Zoom MRS-4 Digital Multitrack

As far as digital recording goes, this is pretty damn straight forward. Spend 10 minutes reading the book, and you're recording. A friend of mine has ProTools (not apples to apples here), but when we sit down to concept, it's just so easy. We both plug straight in and record. It's simple. Don't expect to make the next OK Computer with it...but it's a helluva nice scratch pad!

With two types of quality, it's fantastic. I mean, when you compare this to tape, it's night and day. If you want anything better than this, you're going to spend some bank. It is what it is...

The built-in effects are pretty lame, and limiting...not like you can really make fantastic-sounding recordings with this using their built in effects...get your sound before you plug in if it's important to the recording.

One of my jacks is getting fickle - but that's normal with anything from Zoom.

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Like I said - I really dig this thing. I work out all my parts here, and then record elsewhere for the finals. I think that's the perfect use for the Zoom...

Remember, as FDR said, "There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still..."

Let music carries us forward, and bring us together.

You'd have to be short a chromosome or two to have difficulty with this unit. The manual allows you to work away in no time, but there is so much it can do that the machine will keep you learning for some time.

The digital technology gives clean-as-a-whistle sound quality, and the onboard effects are decent enough at this level. I'm monitoring it via a Marshall G80R at the moment and it sound great, although I will get a separate monitor system, as you must remember to turn the reverb off when using an amp - which changes your regular guitar sound of course.

I bought it with the RT-123 Rhythm Trak and use them with a midi cable, which syncs the metronome. Sounds perfect.

The thing seems sturdy enough for home use, but it has a lightweight feel. There have been no problems with the smartmedia cards, aside from the price.

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I play many common styles, and have played for around 15 years. This is my first 4-track and I fnd it a blessing to use - no tape to fiddle around with, just immediate usability and flexibility.

The value is great - especially as I got it in a 20% off sale! After a few days' ownership, I'd already miss it, as I can use it to record songs or just jam with. Perfect for my needs, and seems a better bet than a JS-5 or the like.

Very easy to use. I have been in plenty of bands but never actually recorded beyond a mike and a tape deck. It's also easy to punch into recordings to clean up one line of vocals. Just play the song through, then hit the record putton when it comes up to the overdub section. Easy. Button controls could be better. One button has several actions depending on what you doing (effects, eq, input, metronome), but then it's a small unit low on space and you soon get used to it.

I thought that laptop studios weren't going to be very good, but it plays back what you put in, which is as much as you could ask for. It made me want to buy a better vocal mic, which is a good thing, because my guitar sounded good plugged directly in, and realised how cheap my mike sounded. I'd give it a ten, but only because I hear you can get higher than the bit rate this works at, but most folks couldn't tell the difference.

Feels lighter than it should be, but that'll probably encourage me to look after it a bit better. Never broke yet though, so 10.

Never dealt with them. Website navigation is bad

I play acoustic folk-hop singer/songwriter stuff and this suits me just fine. It reproduces the same sound I play and I've never sounded so good, in fact it makes me want to sound better, so I think it'll help me as a musician. I'd recommend it as excellent for the price and has a good preamp, so you can play your electric guitar straight into it, although you might want to get a multi-effects unit, because the effects in the MRS are limited. You can have echo, delay, chorus, etc, but not distortion or any two effects at the same time. You might also want to get a better mic, because the sound reproduction is excellent. You can bounce tracks very easily to give yourself more layers (get at least a 64Mb smartmedia card) but if you're recording in stereo, like from a stereo drum machine, you'll be adding two tracks at a time rather than one, so you'll be bouncing down each time you add an instrument, so you'll have to be careful when you mix down. But for the price, it's superb. It it were lost, I'd have a good cry, pull myself together, write a song about it and buy another one to record it on. If I had more money I'd buy similar, but with more tracks, USB cable and a built in minidisc or CD player and MP3 converter, but the most important thing is the sound and this machine has got it. If all you want is excellent laptop recording which you can set up from drawer to coffee table in 3 minutes flat, then you won't go wrong. I give it a 10 for value, ease of use and overall sound.

This machine is best viewed as a digital take on the tried-and-tested cassette-based portastudio theme. It is extremely easy to use, especially if you have had previous experience with a portastudio (I used to have a Fostex X-26). However, the graphic interface can seem rather strange and fiddly at first, so it is a good idea to read the manual before using, and then keep it close by for reference. True, this isn't great literature, and there aren't many laughs, but it is simple, clear and does the job.

I use this as a songwriting tool with a Korg M1 synth MIDI-locked to a Yamaha Clavinova CLP820, with the outputs of both coming through the Yamaha's stereo outputs. WIth this rig I quickly found an important difference between the Zoom and a cassette system. With analog, you can whack everything up to eleven and get the great, saturated sound of tape compression that digital cannot hope to match. With digital, my first lesson was that you have to be VERY gentle with the input gain to avoid overloading the system, and digital distortion is not nice. I guess that the MRS4 is optimized for cheap, low-output guitar pickups -- blasting away at it with keyboards requires care, though the resulting sound is fairly good. It is noticeably inferior to the signal from the keyboards themselves, though for the price -- and purpose -- this hardly matters. The onboard FX would be very useful for guitars and vocals though they can seem rather raw and brutal.

This looks pretty chunky to me, though I probably wouldn't gig with it.

The Zoom MRS4 does exactly what it promises, and no more: it is a convenient sketchpad for ideas, not a bells-and-whistles recording studio. As such it trades features and overall sound quality for convenience. I use it as part of a songwriting project with a friend who has a ROland VS880 and all the trimmings. As such, the Zoom is a convenient way to add vocals to backing tracks created on a sequencer, and make simple demoes to send to my friend who will then re-do the whole thing properly. It would be a mistake to worry overmuch about sound quality with the Zoom, and get all screwed up about the inability to burn wav files made on a MRS4 -- that's not what it's about. I use my Walkman Professional as a mastering machine, and then play the cassette into my computer (A Dell PC) using a CD burner program from Roxio. My next trick would be simply to use my computer as an analog mastering machine, cutting out the walkman altogether. Result -- a good result and no headache about sampling rate compatibility. Given the limitations of the machine, and what it is used for, the results will be just as good as an all-digital transfer.

Piece of cake.

Plays back precisely what you put in.

It's for use at home on desks and tabletops. If you're gonna kick the thing around in a club, don't use this website to complain that it breaks!

Never needed it.

I'm not keen on the SMC format. I don't have a PC, and I record 4 track songs mostly around 5 minutes. So every song needs it's own 64MB SMC. The supplied 32MB will give you 4 minutes of music if you use 4 tracks, which is no development on a 4-track cassette recorder, where a C60 tape for #2 gave you 30 minutes!!

The deviice really does need a send/return effects loop. The on-board effects are inflexible and thin.

On the plus side....

Give it a good sound, and you get one back. And the track editing functions are a godsend. Having the counter displaying bars and measures means that you can punch in/out and copy/past verses, choruses, solos etc VERY accurately.

Probably the best piece of kit in it's price range... but I miss the send/return loop.

It took me a while to know how to use all the functions since I'm a newbie to home recording. I mainly use it to record originls with my band. Ocassionally I record a few bars of chords to work out a solo.
The unit is pretty easy to use although there're some limitations. For example, bouncing tracks limits to pairs. The operation is a bit slow. It takes awhile for the smart media card to load after you finish recording. Also, you can't cut out a section of the song. (say it takes time in between pressing the rec. button and actually start recording. You can can erase the noise before you start playing but you can't actually cut out that few seconds, which makes it a bit annoying.)
You cannot input names for the songs which is a bit annoying. When I upload the songs onto my computer (you can download a program for backup from the net for free, providing you have a smart media card reader to upload you files.) all the takes get mixed up and I forget which is which. The interface on the program is different from the actual mixer which makes balancing different tracks a bit complicated (I actually send songs to other people on the net). You can't change the volume of different tracks in the middle of the song on the program like you can using the recorder with the faders.
Anyway, I guess the program isn't really designed to be used as the final mixing process. It is probably designed just as a back up.
Basically the recorder is convinient to use. It's just that I expect too much from the program.

Sound quality is good enough for me since I'm no expert in this area. I usually record directly through boss Gt 6. I have used the MRT 3 for drums once and that sounded great. It didn't sound really good when I use a mic to record the drums and bass at the same time, but that's just because the mic I was using was a cheap one.

The plastic jacks and the faders are a bit fragile, but it's not a great problem since I'm not too rough with my equipments.

Overall, it is good enough for home recording and my four-piece band. For the price it is great. I also looked into the Korg PXR4 when I bought this but I decided that I'd go with this simpler thing without built-in effect. I bought the MRT 3 as well to go with it and the combo costed as much as the PRX4. I need to be able to create my own drum track and PRX4 doesn't have that function.
I wish there is name input on the songs and that I don't have to wait that long for the song to load after the recording.

I bought the MRS-4 for doing a radio dj demo cd. I'm a complete spaz when it comes to recording lingo and the like the manual took a bit of time to figure out. But in no time I was off and blabbing.

As I said, there isn't much I can do to screw up simple voice work, so I had no complaints with this at all.

I'M not going to be running around to much with this bad boy so I don't thinjk there'll be any probs. However, I think anything over and above kid glove handling might screw it up.

Any help from anyone else just using it for vox would be appreciated.

I bought this unit to use in live performance, playing some beats instead of a laptop.... it's very simple to use, the manual helps when you're lost... After 10min in front of it, you've tried all blinking lights and submenus :) ... The v-tracks were less intuitive to understand but all ok after reading 2 pages of the manual :) .

It's better than a multitrack tape recorder.... it's digital :)

well.... its 32khz, and stores it in a SM card.... not what you've dreamed about but does the job. The audio compression of the files is very good...don't use 32khz audio waves from the computer....record it directly to mrs4 and you'll see the quality is better. Lo-fi quality only to record some ideas i didn'twant to get lost. Hi-fi is a good choice to get a good sound....at 32khz :). The sound is warm and you can process it with the booster of the built-in effects. Don't expect great quality for drum (i use drum machines)... they get a little bit degrated...but you can get a good sound for guitar and voices.
The built.in effects are nice but only to get an idea of what you want....they are a little bit limited to the presete values....can't get many expressions of the same effect.

sometimes when i'm recording occurs an error... it's due to the lack of free space im my card. the SM cards are not cheap and only stores few musics....unless you'v got a 128MB card. I've a 64 and need to backup very often... In live concerts i've use it 3 times (untill now) and works fine. Not a good sound processing for power sound, but does the trick :) . all the hardware is very fragile. I've bought a tool hardcase (for hammer and stuff at a local drugstore) and never had a problem. My cat usually sleeps on top of it and sometimes the buttons get stuck....NEVER LET YOUR CAT SLEEP ON YOUR MRS4... :) to get a good sound you may need to cut bass frequencies or the sound becomes messy.

zoom have a software in their site... that's ok. there's not much helpfull information than the given in the manual.... never contacted zoom.

....doesn't come with AC adapter....but it's cheap and you easily get one.
It's a good unit for the price... don't think you can record an album in this....but you see it as a promo cd recorder or an idea recorder for future musics... you'll be well served. I use it to record some pads and drum patches and play it live and with my band. Works fine. It does the job and it's the cheaper digital 4-track recorder. It's little, easy to understand, not very fast, and the midi works fine with my material. I'm happy, but if i had more money bought a better one. I hate zoom, but the mrs4 is a good piece of equipemt... it's very portable and functional. if you don't need good sound quality and you're looking for a cheap digital recorder....maybe this is the one.

ps: sorry for my english...but i'm portuguese. Obrigado.

overall,it is quite easy to use.i have spent most of my days as a live performer,but the zoom mrs4 made recording easy.my only problem thus far has been the inability to record more than one song on the 32 smartmedia card.i generally record three insruments,bounce them,then use the remaining three tracks.this uses up the 17 alloted minutes per song.only thing is,i cannot get it to give me more time,if i don't erase the already recorded song.if anyone can give me some assistance regarding this dilema,i would be forever indebted to said individual!!!

i can easily get a quite wet sound,using the mrs4 and an 8 channel mixer.the built-in effects have been effective;pardon the pun,lol!!

definetelt reliable!!!!

haven't used it yet,but hope they,or someone,will have an answer for my above question.

i have recorded strictly original material thus far,and the style range is everything from delta blues to grunge.the machine works great for me!!i dig the gig!!

Very easy to use. Just plug some instruments in and hi record! Manual is what you would expect for a company like Zoom, decent. Doesn't get you bogged down in techical mumbo jumbo.

It's not CD quallity, but for digital recording, it will do. Records at 32khz on SmartCards. Effects are simple and I don't use them much.

Eh, I wouldn't depend on this thing. It's built really crappy. The jacks on the back feel like they are going to break everytime I am plugging in or unplugging cables. For being a device that is meant to be portable hence the batteries and the size, you think they would have built this thing a little more solid. But then again it costs $200.

Never had to deal with them.

Does not come with the AC Adapter, which I think is really really lame!!! You can get universal adapters for like $9.00, so I am not that annoyed by it... What I do find really really annoying is the fact that it records at 32khz, so when you convert your audio into .wav files using their Card Manager software, you can't burn them to CD. Oh, and don't think about converting the khz to 41 because that will change your pitch/speed of the recording. WEAK!
It comes with a 32mb Smart Card, but if you plan to do any serious recording with this thing, I'd recommend a 128mb card. Size of the recorder is so small! I love it. I can take it with me anywhere with the batteries and record whenever I want.