Eye strain and carpal tunnel getting serious? Facebook addiction cutting deep holes into your productivity? Whatever your reason for wanting to get off the old computer box, the Zoom R24 recording interface (MRSP: $499) could very well be your ticket. For its price, the R24 sports a pretty impressive feature set. For starters, it offers 8-track simultaneous SD-card recording (up to 24-bit/48kHz) with maximum 24-track playback, and allows daisy-chaining of two units for up to 16 record tracks. It offers the requisite built-in effect suite, a 24-voice sampler, and a programmable, assignable drum machine complete with eight pads positioned in a row beneath the track sliders. In a nice gesture, Zoom also partnered with Big Fish Audio to provide 1.5 gigs of drum loops and samples. If you’re looking for an intuitive scratchpad or location-friendly multitrack recording device, the R24 should serve nicely. Another nice touch: You can disconnect the R24 from its brain and use it as a basic MIDI controller.