Post by andybutler on Mar 23, 2008 12:09:38 GMT
Well, I eventually bought myself a Zoom H2 Recorder.
So how well does it work.
1) As a sketchbook recorder.
I recorded myself improvising quite sparsely on a ukelele...easy to do and sounded good. The on-board mics are very good, rumored to be the same capsules as used on the H4. More noise than a studio recording, but not enough to worry about.
2) Ambient recordings with quiet birdsong worked well too. Again there's probably a bit more noise there than you'd want if you were going to do this professionally, but still listenable. The 4 channel mode for recording is good for this too, would be a quick way to grab some surround sound ambiance.
2b) using the rear facing mics to record produces "hole in the middle" stereo...totally pointless.
3) Recording direct from the mixing desk....disaster. The so called line in input is specified at -10dB, and there's no headroom whatsoever, in fact I've sent it a full scale signal at -10dB and it just pushes it into distortion. While you'd expect the on-board volume control to deal with this, it does nothing of the sort. The volume control, and also the on-board limiter/compressor work only in the digital domain. Result is that while the meters are showing you a clean and safe signal level your recording can still be a mush of fuzz.
I'm going to work around this by soldering some resistors into a lead (to make a 20dB pad) and by never using the "record volume" below 100.
4) Setting up your band around the H4 and recording in 4 channel mode. Tried this in a small room, and the separation isn't enough to make it worth the effort. This would work a lot better if the rear mics were 90 degrees apart rather than 120 degrees. As there's now only 75 degrees between front and rear mics on either side it means that instruments directly to either side of the H2 get an extra boost.
If your band is very loud then it's possible you won't be able to get an undistorted recording.
5) USB mic, fine, but H2 output somehow gets to be your audio out even if you try to pick a different output.
6) Duplex audio interface. On pc, you can download "Asio4All" which makes the H2 into a low latency interface. Seems to work ok, but did get distortion when talking to Matthias on Skype, which could have been caused by the H2 (he could hear me fine tho').
7) Tuner.. yep that works.
8) Works with 8GB sd card (recommended cards on zoom site).
9) Metronome. Works. time sigs 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 6/8.
Range of sounds...cowbell's quite nice.
10) On-board limiter, or auto vol control doesn't work to prevent distortion. (see 3)
Works with 2 ordinary AA batteries, which is a big plus.
(easy to change).
Comes with a little stand (which just lets in stand upright on a flat surface without adjustment) and also a kind of handle thing which can be used to mount it on a mic clip or shock mount.
Won't fix straight onto a mic stand, but would be worth getting one of those little camera stands which will fit straight onto the recorder.
The camera style mounting thread at the bottom of the unit looks like it's plastic (hence worries by other reviewers) but the "tongue test" says it's made of metal and thus suitably robust(full points to Zoom for this)
It's "USB2 compatible"....which apparently means USB 1.
So file transfer is not that fast unless you just have/buy a card reader. It's much faster than transferring from MD tho' :-)
It's bigger in than the Edirol R-09
Plastic construction, feels sturdy enough.
Door for the SD card could break quite easily while open (but H2 wouldn't then stop working).
I found it very easy to use, but for the menu-phobic it might be frustrating.
It's disappointing that 4-ch recording is only possible with the on-board mics, would have been useful for gigs to record both feed from the desk and a bit of live sound from the on-board mic for atmosphere.
Rear facing mic would be more useful with 90 degree spacing rather than 120. Would still be handy to record with rear facing mics while viewing the levels. For 4-ch recording it would be much better to have 4 equally spaced mics ( I may hack the H2 to make change the angles).
So, the major downside is that there's no analog volume control before the A/D converters in line mode, and only a 3 position level switch for the mic. If the volume is set below 100 ( some websites say 95) then the level meters won't show if your sound is distorting. It's possible that the A/Ds are working at 24bit all the time, in which case, using the upper range of volume control from 100 to 127 is useful if your recording at 16 bit.
With a 24bit recording there's no point at all in using the vol control. In any case, the recording quality of the unit is hardly going to make 24 bit recording worthwhile.
At the price, no other downsides.
So how well does it work.
1) As a sketchbook recorder.
I recorded myself improvising quite sparsely on a ukelele...easy to do and sounded good. The on-board mics are very good, rumored to be the same capsules as used on the H4. More noise than a studio recording, but not enough to worry about.
2) Ambient recordings with quiet birdsong worked well too. Again there's probably a bit more noise there than you'd want if you were going to do this professionally, but still listenable. The 4 channel mode for recording is good for this too, would be a quick way to grab some surround sound ambiance.
2b) using the rear facing mics to record produces "hole in the middle" stereo...totally pointless.
3) Recording direct from the mixing desk....disaster. The so called line in input is specified at -10dB, and there's no headroom whatsoever, in fact I've sent it a full scale signal at -10dB and it just pushes it into distortion. While you'd expect the on-board volume control to deal with this, it does nothing of the sort. The volume control, and also the on-board limiter/compressor work only in the digital domain. Result is that while the meters are showing you a clean and safe signal level your recording can still be a mush of fuzz.
I'm going to work around this by soldering some resistors into a lead (to make a 20dB pad) and by never using the "record volume" below 100.
4) Setting up your band around the H4 and recording in 4 channel mode. Tried this in a small room, and the separation isn't enough to make it worth the effort. This would work a lot better if the rear mics were 90 degrees apart rather than 120 degrees. As there's now only 75 degrees between front and rear mics on either side it means that instruments directly to either side of the H2 get an extra boost.
If your band is very loud then it's possible you won't be able to get an undistorted recording.
5) USB mic, fine, but H2 output somehow gets to be your audio out even if you try to pick a different output.
6) Duplex audio interface. On pc, you can download "Asio4All" which makes the H2 into a low latency interface. Seems to work ok, but did get distortion when talking to Matthias on Skype, which could have been caused by the H2 (he could hear me fine tho').
7) Tuner.. yep that works.
8) Works with 8GB sd card (recommended cards on zoom site).
9) Metronome. Works. time sigs 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 6/8.
Range of sounds...cowbell's quite nice.
10) On-board limiter, or auto vol control doesn't work to prevent distortion. (see 3)
Works with 2 ordinary AA batteries, which is a big plus.
(easy to change).
Comes with a little stand (which just lets in stand upright on a flat surface without adjustment) and also a kind of handle thing which can be used to mount it on a mic clip or shock mount.
Won't fix straight onto a mic stand, but would be worth getting one of those little camera stands which will fit straight onto the recorder.
The camera style mounting thread at the bottom of the unit looks like it's plastic (hence worries by other reviewers) but the "tongue test" says it's made of metal and thus suitably robust(full points to Zoom for this)
It's "USB2 compatible"....which apparently means USB 1.
So file transfer is not that fast unless you just have/buy a card reader. It's much faster than transferring from MD tho' :-)
It's bigger in than the Edirol R-09
Plastic construction, feels sturdy enough.
Door for the SD card could break quite easily while open (but H2 wouldn't then stop working).
I found it very easy to use, but for the menu-phobic it might be frustrating.
It's disappointing that 4-ch recording is only possible with the on-board mics, would have been useful for gigs to record both feed from the desk and a bit of live sound from the on-board mic for atmosphere.
Rear facing mic would be more useful with 90 degree spacing rather than 120. Would still be handy to record with rear facing mics while viewing the levels. For 4-ch recording it would be much better to have 4 equally spaced mics ( I may hack the H2 to make change the angles).
So, the major downside is that there's no analog volume control before the A/D converters in line mode, and only a 3 position level switch for the mic. If the volume is set below 100 ( some websites say 95) then the level meters won't show if your sound is distorting. It's possible that the A/Ds are working at 24bit all the time, in which case, using the upper range of volume control from 100 to 127 is useful if your recording at 16 bit.
With a 24bit recording there's no point at all in using the vol control. In any case, the recording quality of the unit is hardly going to make 24 bit recording worthwhile.
At the price, no other downsides.
