Zoom H4: wasting my time?

[Spec]

hello guys first post in this forum.

i really like the idea of obtaining my own samples from my local area (sounds of nature, urban sounds like traffic whatever) to use in my music.

i mostly work ITB and have invested in a solid set-up with RME card and some PMC monitors.

i never bought a microphone or any hardware except my digital piano.

i thought the zoom h4 might be the option because you can record at high samples rates, the two condenser mics, plus free 4 gig SD card the possibility of using external mics all for about $299 USD.

i see myself as making serious music but am i kidding myself that it would provide quality sounds to be used as samples?

is zoom h4 a dirty word around here?

would i need a more serious external mic?

are there any reasonably priced alternatives under 1K

thoughts much appreciated.

spek

love the sony recorder maybe but way out of my budget

[amino]

I have the Zoom H4, and I think it's good at what it does and very priceworthy indeed. Still...you get what you pay for. If you need your samples to be top quality you need to look at considerably more expensive equipment, but I find Zoom H4 very good considering its price and size.

I use it the same way you're planning to do and my main concern is battery time. I haven't measured exactly, but I can only get about 40 minutes or something for a fresh pair.

[Spec]

thanks for the heads up on the battery.

i am leaning towards the zoom for my purposes and maybe later buying better mics.

spek.

[mrufino1]

Check out the h2 also, I have it and really love it. You won't be able to use other mics with it (well, sort of but it's probably not going to be worth it to run them into the 1/8" jack), but I think the sound quality is great, it is simpler then then h4 and smaller. If you are ready to buy really good mics to go with it then you won't be in zoom land anymore (I will be in permanent zoom land as long as I live in the NYC area!) but really, I have no complaints at all about the sound quality of the h2 (or the h4, which also sounds great).

[Sound Sorcerer]

A client brought in a H2 the other day and it worked great. I hooked it up to the tape out of my Sound Devices 302 for transcription purposes. Only thing I noticed is batteries wont last very long. I had it running for 10 hrs & used 6 AA procell's
If you want to buy a used H4 go to Trew Audio , they have one on clearance right now...

[mrufino1]

Yes, the battery life is about 3 hours with alkaline, about the same with rechargeables, I don't know where zoom got their 6 hour battery life figure from. But sound quality wise, it is good.

[Chucho]

Not a waste of time. I use mine all the time.

[aaron_in_sf]

Something to consider: there are a *lot* of portable recorders in this field now, and the H4 is a generation or more "behind" at this point.

You might take a look at the newer Olympus LS-10 and Sony PCM-D50; both are direct competitors which have been evaluated by people I trust on the Naturerecordists Yahoo Group and have been found to be a step up from the Zoom.

The Marantz PMD-620 looks nice. The Korg DSD recorders have a lot of fans in these parts.

If you can wait a bit, the Edirol R-09 HR, an upgrade to the existing R-09, looks quite promising... but we know how that goes.

Me, I love my Zoom H2... dead easy to use, pretty decent built in mics, surround recording, AA batteries... but it's definitely a scratch "point-and-shoot" style recorder... :)

Something else: the high bit depths and sample rates offered by these little recorders are the equivalent of megapixels in digital cameras: a selling feature, a number to put in comparison charts, but not particularly reflective of the results you are going to get. IMHO recording 24/96 with one of these things is going to burn your batteries and memory cards without any benefit (I record at 24/44 with them).

aaron

[amino]

Am I the only one who has experienced these extremely short battery times? I haven't used my H4 that much yet, but we had a storm here a few months ago. I put in a pair of fresh alkaline batteries, put the H4 outside and started recording (24-bit/44.1kHz). When I went out and checked it ~40 minutes later it warned me that the batteries had to be replaced.

Zoom claims 4 hours of usage (at least the Swedish distributor does), but I doubt that means 4 hours of recording.

Hmm...I had to use full gain though...

[massimo]

Has anyone used the Swissonic box (see Thomann website)? It is much cheaper (99Euro), not sure how many bits it records at, but I am going to use this as a replacement for my old walkman for recording sketches of guitar ideas.

Thanks
best regards
Massimo

[Alan H Chang]

My experience with the H4 has been good. I've owned it for a year now and have used it in very harsh conditions. I get about 4 hours of runtime (24/48) continuously with Duracell 2650mAh.

[JEGG]

Battery time needs to be analyzed.

If a device has "x" time with alkalines, it can have 2 or 3x with NiMH batteries-provided (in the case of AA's) they are from a good manufacturer and they are rated at 2500 MaH **AND** they are used with a good charger. Completely independent electronics for each cell is required. MaHa makes very good chargers.

I've thought about getting something decent, too. I have not used the H4 myself, but I have heard it with its own mics (noisy) and with external condensers (pretty good!).

When thinking about these sorts of applications, imagine the distance from the source in which you will be working. In my case, it's pretty far-I would want to use something like parallel hypercardioids, or a hypercardioid and a side mic. That already imposes some size and inconvenience factors.

If have a Tascam HD-P2 which I can recommend highly if anyone's thinking about that-it's in a different price range, of course, and is physically much larger-and probably heavier, too, with 8 AA's installed.

One decision at the outset is whether you want XLRs or not, and if you can tolerate "breakout" cables. That decision alone will go far in selecting which pieces of gear are right for you.

[kzkingsley]

Originally Posted by mrufino1

Yes, the battery life is about 3 hours with alkaline, about the same with rechargeables, I don't know where zoom got their 6 hour battery life figure from. But sound quality wise, it is good.

I hate to bump an old thread but in my experience the batteries have lasted about 6 hours with rechargables. There is a section in the menu where you set the battery to nimh.. I'm not sure if that changes anything physically but it goes from showing the battery half full to being completely full. I also am only recording 2 tracks at a time in 16/44, so maybe you were doing 4 tracks at 24/96 and had it set to use alkaline batteries.

[NorseHorse]

For hitting the town with a simple, handheld recorder to get samples, the H4 is a great choice. Your recording time should be at least three hours on fresh batteries. I've used it for recording TONS of lecture.

I wouldn't worry about recording at high sample rates. 48/24 is really about as high as you need to go.

The phantom power also gives you the freedom to upgrade to an external mic of some sort later on.

Cheers.

[jamanjeval]

@ kzkingsley:
nimh have a lower voltage and lower internal resistance than alkaline batteries. So, the difference that you see by changing the battery settings in the menu is probably a result of it knowing how to better gauge the actual life left rather than changing something to make them last longer.

[dlmorley]

For the money, I think it's good. I went with the Roland R09HR and I think it's worth the extra cash

[Spec]

started this one almost 18 months ago.

went and got the zoom.

battery life is about three hours which is ok.

the recordings i have made at 24/96 are quite good - at least to my ears - with lots of details captured with the built in mics.

for about $250 USD it great value and as i mentioned sounds ok when incorporated into tracks.

my only thought is the OP who suggested that the H4 is a little old school today is correct. the olympus is now cheaper than the zoom and much better made with a full metal body and sturdy easy to use buttons controls. also it is much smaller than the zoom and a longer battery life as well.

my main criticism of the zoom is the cheap all plastic build and wobbly buttons. wonder how long it last? hate to drop it.

also i think for field recording the outwards facing stereo mics (the olympus) rather than the inward ones (zoom H4) would capture wider steroe field.

wish i had chcked back in my only thread here before buying the zoom!

the olympus looks like the enrtry level recorder to beat at the moment.

nonetheless happy with the recordings i have made with the Zoom H4.

spek

[mohthom]

Used the H4 for a recording yesterday, and wasn't disappointed with the results when I got them back to the main monitor rig at home. What I WAS disappointed by is how bad the headphone out sounds - it gave me cancer, and then some. Fortunately, my mixer's headphone out sounded OK (grumble Mackie grumble grumble), but the monitoring was poor. I'd been wondering about some new converters for a while and came to the conclusion that I didn't need them - if I had converters of the quality of the H4 for my recording rig I'd be buying new ones today.

I didn't use the built in mics (unbal. in from a mixer), but I've heard recordings from those mics that weren't all bad. I don't like the fact that they're screwed in to a 90deg position, but hey - it's £200.

To get started, for £200, it's a bit of a steal. Just don't rely on it for monitoring live!

MohThoM