audio-wise at this point. Are the eq's still active? Or is this now functioning strictly as a control surface? I think I would still want to use Reaper's rendering functionality, along with automation and vst instruments and effects as I normally would do. I have no outboard effects or hardware.

Well, that's exactly what's so awesome about this board: you can configure each fader, quite literally, to do anything you want. You can use it strictly as a control surface if you want to, using the faders in MIDI mode. But you can also send the outputs from Reaper back into the board and do a fully analog mixdown, using the console's EQ, panning, summing, levels and so forth. Or you can even tap into JUST the EQ, using it as a "plugin" in your otherwise digital signal. You can also bypass the inserts and EQ and just use the console for analog summing. And you can do any of this on a *per fader* basis.

Even if you are mixing analog, you can still use plugins, automation etc. in Reaper since you can send each channel out to the board "post-fader" from Reaper.

I assumed that I would mostly be using the board in MIDI mode during mixing, perhaps occasionally patching in the EQ or maybe doing a final sum to analog after everything else had been done in Reaper. But, I have to tell you... I did some direct comparisons between the various scenarios, and the difference between using the board for summing, pans and fades (keeping all the tracks at 0 in Reaper) is not subtle. I've heard the difference on large frame consoles but I assumed it would not be so dramatic on a small inexpensive board like this one. But - it is. I would say that at this point I will want to mix analog in 90% of cases, still using some plugins (e.g. compressors) in Reaper before output.

Thus, I'm kinda bummed now that I don't have moving faders, because I'll be back to mixing old-skool with no automation in a lot of cases. But that's OK.

During overdubs I would assume the faders for the already recorded tracks would be in midi mode and the track you are recording/overdubbing the faders would be in audio mode? Or am I getting this all wrong?

As I said, you CAN do it that way, yes. Or you can send the recorded tracks back out to console channels and have them all be in audio mode.

You can also just send your master fader from Reaper out to a couple of channels while you're overdubbing, so you have a minimum of fuss with the console. That would be more like using any other recording interface, I guess, using Reaper to do everything except you're using the console's channels for audio going in, plus its master section for monitoring and transport controls.

Sorry if I'm over-simplifying this but I'm trying to get an idea of the change in workflow I'm going to have to go through if I decide to shell out the money for one of these units.

Hopefully this has made clear that can go through as little change or as much as you want. It's pretty crazy how flexible this thing is. Personally, I'm obviously opting for some pretty radical changes in workflow (vs. mixing "in the box" in Reaper), but I came up in the analog era anyway so I'm just as much used to mixing on a console, and as I say I'm pretty thrilled with the sound when mixing in that mode, enough that it's worth some pain.

I also picked up a Lexicon MX400 reverb/delay unit. I'd been wanting to get an outboard box for awhile, and if I'm going to be doing all this analog mixing, it seemed like the thing to do. Plus you can actually use it as a VST plugin if you're mixing in Reaper - saves CPU resources and IMO outboard sounds better than most reverb plugs... although lots of folks have good success with the UAD stuff.

BUT... I also did a session where I did use a reverb and a delay plug, and sent their outputs out to the A&H as well as all the other tracks. So it was an analog mix but used the reverb plugs. And I have to say that sounded great too! Doing the analog mixdown, in other words, even improved the sound of the plugs.

As an added bonus, you can use this board for live mixing. My band does live Internet broadcasts so it's perfect for us for that.

Anyhow... I hope this was helpful and would be happy to answer any other questions.