It’s an interesting quirk of the music technology industry that, as DAWs get more powerful and easier to use, an increasing number of people are looking for tools that enable them to jam and record without one. Perhaps this is driven by a desire to have a more tactile music-making experience, or maybe it’s as simple as wanting to do things a bit differently to everyone else.
Either way, the DAWless music-making community is certainly getting bigger, and Zoom is now offering members of it a compact and portable 10-channel mixer and recorder that looks particularly suitable for those who want to jam with multiple synths.
The LiveTrak L6 has two combo mic/line inputs and four stereo pairs of 1/4-inch line inputs, plus four sound pads (for triggering samples), two aux sends and five internal send effects. You can record up to 12 tracks simultaneously, and there’s MIDI I/O for mixer control and USB MIDI interfacing.
To save on space, channels 1 to 6 have knobs rather than faders for level adjustment, while other controls for each channel include pan, aux send levels and a 3-band EQ. As well as offering 32-bit float multitrack recording to microSD card, you can also stream audio to your computer or iOS device via USB (the LiveTrak L6 can function as a 12/in/4-out audio interface).
Eurorack compatibility adds another string to the L6’s bow, and power can come either over USB or from four AA batteries.
As things stand, the only official information on the LiveTrak L6 seems to be the quick tour video above, but we’re assuming that more details will soon be added to the Zoom website. We’re expecting a price of $299.
