Zoom LiveTrak L-20

This is one of the most affordable mixers which allows to record individual channels simultaneously or overdubbing them. It is a life saver for the bands that want to record, perform live, compose, and experiment before spending a fortune at a pro studio. The SD card recording lets you record and transfer files to you DAW. Our band owns two units, and we are very happy with them.

I've only played with the recording function of this so far, and on that front, it's very easy to use after a short learning curve. I'm using this basically as a scratchpad to generate ideas to then take into the home studio for either re-recording from scratch or importing and reworking. The recording functions are very spartan: besides overdubbing and mixing, you can punch in/out manually. No copy/paste, quantize, etc. Still, as a scratchpad...As a mixing board, the band I'm in will be playing a remote outdoors gig this summer and this will be perfect. Plenty of inputs, and six monitor mixes for a six piece band. And if I ever need to record 20 tracks at once into the Mac, it's a 20 channel audio interface. Prior to that outdoors gig, I plan on getting the Bluetooth adapter (an additional $40) to allow control from an iPad.Preamps sound decent, EQ is serviceable but adding a Q control to midrange would be way better, and the one knob compressor works better than I expected. There were only a few buttons/functions I couldn't immediately grok just by looking at the thing, so consultations with the manual are few and far between. And the current unit sports newer firmware than what's available on Zoom's website, so there was no need to update anything right out of the box.What do I wish was better? The effects section, for one. FX1 has various reverbs, and FX2 has more reverbs, delays, and chorus. What's there works and sounds just fine. But some more modulation (flanger? phaser?) would be nice, as would a 3rd "external" effects send. TRS Master Outs in addition to the provided XLR would be really nice, as would be the ability to combine adjacent even/odd mono tracks into a single stereo track. Etc.Anything I could think of adding or fixing would add to the price, size, and complexity, though, so I'm perfectly happy as it is. Amazed is more like it, actually! Very highly recommended if the included (and lacking) features work for what you need.

I deliberately waited to write a review until I had some real experience, both live and in the studio, with the L-20. In short, Zoom knocked this one out of the park. The board does what it claims to do, no fuss, no muss. It just works. Is there some learning curve to climb? Of course. The board's not only a highly capable live mixer but a high quality recorder as well. It has a lot of features, and it can take a little time to learn how to use them all. But unlike some other products I've used, the L-20 makes climbing that learning curve well worth it, delivering results that are very pleasing to the ear.Having six monitor mixes available is a feature I didn't expect to make that much use of...until I did. I'm in a horn band (I'm a lead singer) and we used four different monitor mixes in a tech rehearsal for a concert tonight. Being able to say "Sure!" to everyone's requests for "more of this, less of that" even when those requests were conflicting with each other was very nice indeed, and not too long ago it would have been either impossible or would have required a significantly larger board. The L-20 is compact, but not so small that it's hard to use. There are a few gotchas to watch out for (e.g., make sure you know which mix you've selected to adjust; some hilarity ensued from a failure to do just that tonight) and that leads to the suggestion I have for Zoom: I'd make the VU LEDs a different color when a monitor mix is selected rather than the master, just to give a clear visual indication to the operator that they may not be adjusting what they think they're adjusting. But that's a nice-to-have, not a must. I also have to say that Zoom's method of combining recording level and live level on a single VU meter is pretty ingenious.In closing: If this board has the features you want, you can count on it to deliver the results you need. It simply Works As Advertised, a "feature" that is sadly lacking in many products nowadays. Zoom claims they are "for creators". As one, I'm glad to have them on my side!

Bought this to record my band's live shows for promo and critiquing our performances. I owned a Tascam DP 32 which is also a great recorder but it only records on 8 inputs at once, which is not enough for our band. This board records on 18 channels at once. They say 20, but since 2 of them are stereo, you really only have 18 individual channels. The inputs on 16 of the preamps are combination XLR or 1/4" so you can plug anything into any channel. I'm very happy with the recordings, no complaints there at all. It reproduces exactly what you put into it. On board effects are very usable and you can use two at once which is a pretty big deal for a band. There's compression on each channel which is cool, but since it increases the volume on the channel when turned up, you have to readjust your fader when using it. There are some quirky things about the way the faders act when switching between different recordings or between the monitor sends and the master send. They store the settings for whatever they were at when switched, and they won't respond until moved back to that setting. It's nothing that can't be worked around, just kind of inconvenient sometimes. Overall, I'm very impressed with the board, the preamps sound good and transparent with a good amount of gain. I'm keeping it.