A&H zed r16 vs. zed 428

[Xores]

High!

I am about to buy a serious eq-mixers for my project studio. I obviously deal with synths but whenever I can record some musicians playing acoust/eclectric instruments they are really welcome.

Lets regard the subject;

Mi principal Idea was to buy a zed 428(later replace it with one of the ML series ) and then use a AD/DA to get it into my computer via light pipe to get really nice sound quality.
Now I am thinking about the zed r16, that has the Ad-da inside. My question is:

Can the zed r16 mess with the first option of using an external AD/DA?


PD:Many of my friends told me to buy a digital mixer but as far as I am a friend of analog stuff i discarted this option although it is really versatile.

Thank you on forehand!

[shaft9000]

Can the zed r16 mess with the first option of using an external AD/DA?
!

sure. there's ADAT i/o on the back. no need for a PC, even.
up to 26 channels in or out iirc.

I use the r16 every day for about 1 1/2 years and am happy. Very good converters and preamps with a truly great EQ . MIxing options and routing now is 10x better than when I was using Echo, E-mu Lexicon interfaces w/ a Mackie before. I was also looking at the Yamaha N12, but I don't think anything else comes close to an r16 for that little money.

[Xores]

First off, thank you!

Just a curiosity, what do you use instead of pc?

[shaft9000]

you can go straight to ADAT of course ... or better yet a DSD recorder
the console works as a standard mixer when not connected to PC
the '4 bus' is actually NOT internally wired - they're setup for grouping tracks in your DAW - my one peeve w/ the r16. the r24 should be quite a step up when it comes out - true 4-buss, metered, 100mm faders, full automation of analog, also a crazy tube section.

[b3groover]

I just bought the Yamaha N12 mainly because I've been a Cubase user for almost 10 years now and the integration is awesome. I literally just hooked it up last night, tracked some stuff through it. It's really sweet and takes the place of my ginormous Soundtracs Topaz 32 channel board. The step up in audio quality from my Presonus Firepods, which I've had since 2006 or so, is night and day. Also it communicates with my MR816x flawlessly. And it has MIDI. Yippe!

The A&H ZEDs look nice, but after a really bad experience with the build quality of the MixWizard I had, I would personally be wary of them; but that's just me.

I will say that the mixer as interface idea is a great one! I'm thinking of picking up a small format analog/digital mixer hybrid like the Alesis MultiMix firewire for live use. It can act as the computer interface for my softsynths and a mixer to sum to outputs of my hardware synths.

[Xores]

Well, after a week of intensive thinking about this, I gained some clearance...
yeah , midi on the mixer is nice, but to me it appears as a distraction from the purpose of a mixer, the Eq!

The yamaha´s eq seems a bit poor for me, even the A&H zed´s eq is "poor" due to hi & low is not fully parametric.
Therefore i´d like a ML, but I don't have cash for an ML, the AD/DA & the soundcard(+ many other things that I still need like, mFX, compressor, a nice bunch of mic´s and of course synths). That would go up to 8000e / 10000$!!!

The r16 has got tree main problems to me, specially when using it as a studio-mixer for recording bands.
1- No stereo channels, having just 16 channels (dealing with stereo fx, where would I return that to?)
2- No group! I need groups for properly recording drums!!!
3- Those 60mm faders just don't convince me.

Therefore I think the right option will be a zed 428, even it has no ADAT the thing I really liked about r16 ;
28 mono channels, 2 stereo, 4 groups, 6 aux & yeah, 2 Matrix!!
Even If i need 8 channel for the drums , 1 for bass, 3 for guitars,and lets say 3 for singing, I still got 13 left just in case I need them for Fx, apart from the 2 stereos...

and thats just one way to work with it that seems comfortable to me...

[b3groover]

What about the Presonus StudioLive?

The EQ on the N12 is very nice, btw as are the Sweet Spot compressors on channels 1 through 8. I used them on a Mopho track last night, compressing it pretty heavily to make it more aggressive. Worked like a charm.