Zoom LiveTrak L-8 Podcast Recorder, Battery Powered, Digital Mixer and Recorder, Music Mixer, Phone Input, Sound Pads, 4 Headphone Outputs, 12-In/4-Out Audio Interface, Built In EQ and Effects

Product Information

Connect the balanced XLR stereo master outputs to a pair of active speakers for convenient monitoring.

Just press a button to play intros, outros, jingles, ads and sound effects. With 6 easily-assignable Sound Pads, the right sound is at your fingertips. First-Time Caller, Long-Time Listener Zoom’s preamps are famous for a good reason: they’re transparent, powerful and ultra-reliable. The L-8 features six independent Zoom preamps, built to handle anything from a whisper to a raucous debate. Key Features Continuous battery operation times were determined using in-house testing methods. They will vary greatly according to use conditions.As a digital mixer, the LiveTrak L‑8 is fairly simple, in that all the input channels are permanently routed to the master stereo bus. There are no subgroup buses or, other than one that goes directly to the internal effects engine, aux sends. That effects send is available to all channels except, obviously, the effects’ stereo return channel and the stereo master mix channel. However, some behind‑the‑scenes digital sophistication means that it is still perfectly possible to create and distribute different cue mixes, or send signals to external processors/effects. Input channels 7 and 8 are shared with output 1/2 and 3/4 correspondingly, when used in audio interface mode. So you can not hear the output from the host, when you are recording from those channels. Continuous battery operation times were determined using in-house testing methods. They will vary greatly according to useconditions. The LiveTrak L-8 comes with 13 preset sounds for its sound pads, making it ready for out-of-the-box production. As I hinted at the outset, I love the Zoom LiveTrak L‑8. It offers so much convenience and versatility for so little money, and it sounds decent too. The mic preamps, which have a gain range of +10 to +54 dB, are never going to be world‑beaters on this sort of device, but they are competent: clean and quiet and as good as any in their class. I was happy using them for exposed sources like spoken word (eg. podcasting) and when applying plenty of gain for dynamic mics (a Shure SM57 and Heil Sound PR40) there was pleasingly little hiss. The neutral‑sounding broad‑brush EQ is exactly what’s required here, and I found a handful of the effects (mainly the reverbs) very usable, even if I always wanted to tweak the default settings to something that sounded less obvious.

You can easily record song demos and live performances with multiple musicians using the LiveTrak L-8.It works as a class compliant audio interface (Maschine+ recognizes it) (if you are interested in this please read the terrible part!) Only USB host controllers with Intel Chipsets are supported. Operation is not guaranteed when used with USB hubs or expansioncards.