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The Zoom R24 (current street price in Finland: 479 €) is a compact and very lightweight, but still quite nifty and versatile unit: The Zoom’s main purpose is to serve as a stand-alone digital multitracker (24 tracks, recording to SD-cards), but it can also be used with a computer as an external soundcard and/or a control surface for an audio sequencer (Cubase LE 5 comes included in the box).

The R24 is ready to go wherever you want to use it, thanks to its ability to run on six AA-batteries, as well as with the included, compact power supply.

This Zoom offers eight XLR/phone-combo inputs, which equals the maximum number of simultaneous recording tracks.

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Zoom have kept the R24’s signal routing deliberately spartan and easy-to-use. Each of the inputs is hardwired to its corresponding channel fader and from there on to the corresponding recording track. It’s…