Zoom MRS-8

It had a good base of guitar/bass sounds and effects as well as hundreds of drum patches and fills. Recording wise, it was a bit tricky to input the drum sounds. Overall the effects are all very easy to get around to although I'd like a little more reverb in some of the guitar sounds (you can do that but I haven't figured it out yet).

Although there aren't as many analog knobs in there editing is pretty easy. The buttons and knobs are really straight forward. You can edit the panning, eq, levels etc...

The manual walks you through the general features as well as gives you a "dummies guide" to recording in the the earlier pages. On the later parts you get the specifics (down to the last dot). If you don't like things to get too complicated stop reading after the first few pages but you definitely will miss out on a lot of features.

You can get software and updates free on the zoom website. They give you the software number, download instructions etc...Very easy.

I'm using an american standard strat, an epi elite les paul custom as well as a gib sg special.

There is practically no noise. Since its all 24 bit its a matter of garbage in garbage out. So take the time to check your line signal (cables, levels etc...). If all is well, everything will come out clean and crystal clear.

It has one of the best "clean" sounds I've ever heard. The distortion's ok-they give you a lot of sounds to play around with although some sound too processed. I'm sure you can get a great tone if you'd take the time to edit the settings.

It seems pretty solid and you can use AA batteries if you don't have an adaptor (which I suggest you buy). I think you could plug this into a PA system without any trouble but I don't see any reason why you'd wanna do that since its a lot easier to just bring cd copies of your songs.

I haven't dealt with them.

As a recorder, it's the best sounding in this category. Getting started is very easy. I was able to record an entire song in half the time it takes me to record on similar machines. For the guitarist this can do it all. You can input bass and drums on the fly using the key pads and it has a built in mic for vocals. Hell it even has vocal effects! Besides that, there's also a built in chromatic tuner (no excuses). And the best part is you can transfer data by sd card (the same ones that come with celphones). With the card manager (available free on zoom online) you can tweak the track settings on your pc and convert the files to wav format.

Another cool feature is the V-Take. Here you can have up to 10 Virtual Takes from track 1 all the way to mixdown. Every V-take acts as a virtual track with its own settings and sounds. Which means you can listen and choose from many versions on all tracks before mixdown and even choose which mix you want in the end. I can't begin to describe how helpful it is to be able to pick from one take to another.

I've owned a tascam 4 track tape recorder as well as a used 16 bit digital 8 track by fostex and they simply can't compare with the sound
quality, features list, convenience and ease of use of the Zoom. Besides all that, this thing is small enough to fit into a guitar's gig bag-now that's convenient!

If you want to upgrade from tape to digital or if you want better quality than 16 bit (there is a difference) then you should definitely check this out. If you're simply in the market for a recorder, the Zoom is The Best Way to Go!

It took me just a little time to take my first tracks. In spite of it's small size, I hardly miss any keys or knobs. Enough dedicated buttons for functions like marker, punch in/out,...
The manual is ok. I like the FAST method for input of the drum track: i.e. "(100) x 8 + (102) x 4" means: repeat pattern #100 8 times, then repeat pattern #102 4 times. And so on. Very easy, to produce the drum track in a quick manner.

No, this is no high-end studio. But I didn's expect such one. For it's size, this box has an excellent audio quality. Effects are great. There's only one thing I don't like very much: the high tom of the drum set. But... hey, it's just a 370,- EUR box.

I own it since a couple of days. No problems up to now.

Never dealt with them.

This is exactly what I was looking for: compact, good sound, easy to use and cheap. No other product in this price range (Boss BR-864 costs >500,- EUR). I'm really happy with it!

It's not easy to use because there are only a few buttons for a lot of functions to edit. So many buttons have multipe meanings. For some functions you have to look at the manual. The manual is ok.
The display should show more informations.

The sound is quite good. No hiss except for some effect settings. The effect quality is ok too. There are about 500 drum pattern with very good quality.

No problems until now but it could be built more solid (especially the dial wheel...)

No experiences...

I only miss an USB port. You can download software to get WAV-files out of the data of the sd card (not yet tried).
It's very good for recording guitar and bass tracks at home to catch some ideas.
For the price it's fine.

Very intuitive - I only had to open the manual a couple of times to figure out the less common options.

I was spoiled by a 24bit/48KHz home studio before reverting to this unit but I am very satisfied with the quality - I couldn't ask more from a battery powered unit.

It's new - too early to tell

No need for them so far...

This unit replaced my home studio as I had to move to a rented flat while building my new home and there was no room for the equipment. The best thing about this unit is the ease and portability. Can't beat these two features.. Drum and bass unit is fine but I miss the real time fill feature of my old DR-770 and SR-16. I will just have to get used to the Zoom way of doing things. The FAST method is a good alternative, though. Effects are no news as far as Zoom units go - nothing really changed since my long gone 2020 but there is a good selection covering most bases. The recorder section is easy to operate.
I miss the MIDI IN and MIDI track options (available with higher end Zoom units). A full MIDI file support and GS/GM sound module would have made this unit perfect. But for the money - it's brilliant.