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.

This product line basically replaces almost everything in your recording studio, which is a jarring adjustment to me. It records clean, crisp audio to 22 tracks simultaneously. On playback, the sound levels are the same as monitoring during recording - you can't tell the difference, which is excellent. You just press Stop when your song is done, back to beginning with the arrow key, then press play. Almost frighteningly straightforward and instantaneous recording and playback procedure. The Mic preamps are good. The memory card is a convenient storage feature that enables easy transfer to a DAW (I use Logic and Garageband on a Macbook pro) for mixing and effects etc. I also use the iPad Bluetooth interface, and that works great as well. Like most Zoom products, it just works. The user interface is straightforward and intuitive. Monitor section is good, and pairs very well with a JamHub. Overall, this feels like a game-changer for home studios, especially one like mine that is designed to record four or more musicians in live performance. I'm busy today packing up my analog board, A/D converters, limiters, active patch bays etc. and clearing space in the studio. All I really need is the

Just a little background to put my review in perspective. I have run and taught audio for churches for about 20 years. Also, occasionally I have played a little rhythm guitar during worship services. My purpose for purchasing this Zoom L20 board was to replace some older equipment for doing some home recordings. Sometimes it’s all live instruments and vocals. Other times I convert some MIDI files to audio and bring them in and add music and voices. This board is easy to do all of this and more. I like the onboard effects although it could have a few more. Having compression and EQ built in is very handy. Being all digital keeps my recordings nice and clean. Having 6 headphone outputs that can have their own mix makes it great. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all like a separate mix and this board makes it easy to do. It is also very easy to add tracks at later dates and to edit existing tracks. Plus, you can save “Scenes” with the project so you can come back to it at a later date, and you will have your settings. While I have not found a way to use the board to transfer one track to another, it is fairly easy to do. You just “export the project” to a USB. Then insert the USB into your computer to make changes. Example: To change from track 1 to track 7 change the track name from TRACK01.WAV to TRACK07.WAV. Then “import the project” back to your board. If you try to import the project into an existing “Folder” it will state “The project Exists”. So, you can either pick a different folder, or to import it into the same folder, change the project name, or delete the exiting project. Make sure you back it up first. What I found really helpful is the ability to do a master recording, with appropriate effects and panning for say the drums, base and rhythm guitar. Then export the project and change the name from MASTER.WAV to TRACK17_18.WAV. Then import the project. You will now have that master stereo track show up on channels 17 & 18 in stereo. There are probably other ways to do some of this manipulation on board. I just have not had enough time to play with it yet. There are lots of other features that I like but not enough time to list them now. I hope you find this review helpful.

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.

Really like this product. I've used as an interface with a computer-based DAW (Reaper), as a mixer for live performances & practices, and as a standalone recorder. Plenty of inputs for my needs ( five piece acoustic/electric band). The Bluetooth connectivity via Ipad app is an added bonus and works great.

Excellent product good quality 100% recommended

This is the first thing I've bought in years that I feel so confident in recomending to other people. The silver lining in having my home studio destroyed by hurricane Mike is being able to move my equipment into the 21st century. I needed something that would give me at least 5 individual monitor mixes and be able to record with it. I needed to replace my Yamaha AW16 digital recorder and Mackie VLZ mixer, Behringer headphone amp. The band is all electronic now with a new electonic drum kit so I wanted something like the now defunct Jamhub for rehearsing silently. Now that there are no trees or fences you can hear everything in the neighborhood. I love Zoom products, I have a handheld recorder, USB interface and bass pedal at the moment. This mixer is same quality of sound. My day job is as a house soundman for a small 450 seat theater. I could use this mixer easily for the theater work....plays, dance groups, speakers, smaller music groups even. For my band it is amazing, we each have our own mix and the recordings sound great. If you want to use this for live gigs I'd recommend adding at least a dual 31 band eq and/or a speaker mngt rack unit inline for the mains because there is no built-in eq, feedback destroyer, limiting or gates for your main outs... you can re-eq each channel in monitor mixes but it is limited in ability to squash feedback with no real parametric eq. It is not a road ready mixer but mine isn't going anywhere anyways. I wish you could control from android pad but maybe in the future they will update that. Best gear purchase I've made in years.