Zoom H4

[frogged210]

On some other forums i frequet i've heard people singing the praises of the new Zoom h4 mobile recorder/audio interface product, but I was surprised to find nothing about it on this site. Anyone have any experience using it for home studio recordings?
It has a USB interface with two built in condenser mics for stereo recording, and has imputs for external mic's as well. I'm not sure if it has built-in preamps, as i can't find much info on it. Here's one review i found to give you an idea:
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007...-recorder.html
I would be interested in using it primarily to set up a simple homestudio, although the ability to use it as a field recorder would be nice as well. I have dynamic mic's already (SM 57s) so my thought is this one purchase giving me condenser mic's and an audio interface would be all i need to get started doing some good recordings. I won't be doing any midi. Thoughts?

[guitar junkie]

go read some reviews on it... I myself am lusting for one to take with me on the road.... I have had a wish to record some music in very remote places in the smoky mountains as well as some great rooms I know about.... it is all about the room so a stereo pair would work just fine for that.

[brandondrury]

These are more "capturing" gadgets than recording devices. I mean that I could capture stuff, but I'm not sure if they make concession for overdubbing, editing, etc.

I've heard great things about the M-Audio thingy, but I've never used it myself.

Brandon

[frogged210]

The Zoom has a USB out and is made to work as both a field recorder and an audio interface (comes with Cubase LE). The audio interface aspect is what i'm most interested in, as I want to start working on some high quality home recordings. I've heard a lot of good things about the built in conderser mics, but the main question I have is how external mics would sound with it, if i wanted to use a dynamic, etc. The website says it have "phantom power", but doesn't mention if it has built in pre-amps, so my guess is it doesn't.
Basically, i want to spend about $300. I've got good dynamic mics (SP57s) and a computer, so my choice is basically between buying a traditional audio interface and a condenser, or just buying the Zoom h4. The ability to also use the h4 as a field recorder, and the good things i'm hearing about the built in mics, and the fact that it has 2 mics that are set up to record in stereo, all have me leaning toward the h4. What do you guys think?

[guitar junkie]

yes it has built in preamps....

[brandondrury]

It really depends.

The idea behind this product does sound very intrigueing. If they've designed it in a way that the audio interface is fully functional and not hampered by the built in goodies (like the condenser mic) it may be a great purchase.

"And by-the-way, it’s also an Audio Interface"

This was on the Zoom website. I must say that this statement alone is VERY scary to a person like myself who needs a real deal audio interface and not some box where slapped on the audio interface features. I could be totally wrong, but this is the vibe I'm getting from the unit.

I wouldn't get THAT excited about the mics either. The unit is $300, comes with a built in multi-track recording, an audio interface and essentialy two condenser microphones (stereo mics use 2 elements). I'm guessing they invested about $12-30 in the mics. So even if these are exceptional for the price, they are still extremely cheap microphones.

I'd do some research. Products like these almost always have some sort of hidden flaw in their features that makes them a pain in the ass. I could be wrong, but I'd be skeptical until shown otherwise. I could imagine it being great at EVERYTHING.

Brandon

[guitar junkie]

I think the reviews in EQ magazine

TapeOp magazine

and on the IHR podcast

are good enough to show someone what can be done with these suckers.

Brandon you sound like you want it to fall flat.

[brandondrury]

Brandon you sound like you want it to fall flat.

In the same same light, it sounds like you want this little product to succeed. Just because you want it to be the right product for you (or me) doesn't have any effect on whether it actually is the right product for you or me.

I'd love for it to do everything I need it to do. I just doubt if it will. (I'm speaking of me here).

For example, they make no mention of the usual audio interface features on the page I saw on the site. Preamps, Monitor mix control, latency, S/PDIF digital inputs, and MIDI were all omitted from the page I read. (Maybe there is another page).

A person who didn't know any better could assume that this thing was going to take care of their audio interface needs just to find out that their needed features weren't in there.

How would a person know? The marketing is slick enough that a layman can't tell.

I don't think I'm biased either way. I just don't get too excited about these everything-you-ever-wanted-in-one-box gadgets. Having said that, I'm not looking for a portable 2 track recorder but I am in the market for an audio interface.

The problems I'm illustrating are not exclusive to this Zoom box. They apply to the entire industry of home recording. No one ever lists all the features of a given sound card. It was a total bitch gathering the info for the Soundcard Wizard because of it. I still had to make some guesses about certain products. Often, I had to look at the pictures because the Musician's Friend add would say something like "Gold plated RCA connections ensure amazing sound quality for years and years to come". Okay great! That tells me NOTHING! Does the damn thing have S/PDIF or not?

Of course, as I say, the problem is not the government or the corporations, it's the people who fund them.

Brandon






However, I've been in this game a while. The "Next Best Thing" comes out every 6 months.

[lunaticRobot]

Originally Posted by frogged210

...I would be interested in using it primarily to set up a simple homestudio, although the ability to use it as a field recorder would be nice as well. I have dynamic mic's already (SM 57s) so my thought is this one purchase giving me condenser mic's and an audio interface would be all i need to get started doing some good recordings. I won't be doing any midi. Thoughts?

I own one. I bought it for pretty much the same reason as you stated - except, I actually do midi as well but with other gear since the H4 can't do midi. The bottom line is, if you're not doing pro stuff with it, it's more than adequate. And, frankly, if you're a halfway decent audio tech, you can get damn good sound from an H4. The mics are _way_ better than I expected - I added a classical guitar solo along with some other acoustic instruments with an H4 to a friends tune in garageband and it came out very nicely. I'll post a link to it when I get some time. I've also added a vocal demo using the mics and used the usb interface only with an old zoom 9002 and an ibanez guitar plugged directly into the H4 for the solo on another piece - I'll come back and give a link to that tune too so you can hear a bit.

What I really like about the H4 is it takes two minutes for me to set up and start recording and it does a decent job. Since this is a hobby for me, I just don't have time to futz with more complicated stuff to just lay down a few tracks now and then.

The thing I don't like about it is, it can be a bit finicky to get it to connect (i.e. not plugging in the USB but making a software connection) to my iMac (G5) - sometimes it connects but I don't get any signal into garageband for some reason and I have to unplug the H4 and restart garageband - a bit annoying but once it's connected it seems to then work without problem. Oh, and the memory card they include is too small. If you're really capturing field sounds or for capturing a song idea when it hits, the memory card fills up too quickly. 2GB cards are cheap now though so it's no biggie.

I guess the other thing is there's some latency (as with all other computer interfaces). It's a USB 1 device so it may have greater latency than some other devices but you deal with it - it comes with the territory.

All in all, I think it's a nifty device and would buy it again.

[Bootstrapped]

If you have or use an H4 make sure you donwload the latest ASIO drivers from the ZOOM site. They are significantly better than the originals in terms of CPU overhead and lower latency. I run a DELL 1.8 Laptop, 1.5MB with Xp and i can run the buffers setting at its minimum 1 Ms no problem now.

Kudos to ZOOM and C- Entrance which does their drivers for making this unit much more usable as an interface.

For the record H4 does work under ASIO4ALL though.