Zoom Gear & Home Recording Forum

Armin, as you may recall I'm a HUGE fan of using F.A.S.T. to quicky generate quantinized custom drum parts for songs (I'm more of a "command-line" kind of user vs. a GUI person so I prefer arranging with numbers on a single line after creating custom patterns manually/playing them). Sadly for me the R24 doesn't support F.A.S.T. (why, oh why?).

Q1: I saw on your site that your R24 editor lets one "Import of HD16 / HD8 / MRS / PS04 / PS02 patterns (Import and convert your older Zoom patterns into the R24 format.)" Does that include reading drum songs from the FST file format?

Q2: If not, and if the R24 doesn't support song/FST files, what alternative is there to quickly stringing together beats/patterns in a song format fashion for the R24 that can be edited and doesn't require real-time input during mixdown?

Your answer may literally be the reason I do or don't buy an R24 so... no pressure. It's not like Zoom is watching or anything!

Thanks man!

PS
In light of the fact that I all but designed the R24 in a single thread up here... why hasn't Zoom sent one to me for free trial? Lol
The only thing they left out is the F.A.S.T. functionality or equivalent (from what I can tell thus far).

I'm also very interested in the comparison of the drum
machine on the R24 compared to the HD/MRS series.

Other than the F.A.S.T. method, do you arrange the patterns
the same way as on the HD/MRS recorders?

Can you load a MRS drum track from it's baskup?

Thanks, Kenny B.

Hi Lee,

R24 has no F.A.S.T since it has no songs feature - like the older Zoom recorders.
There is no bass (drums only) - so there is no need to enter chord progressions and so on.
(And no need for a song editor).

Q1: My PatternEditor can import PATTERNS from PS02 ... HD16.

Q2: The R24 has a 'track sequencer' this works for drums and audio in any combination.

The MRS has more sound - R24 has only 16 different drums sounds per drumkit.
The R24 can only play 8 sounds at the same time - and there is no bass.
You can not change the drumskits - only some global settings but not per instrument.

You can play more than one pattern at the same time - max 12 patterns in case you use all 24 tracks - so you could create a basic rhythm with bassdrum and snare and other patterns with toms, hihat... and combine them in any way you like.
Then you can combine these drums tracks with audio tracks e.g. of single drum instruments - e.g. long cymbal, drum loops or whatever you like.

It's a whole new world - and not comparable to the limited functions of the old MRS/HD Sampler features.

Thanks for the detailed response Armin.



I agree about the "new world" part but I'm not sure if it's the old units that are more limited or the R24.
So I decided to just get the darn thing and try it out! Rather than go off topic here I'll just post in the other equipment or R16 section.

Thanks again