Zoom H4 Digital Field Recorder

[Hippofish]

I just bought my first Field Recorder. I am not sure what this forum thinks about stand alone recorders with built in mics, but I bet it would be something like, "those things are crap". Well in the past I would have agreed with you totally, but since listening to the recordings of what I just bought, I would have to say I am pretty impressed.

I bought the Zoom H2 and got it delivered this week. This is the recorder listed at $199 and it has 4 built in microphones. It records onto SD or HCSD cards. It records in up to 24/96 and down to 64bps MP3's. With this recorder you can record 4 tracks of surround sound at one time at 16/44.1 and it sounds pretty damn good.

So far I have used it to record a few jam practices and the thing is GREAT for that. The back microphones are aligned at 120 degrees and the fronts at 90 degrees. I placed the recorder front first, or with the 90 degree mics towards the kit and the 120 degrees towards the back of the room with the bass amp and the guitar amp spread out a little bit further. The vocals came from the back center through a PA system, now this thing does a damn good job of recording. It could take TONS of SPL before digital clipping occurred. I found this very pleasing.

It comes with a couple cool little accessories also. A nice little stand if you want it to sit upon a desk or something, a pair a decent quality ear buds, a USB cable for hooking up to the computer. My favorite part of the thing is it's ability to record directly to MP3 for those jams sessions you want to email to someone, or jam sessions you want to immediately give to the rest of the band to take home that are 3 hours long. Makes for easy translation. I used to record with a small stereo Sony Microphone onto my MD player and it was a pain in the ass because I could only get 70 minutes at a time, so during normal jam sessions I had to switch out the MD at least once and then trying to give it to the band members as they were leaving was impossible. They had to wait until the next time we jammed because I had to record them in REAL time back into the computer and onto to CD, or actually TWO CD's. It was a giant pain in the ass.

This recorder is very handy for just about anything were a simple recorder and microphone are needed. I am going to upload some recordings of myself playing the acoustic guitar sometime soon to give you an idea of how good the internal microphones actually work.

PROS - Very small size. It fits right in the palm of you hand. It records using the internal mics or you can plug in another stereo mic or line in from an outboard source. I am going to use it to record a band from the mixing board next. All I need is a simple RCA out or line out from the board and I can go into the Zoom and record at CD quality, or better if I want more headroom. 24/96 bit recording if needed. MP3's recording directly without having to convert after recording a .wav file. On the 2GB card I have in there now I get 23 hours of recording time at 224bps MP3 and that's awesome. It's half the price of anything else in it's quality level. I borrowed an Olympus from a friend, that's was spurred me on to buy this, and it was a $400 version, not sure of the model, but I don't think it really sounded any better than this one does. However the battery life is MUCH MUCH better, 25 hours or so...read further below.

CONS - Battery life it listed as 4-5 hours, which to me was pretty pathetic, but I have yet to get that much out of them. More like 3-4 hours, which is just barely enough to record a jam session. However for that use I can just plug it in. Another bad thing is that it's all plastic and feels kind of cheap. It's not something you can toss around or really let get too beat up. The one that I borrowed was aluminum cased and felt more like you could defend your house with it. I would say for normal use, the H4 is just fine. If you are going to take your recorder to EVERY concert you go to or use it constantly someplace where you can't plug it in, then go for the more expensive Olympus or Tascam recorder.

That's it for now, I will post some of the recordings from this recorder in the future. It's a great simple recorder on the cheap. If they increased the battery life on this thing, it would walk away with A LOT of awards. It seems like all the more expensive ones have MUCH better battery life. Some almost ten times as much. For no moving parts, you would think the batteries would last for a while.

Michael

[fmw]

Actually it has just two built in microphones.

[Hippofish]

you are correct sir. I am sorry, I own the H2 not the H4 which surely does have only two built in microphones. I however have changed the posting to reflect the actual recorder I own.

It's funny, the H4 has two mics and the H2 has four mics. Go figure, sorry for the confusion but you can see where I have been fooled.

Michael

[brandondrury]

I've heard great things about these modern recorders. I don't have any use for them at the present, but it's nice to know that they are out there.

Brandon

[fmw]

I think you would be surprised at how effective they are, Brandon. I have an H4. I've used it for location recording and I've used it as a recording interface. The performance is surprising for the size of these little units.

[brandondrury]

I think you would be surprised at how effective they are, Brandon.

No I wouldn't. I've heard them on several occassions. It sounds like a good stereo condenser mic.

If I needed to record a performance in a cave or something I could see the merits in it. I can't remember the last time I recorded out of the studio (besides last week when we recorded a song in the front yard).

Brandon

[Buda]

Does it record the vocals clear or is it like a high impedance mic

[Hippofish]

I think it's strongest features are it's other abilities. The microphones ARE remarkably good for what they are, but lets not get crazy here and start comparing them to something like a SM57 Beta or something, that's just crazy talk.

The other features I am talking about are as follows:

Direct to MP3 recording. Using the input jack on the side, you can plug any analog source into this and record directly to MP3 or WAV. This comes in handy if you wanted to convert Tapes, Phonographs or Reel To Reel to MP3 or CD. I have used this many times to convert old audio recordings I have from the late 80's and it worked great.

You can use it as a USB interface on the computer. This works good for on the go podcasts with a laptop, or simple recording on the fly.

You can plug an external microphone into this and record at 24/96 onto the SDHC.

This also works great, if not a little overkill, for recording interviews, lectures, school classrooms, etc. The gain on these mics is rather impressive and the pre-amp noise is tolerable even at maximum gain.

I have also used this device as an external set of mics for a camcorder. We all know that camcorder microphones are fucking terrible. You can plug this into the jack on the camcorder and get great DEEP recordings with these mics. Also if you want to play around with it, you can record in surround sound with all four mics working. This works really well also.

Overall it's a very versatile field recorder with outstanding results at the price point. For less than $200 I challenge you to find ANYTHING that can do what this can at the quality it does it at. This is a great addition to any home recorders arsenal. If not just for the fun factor or ease of use factor when recording demos or ideas onto tape without having to set up microphones and software settings. Just set this bitch up and start riffing your ideas.

I give it 5 out of 5 for quality verses price and versatility.

Michael

[Hippofish]

I finally recorded my acoustic with this recorder just to give you an idea of how well this actually records.

I used my Taylor 814ce and put the H2 about three feet away on a table with the front mics placed up near the 12th fret.

This is a straight raw recording directly from the H2.

I think it did a pretty good job recording for what it is.

[JawnyB]

I recently picked up the GTR1 and I have to tell you I am pretty impressed. A few people got together this past Xmas and did a few songs at the company Xmas luncheon. I just turned it on and left it on a table while we played. Listening to it afterwards everyone wanted me to make them a copy. There were also a couple of guys filming the event with rented HD video camera's. When the tried to create a DVD they found that the camera was not set up properly and the sound was awful. I gave the guy the file I recorded and he pasted it into the DVD. Aside from a bit of low end roll off it sounds good. I think these devices have come a long way in the last few years.