Zaxcom's Deva 16 Mixer Now Shipping

Zaxcom today announced that it is now shipping the Deva 16, a new 16-track hard disk audio recorder designed for use in film and television production. With eight hardware faders plus an integrated hard drive, DVD-RAM, and CompactFlash® memory card slot, the Deva 16 is a complete, one-package solution for audio recording, mixing, and effects.

The Deva 16 provides fault-tolerant, multi-disk recording with automatic file recovery to safeguard audio even in the event of an unexpected power failure. The system provides eight analog mic/line inputs with 48-V phantom power, four additional analog line inputs, eight analog inputs, and eight digital direct outputs. A 16-channel, 24-bus digital mixer is built into the unit, providing EQ, notch filter, compressor, and delay functions on each channel.

The Deva 16 records to three internal recording mediums or directly to an external FireWire drive without the use of additional computers. This feature ensures that there is always a copy of the audio on set for instant reference as well as additional copies for post production. The Deva 16 also offers direct Avid™ and ProTools™ compatibility for significant time savings during audio loading for post production. Because metadata can be entered into the Deva directly through the unit's intuitive color touch screen display, information on scenes, takes, and other notes are imported automatically into the post-production system along with the audio files. Post-production staff also can refer to the Deva Sound Report, a new feature that generates an Excel® file of all metadata that was entered during production.

"We're excited to introduce the Deva 16 to the professional audio market worldwide. It's a very flexible product that can be applied to a wide variety of production settings," said Glenn Sanders, president of Zaxcom. "With its controls and hardware faders mounted directly on the top, the Deva 16 is well suited for over-the-shoulder use in addition to cart-based applications. It's also a great tool for recording high-quality audio in the field. Because the Deva 16 incorporates phase-coherent digital mixing and a fader master, a surround sound microphone is all that's needed to capture the audio world in 3D."