Zoom H2 introduction
Recently I had the good fortune of being asked for a recommendation of what microphone to buy for an organization. I had previously set up a cheap desktop pc microphone and audacity for a cd project they wanted to do. (They didn’t have the money at the time for anything else.) Their main goal was spoken word recorded. Unfortunately the microphone was inadequate to be kind. Input level was low, background noise was high. So, I suggested they plan on upgrading the microphone before anything else. So…. I heard that they had $200 donated towards the project and what fit this budget?
To start off with they could have got a decent wired microphone, but they would have still been tethered to a pc for recording. This organization deals in handmade arts and crafts and so I think they have a great potential to interview artisans. Having everyone come into an office for that seemed less than ideal. Beyond this, the office environment is not a quiet sound environment anyway.
So…. I started looking first at the portable digital recorders to see if there was anything in their price range. The Zoom H4 was more than they needed and more expensive. The Edirol R-09 is more expensive and so I looked at the Zoom H2. It’s just within the price range (in fact I found it for ~$160 which meant I could pick up an 8GB SD card to go with it.)
Basically, the Zoom H2 has two stereo microphone pairs built in. One at 90 degrees the other at 120 degrees. One in the front of the unit, the other in the back. It looks like an old-school studio mic. It can record from either the front or back microphones to a stereo wav or mp3 file as well as mixing (automatically the input from both mikes) to a single wav/mp3 file. It’s also capable of splitting the output from the front/rear mikes to two files which appears to be more useful if you’re interested in trying to achieve full surround sound (dolby 5.1)
For their purposes (quick and easy/voice recording/stereo interviewing) it really seems like the perfect fit.
Fortunately I got to play with it for a few days too…. review to follow.
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Date: October 28, 2008, 9:28 am
[...] done a couple of posts now over at my Asheville Music Lessons site looking at the Zoom H2, (here’s the Zoom H2 review). I got the opportunity to play with one for a few days and I [...]