As I said, I'm definitely not sorry I got the zentour, but.to have this truly exceptional hardware and all these great plugs running on a half finished software platform is just weird. Apparently not a new problem either - there have been similar complaints since Orion, which is a few years old. I would say it's borderline arrogant to actually ship this software. Such a fantastic piece of hardware deserves software better than this. Just not obvious or predictable - this aspect is really is a mess. But it's never completely clear exactly what is going on in the presets- when you quit the app it asks you if you want to save the changes you made to the preset, but tells you they will be saved whether you hit 'save' or 'don't save'! (you can 'load last session' next time and presumably it includes changes you didn't save when you quit) And there are presets you save to the little buttons 1-5, and presets you save on your hard drive, which seem to be different. Of course you can save the defaults as a preset, So I've had some bleeding edge moments, but that firmware update included some vintage preamp/compressor emulations, so overall, I'm still mighty satisfied. Had it been a real emergency, I woulda been more persistent and maybe consulted their chat support, which has kinda limited hours. I was unable to access the control panel for about a month, but the hardware unit continued to function I could control the monitor volume from the front panel which luckily is within easy reach above the mix station. I had some issues with a firmware update, opened a support ticket and heard nothing back, but eventually found part of the solution in their online knowledge base, and figured the rest out myself. (I have both the soft case and the custom rack for the Zen, in case of remote operations) OTOH the unit produces a bit of heat, and I've heard their customer support has taken some criticism. As with any piece of complex gear you are going to have to spend time to figure out how to get the best from it, but as the centrepiece of a music production system it will give you all the flexibility you need.I didn't mention, but the build quality appears rock solid reliable and there are very few knobs/buttons to break even if you did treat it roughly. The quality of the mic pres and convertors is excellent as you would expect from a company with Antelope's reputation. They don't sound particularly digital and, despite there only being three of them, they cover the full range of warm and clean through crunch and wild distortion. The compressor is powerful and quite coloured so it may not suit every application but, what it does, it does very well. The Pultecs are excellent and in tandem give you a great full range EQ. These amps are based around a Vox AC30, a Blackface Fender and a modern Hi Gain (think Boogie). The DSP side of the system has a compressor, emulations of Pultec mid and full range EQs, a reverb and three guitar amp emulations. In effect, this is like tracking through a recording console with the added flexibility of being able to save and recall the whole session. On a tracking session you could set up all 12 mic inputs each running through its own DSP processor going to individual inputs of your DAW while having up to four separate latency-free monitor mixes for individual musicians. The flexibility this gives is huge but you do have to give yourself time to understand it or you can get into quite a muddle. There are connection points for all physical ins and outs but also for the internal DSP channels and the four internal mix busses. This is understandably complex as there are a lot of connections to deal with. The first thing you have to get to grips with is the routing matrix. Good to know you have backup that works (and it's free). We installed this on two machines - on my laptop it was very simple on the studio computer we ran into trouble but Antelope's Tech support were excellent and sorted the problems for us via Skype and Teamviewer. ![]() For most applications those are the connections you will need to change regularly and having them on the front panel makes them instantly accessible.Īll of the connectivity needs to be managed somewhere and this is where the software comes in. ![]() Each of those front panel inputs can be mic, line or hi-Z (instrument DI), and the re-amp outputs are there too, as are the headphone sockets. So, plenty of connectivity and a sensible layout. Finally there is a screw-in connector for the external power supply and the Thunderbolt and USB sockets. Digital connections include S/PDIF in and out, word clock in and outs and two ADAT inputs and outputs. To the rear you get a further eight dual XLR/TRS inputs plus monitor A and B outs (TRS) and two d-sub connectors providing line outputs 1 through 16.
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