BILL HOLLAND: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. My name is Bill Holland. You are looking at the Fostex MR-16 digital multitracker. It’s a 16-channel multitracker digital recorder from Fostex. You’ll see I have my 16 tracks with arm buttons here. I’ve got a quick track that I just kind of threw together with the keyboard real quick just to give you an idea of how the multitracking works.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYS BACK A COUPLE OF TRACKS FROM THE FOSTEX MR-16]

See I have channel 2 here with the drums.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING BACK A COUPLE OF TRACKS FROM THE FOSTEX MR-16]

You’ll see here I stop-play. When I stop-play it, it actually continues at the same location. I can rewind...

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING BACK A COUPLE OF TRACKS FROM THE FOSTEX MR-16]

...or fast forward.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING BACK A COUPLE OF TRACKS FROM THE FOSTEX MR-16]

If I want to go back to the beginning, I hold down stop and it goes back to absolute zero, or I can zoom forward to the end of the track. If I want to hear -- right now, you hear that I have no input coming from my keyboard. If I hit record once it’ll flash...,

[BILL HOLLAND HITS RECORD BUTTON]

...and then you’ll hear the actual signal coming through the keyboard.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16]

If I want to arm that, I just hit record and it’ll arm the track. I can arm up to I believe four tracks at once.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16]

If I want to record, what I have to do is actually have to hold down this record button and play at the same time. Then you’ll notice that the record button becomes solid. If it’s not solid, it won’t record. This is something I ran into actually working with this, so you need to remember that when working with the MR-16. You have four XLR inputs, four line inputs, two stereo outs, two aux outs, and a stereo phone -- well actually not stereo but a phone out 1 and 2. You have a line to mic trim control; it actually tells you that on the left here it’s on line level and mic on the right. Your peaking is right here. You’ll see here I also have my unbalanced input for guitar or an insert. I can actually apply distortion that’s built in by using the Brit Stack, U.S. Metal, ‘60s Combo, and then for the mic I can do mic simulation and do dynamic, condenser, or tube mic, and those can just be turned off and on by using this. What I can show you real quick is here you’ll see there’s also the line and mic level for this guitar. On the back side, you’lll see that input A, I can choose between guitar clean, guitar distortion, or mic/line input. This is really useful for doing a quick hot plugin of your guitar, and you can immediately assign how it’s being taken into the recorder. For recording or playback, you can use a foot switch. Digital out allows you to SPDIF to your computer, MIDI out sends a MIDI control; usually the click track can sync to this. Also, you can assign a USB host or go USB to your computer.

Now, one way I can monitor the audio without having a track armed is by hitting this green button here to stereo bus level...

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16]

...and that goes directly to my left and right master volume, and that can be controlled over here.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16]

Now if you say you want to add a little bit of reverb to your tracks, one thing I can do, turn this off real quick, also or on that track, input EQ is right here. If I want to, however, add some reverb to my track, what I can do is select it here, hit record so I can monitor it...,

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16]

...and take the effect send and turn that up.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16, APPLYING REVERB THROUGH EFFECTS SEND]

I can add hall reverb...,

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16, APPLYING HALL REVERB THROUGH EFFECTS SEND]

...plate reverb...,

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16, APPLYING PLATE REVERB THROUGH EFFECTS SEND]

...or delay.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16, APPLYING DELAY THROUGH EFFECTS SEND]

And all of these effects are editable as well. Notice this well right now that I have natural mastering on. There are different types of post-mastering I can do. I can also apply a powerful mastering...,

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16, APPLYING POWERFUL MASTERING]

...or bright mastering.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING HIS KEYBOARD RUNNING TO THE FOSTEX MR-16, APPLYING BRIGHT MASTERING]

Keep in mind though the mastering is applying an automatic compressor to your signal so you might want to do your mastering in the box. However, this is your total recording solution that you might want to take advantage of that. Also, we can locate the in and out point for A and B. We can change up the play mode to whatever we need it to do in terms of going backwards or whether it starts at the beginning or automatically starts when you hit record or if you go backwards. You can select your contrast here, which you can dial in. You can do undo/redo; if you screw up a track, it’ll just get rid of it. Store your tracks here, select your time base, and you can also, again, mix all of your levels on the fly, and it also allows you to auto-punch into your track.

Well, let’s hear that real quick and see what I’ve done.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING BACK A PROJECT IN THE FOSTEX MR-16]

Keep in mind if you want to make a new song after this one is done, you can go to song in the menu, select song, and create a brand new song. We’ll call this “song six”, and now we’re on a completely different track, and nothing we have recorded is there.

Well, that’s a pretty simple overview of the Fostex MR-16. If you want to learn more, go to the Fostex web site and check out some of the information they have there. For now, you are watching Gearwire.Com with the Fostex MR-16 digital multitracker, and my name is Bill Holland.