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#1
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Zoom H-4 recorder?
I know the flash recorder thing has been discused here and in other
production groups, but not this unit, and I think it might suit a need but want to find out if anyone got one and hated it. I have to equip an interview situation with a field recorder and a simple phone patch recording set-up. Everything but the actual recorder will pretty much fall in place easily, but the Zoom for $300 has now come up on the radar and if she could use this for both field interviews (with external mics) and as the recorder for the phone interviews (coming out of a JK phone box) using line ins, it would be great. It will never be used to record music so that lowers the bar on its pre quality, but headsmacking bugs or a convoluted inface be a big negative, as there isn't really going to be a chance to wait for firmware upgrades to make it work. Googling turns up pretty much zip. As a guitarist I've used some Zoom stuff over the years, but was never nuts about them. The budget dictates that the crop of $400 recorders is the max we can go for, but if the H-4 is OK, given that it's only voice recording involved (and then only for broadcast, not film or video) that would be $100 we could put towards bumping up something else. Thanks for any thoughts, good or bad, about it. R |
#2
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Zoom H-4 recorder?
I do some live music recording and interviews for radio. At present I'm
using Sony Minidisc, but we all know that they're getting the hearse warmed up for that technology, so I have been looking for a replacement technology. The Zoom H4 is one I have been looking at, but (while I haven't actually held one in my hand) the description of the interface in the documents makes it seem amazingly cumbersome. That's not on. Fast configuration of and entry to record mode is essential. The M-Audio Microtrack has a much better interface, but there have been negative comments on how it actually measures up to claimed specs. I also don't like the use of an internal rechargable only. When at festivals, which are often up the bush[1], there is often a lack of recharging facilities, and having some backup AA batteries is much prefereable. The Edirol R series looks good. I'd need to sell my body[2] to afford an R4, but the R1 or R09 are definite contenders. Cheers Goaty 1. ="located in remote areas" 2. or at least a kidney ... wouldn't be much call for the whole package! -- _--_|\ John Lamp - in beautiful downtown Highton / \ DoD#:1906 Ulysses#:10185 Vulcan Nomad \_.--._/ Phone: 0409 512 254 v Hear no Evo, See no Evo, Fear no Evo Militant Agnostic - I don't know and you don't either |
#3
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Zoom H-4 recorder?
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#4
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Zoom H-4 recorder?
Mike Rivers wrote: Googling turns up pretty much zip. If you're talking about the Zoom, nobody has had a chance to hate it because it hasn't shipped to anyone yet. Apparently a small early shipment went out and I found some people that had units, in particular a guy who administers a Zoom forum. http://www.2090.org/zoom/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=6906 but these were mostly people discussing the plusses and minuses of the 4 track capabilities, which I would be ignoring anyway. So naturally I came here to see if any r.a.p. people were early adopters. One cool thing about the Zoom, though you probably wouldn't have much need for it, is that it apparently can stream audio out its USB port right from the input, so you can record on an external hard drive. That's important to me (if there's no internal drive) because I want to be able to record many hours at a stretch without having to worry about re-using the memory cards. There was a lot of enthusiasm about the M-Audio Micro Track when it was initially released, but I talked with several folks at the AES show last weekend who said that the bloom is off the rose and it really doesn't sound all that great and it's still buggy even after a few firmware updates. But then not everybody runs into the bugs (depends on what you have to do) and not everyone needs great fidelity. So it might work out OK if you need to get something fairly promptly. Thanks, Mike, that's interesting stuff, both about the Zoom streaming and the MicroTrack's updates not making it the go-to unit. |
#5
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Zoom H-4 recorder?
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