Korg D-16

Easiest digital recorder I have ever used

Its pretty good for demos,not as good as the Akai DPS 16

no problems thus far

The track knobs will come off very easily

no interaction

Its cheap and easy to use..After my cousin recorded some demos with my Akai DPS16 I told myself i have to learn to use the Akai,and i haven't gotten around to it.I like the Korgs touch screen,kinda spoiled me.

The Korg has 12 fader knobs whereas the Akai has 16.16 is best when dealing with 16 tracks(common sense).

I have had this unit for about 7 years. If you are framiliar with recording with DAW or Analog 4trak, you shouldn't have a problem using this unit. Touch Screen and Button menu interface is intuitive, (No more than one or two sub pages for most if not all functions). I havn't read the manual in years. I could do without, thogh I am interested in tinkering with its Midi Capabilities, so on the other hand I might need the manual for its SysEx.

In the past I used this unit to record 3 songs for a band I used to play in. Had good results using the unit for recording a demo.

My hard drive inside this unit is shot, I cant record anything longer than 2 minutes... but that is not what I use it for. I like using it as a Mini Mixer/Auxillary Effects processor. It's 8 line inputs with 8 PreEq channels make it an ideal or 'Open Mic Night' mixer.

I occassionaly use it for open mic night as a Guitar + Sm58 + Keyboard mixer. I use the faders to controll both my direct level and my effects direct level. It sound fine live. Its reverb is decent but not terribly great.

At home I like to use it as part of my setup as Aux sends to inputs 1,2(Mono Send Effect)(5-6 Stereo Insert Effect) and just save each "Song" as a Effects Template.

I used it on a few gigs, works like I want it to, had it in a gig bag while it was raining outside, still works fine.

Korg no longer supports this unit :(

I have a bunch of keyboards and guitars and this unit comes handly as a touch screen effects processor!

Its recording capabilities are sub-par as opposed to my DAW setup.

Very easy to use, thanks to the touch screen. Editing effects and such is very simple once you've recorded a song or two. The owners manual is pretty easy to understand and has lots of useful info.

Excellent. As with any digital recorder, I'd highly recommend the addition of a tube preamp, because without one the raw digital tone sounds too cold and sterile. When you combine the D16 and an ART TPS Tube Preamp System (well worth t's $180 price), the sound quality is amazing. The effects aren't a 10, but the hiss level is pretty low and with some tweaking they're just fine for a home studio. I still use my Boss GT-5 for guitar effects, but I use the Korg effects for everything else.

Here I've had some problems lately. I've got a "version 2" model. After backing up my songs to a compatible CD burner, I started to mix down. Halfway through the first song, the power supply burns out. After dealing with some severe anger and frustration, I got another power supply. It burned out within 30 minutes. GRRRR. Whoever designed the power supply for the D16 should be beaten, shot, and then beaten again. Anyway, I took it to the shop. They replaced some internal power supply parts that burned out. The support people at Korg didn't give me much feedback, but my guess is that part of the problem is that there's no cooling fan inside. Bad design there. The D16 uses a laptop style computer hard drive. Bottom line...computers have cooling fans...FOR A REASON!!! My best guess is the D16's power supply just isn't up to dealing with heavy use of the hard drive inside. When you're mixing down, you're often listening to the same tracks over and over. All those starts and stops apparently put a strain on the D16's internal power supply that it just can't handle. The heat level builds up inside when you're working the hard drive over and over like that, especially with just 2 small vents and no cooling fan. So...I went and bought an external hard drive, put it in a case with several cooling fans, and connected it to the SCSI port. I'm hoping that'll solve the problem. Time will tell. If you want to do any serious recording, I'd STRONGLY advise anyone to not even use the internal hard drive. If my D16 is a typical one, when you record with the internal drive, it's just a matter of time until the internal power supply blows out. Hopefully using an external hard drive will lighten the load on the D16's power supply, as well as keep the temperature inside to a minimum.

I've emailed the support people at Korg a few times. Usually they're pretty quick with their replies, but sometimes you won't get a reply at all. The Korg website has some useful info on upgrades and such.

Hopefully the external hard drive setup will solve the power supply problem. Other than that issue, it's been reliable.The sound quality and effects are great. No complaints there at all. Easy to use. Tons of track editing features, more than you'll probably ever need. I bought the D16 instead of a 16 track Roland because the price was quite a bit less. Maybe this is yet another case of you get what you pay for. Time will tell. For $1300 you'd think it'd have a power supply that can handle serious recording!

It took just 2 weeks of playing around and getting orientated. After that the buttons can't seem to response fast enough.

Yeah, sure, 24 bits is nice but it takes up lots of space and it becomes an eight track. To over come this, I lump the background music onto 2 tracks and put it back into a new song using 24 bit mode. This way, my vocal and solo will be in 24 bit.

It would be nice to have everything but this is the best I could do because all my songs are at least 10 minutes.

It really gives some weird sounds somtimes. I have to reset the system when it happens.

Also, during auto punch, sometimes the playback is muted. Anyone has this problem? Write to me at this address pintaro1234@hotmail.com

What support?

The website does not have any feedback channel.

Worst of all, City Music (Singapore) is a totally crap distributor. Korg must reconsider their worth. The sales people are so NOT technically trained in this product. Even worst, they shoot off their mouth as if they had used it before. I know this because I am an engineer and hearing the things they say, I can really tell how much they know.

It is a good unit. All the 'wish'list after I had this is now present in the D1600.

The touchscreem makes this unit really easy to get around in. After upgrading from the D8 8 track I really like the easy routes to get to the mixer and effects functions.

24 bit really makes this sound excellent - but - the sample rate is at 44.1 so you still only get frequencies up to 22K. Other than that the effects in the unit make the D8 look anemic. My favorite "effects" aren't even effects - they're edit functions. This unit will "normalize" just as nicely as Sound Forge and it "optimizes" tracks as well, which is great when you have a cut-n-paste track, it will digital black all unused portions (seems to be anything below +6db above noise) and linearly lay the track out to clean diskspace - Voila! Your cutnpaste is now a true track! Really like the waveform display for edits as well.

It is plastic which the D8 was not. I don't think I'll have any problems with the unit but I wouldn't take it on tour like I did the D8. It seems a little flimsy for that.

If it were lost or stolen I'd find the thief and put a hurtin' on him. I've wanted this unit since it came out and I would be hard pressed to do without it.