Asheville Music Lessons

This won’t be a full fledged review, but some of my first impressions with the Zoom H4 after a little bit of time with it yesterday evening and a bit this morning. First off, it’s a bit smaller than it looked to me in the pictures. The box is fairly good sized and it turns out it was not turned lengthwise with the box, but it’s long dimension was across the narrow part of the box (if that makes sense.) I loaded a 2GB sd card to work with (I may yet make use of the included card.) I quickly had batteries in (rechargable AA’s) and was off and testing. It’s been probably 10 years since I worked with a condenser microphone from an audio engineering/recording standpoint and was quickly reminded how amazing they can be at picking up EVERYTHING. The use of the toggle wheel with the menu button took a few minutes to catch on to (I skimmed the manual while I researched the device, not when I received it.)

I thought I’d wing things without referring to the instructions for a bit. I quickly found the L/M/H gain for the mics and I’ve got to say I like the built in microphones, I did a quick test of the mike modeling and can tell a noticable difference between the choices there… that should be interesting to play with. Internal noise is very low. I imported an audio track that I had recorded to PC (using the tascam portastudio as a mixer) and it has noticable hiss, the audio tracks I added on tracks 2-4 were VERY quiet with regards to background noise, so this is definitely going to be an improvement from that standpoint for me.

I tested out my old Shure Beta Green 1.0 on the Input 1 which works as expected. Unfortunately with the sudden death of my digital piano, I couldn’t get a line in test from that. I’ve discovered that in four track mode you can use the built in microphones to record to JUST one track which was one of my remaining questions. (I thought you might have to do a stereo recording with joined tracks and then mix to mono.) If anything the mics are too sensitive as they pic up a lot of breathing/swallowing/footsteps/button press/dryer running in the other end of the house, kind of noises… I think with a bit of time I’ll get used to finding ways to minimize that kind of noise. I’ve already switched back to Low gain for most testing at this point.

Let’s see, I saw a report that there were concerns about getting a good stereo image/stereo seperation. In limited testing I could definitely (fairly easily) hear some left/right seperation in stereo mode. For some this could be a matter of taste I guess (maybe some would like greater seperation?)

You CAN use this to transfer files to a linux machine - set it in file transfer mode and it shows up as a usb scsi drive. (I used that to import an old audio piano track I had.) (I also used it to pull off one file from the card.) You might be able to use it in linux as an audio device as well (I saw the usb-audio driver got loaded when I put it in the audio i/o mode…. I didn’t have time to putz with that though.) (The main reason I mention it is I saw a review complaining that it didn’t work. You have to go through the menu and set it in the correct mode to have it act as a “mass storage device” for transfering files.)

All in all, I have a feeling this will be a musical swiss army knife for me. I was laying some SATB audio tracks to go with the piano from an old PC recording and thinking about how many songs I’ve put together that way through the PC and this is so much more elegant to use in many ways. After a short time of using the jog dial/menu that seems fairly easy to work with. Let’s see, I did abruptly cut it off while playing back a piece, that didn’t phase it, it turned back on in 4 track mode.

For the most part I’ve played with stereo WAV 16 bit/44.1 khz and multitrack WAV 16 bit/44.1 khz…. It’s capable of 48 khz and up to 24bit/96khz wav which I just listened to with short tests. I also did a quick test of the default mp3 bitrate. From what I understand there is an issue with some bitrates of mp3 files. (Firmware update expected.)

The tripod bracket adapter that comes with it doesn’t appear as though it would find my (fairly standard) mic stand, so I’ll have to look at an adapter or a mini tripod or something. The only other thought I have is that of a carry case (I saw someone point out a digital camera case they said they were using.)

I’ll try to report more after a bit of use.

Just tested the line out to a stereo, very nice fairly quiet. I haven’t had a chance yet to try line in via a stereo 1/8th inch to mono 1/4″ plugs…..

–update 10/19/06–

Ok - this is turning into more of a review I suppose, but I’ll keep it informal… Let’s see, before I forget sweetwater.com is very impressive. Like I’ve mentioned before I think the backorder lasted 2 hours…. I was expecting it would be weeks before this Zoom H4 would ship… anyway….

One of the things that I think will likely get on my nerves over time is an opportunity, I think, for an improvement in the design. I would LOVE it if this thing had a remote control of some sort - infrared/via usb whatever…. I hope in a future revision some thought is given to a way to start and stop recording without having to touch the unit. The main reason is every track I’ve got has a loud thump where I switch it on and another where I reach for the button to switch it off. The bottom line, is you can get GOOD signal to noise on this, I like the built in microphones, but…. expect to be editing on a pc for anything other than “scratch work”. Now, of course many would want to edit anyway with or without that “thump” of pressing the unit. One question I have though is how useful a punch in/out could be with the built in mic - I’m thinking you’ll have to use external instrument/mic to get a usable punch in/out.

Other improvements I’d love to see in the future is the ability to “export” to an mp3 on the device so that an original WAV can be converted “in unit”. I haven’t dug too much, but I think this isn’t doable right now. Oh, one other thing - effects are only applied to input sources which, I’d love to see modified…. what I would like is the possibility of an “effect send” for an existing track. I know, “meet gift horse…, see mouth..” it’s a great unit all in all, but there are a few changes I see possible that would make it an absolutely amazing portable studio. (Of course, I’d love to see 8 tracks instead of just 4… but the bounce track works to free up space.) What boggles the mind is what kind of devices we’ll see in another 10 years. (BTW, it’s been ~10 years now since I bought the tascam tape based portastudio).

Let’s see… other reactions to the Zoom H4…. It’s cool that it remembers the last mode you were in. (Stereo recording vs. 4track mode) - so if you’re working on a 4track project and power down, when it comes back up it’s still in 4track mode… nice. It’s also nice that in stereo mode, just power on press record twice and you’re rolling (to a fresh filename too by the way.) Fairly quick and easy to do. There is a short “boot up” delay. I can see why some people are concerned about the battery/sd card cover. There’s a peculiar button release and then pull from the sides to open it which is a bit unusual and the hinged plastic there feels a bit flimsy, but hopefully with good treatment it will hold up. The rest of the build seems fairly solid.

I read someone talk about the difficulty of getting the sd card out. I can see why. I just pushed on the sd to unlock it and then had to go through a few fingers to find one with enough of a fingernail to slide the card out the rest of the way. Odds are I’ll be leaving the same card in for most use, if you expect to be changing cards often you might want to throw some tweezers in your kit.

Oh, I made a quick reference to the bounce track feature. One thing that’s a bit odd to me about it is that when you choose bounce tracks from the menu it will assume that ALL currently playing tracks are to get bounced. (I kind of expected a screen to choose which tracks to bounce.) The bounce process takes a few moments - I’m sure it depends on how long the project is. (This is the area I’d like to see the possibility to encode to an mp3 - If…. you can bounce 4 tracks to a stereo wav - then why not convert to an mp3 as well…. yes, it might take a few moments… ah well - the pc is better suited for encoding I guess.)

It is nice that you can get the full use of 4 tracks before having to bounce. I can’t think of anything else right now….. I suspect I’ll add more later.

–Update again…—

The podsqod has published their review of the zoom h4 along with some audio in the podcast from the Zoom H4 itself. This is really a good chance to hear it for yourself in a field recording/dialogue format.

One other note - the interface for renaming files reminds me of old video games… it seems a lot easier ot hook the unit up to a pc and then use the pc to rename the files.

–another update 10/26–

I’ve played around a bit more with a couple of the uses of the Zoom and thought I’d share, I’ve done a few “field recording” expeditions just getting out-doorsy kind of sounds. This device does very well for that, I’d still suggest that you may need to use an audio editor for some polish (taking out the initial button press sound and the cut off button press.) (That’s if you’re using the built in microphones.) Also, I’ve spent a bit more time, now that the kawai cp95 is here…. and with just a Left patch cable in stereo mode, I got Left channel and then imported into a multitrack project and did various operations to get it down to a single track. (Now, I could have just started out in multitrack mode to begin with and got it on one track that way…) “Handy recorder” is beginning to seem like the ideal name for it because it has been tremendously handy and has some useful capabilities. The import from stereo recording into the multitrack mode is nice (you have to have at least a pair of linked channels first.) Bounce tracks is useful, navigation is fine after the initial awkwardness and the noise floor is very low. (I didn’t try to measure.)

I’ve been carrying it around quite a bit and capturing quite a bit of audio. Hopefully before too long I’ll be able to post some recordings captured with it. (But I was eager to get the hymns chimes cd finished first. None of those tracks were recorded on the zoom, but I’m expecting that the next projects will have plenty of audio recorded through the zoom in one form or another.)

Another note - Sweetwater made a followup call to see that I’d received the product and get feedback. I’m really impressed with Sweetwater at this point.

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