[Neil Gould]

Anyone have some hands-on time with the DR-40 yet, and if so, how does it
stack up against the Zoom H4n?

--
best regards,

Neil

[vdubreeze]

On Mar 14, 7:12*pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Anyone have some hands-on time with the DR-40 yet, and if so, how does it
stack up against the Zoom H4n?


This I don't know, but my friend, a pro video shooter who has his FCP
cubicle 10 feet from my ProTools cubicle here, had his newish H4 go
belly up in the middle of a shoot and wasn't too happy about it.
Doesn't plan to replace it with another.

[Gary Eickmeier]

vdubreeze wrote:
On Mar 14, 7:12 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Anyone have some hands-on time with the DR-40 yet, and if so, how
does it stack up against the Zoom H4n?


This I don't know, but my friend, a pro video shooter who has his FCP
cubicle 10 feet from my ProTools cubicle here, had his newish H4 go
belly up in the middle of a shoot and wasn't too happy about it.
Doesn't plan to replace it with another.

My Zoom H2n has been terrific and I think it can do more functions than the
H4n, believe it or not, for less money. Can do MS, XY, or both in surround
sound. Can take external mike and remain in surround recording, using the
external to sub for the XY feed. Very flexible programming, very small, and
so far flawless.

Gary Eickmeier

[hank alrich]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

vdubreeze wrote:
On Mar 14, 7:12 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Anyone have some hands-on time with the DR-40 yet, and if so, how
does it stack up against the Zoom H4n?


This I don't know, but my friend, a pro video shooter who has his FCP
cubicle 10 feet from my ProTools cubicle here, had his newish H4 go
belly up in the middle of a shoot and wasn't too happy about it.
Doesn't plan to replace it with another.

My Zoom H2n has been terrific and I think it can do more functions than the
H4n, believe it or not, for less money. Can do MS, XY, or both in surround
sound. Can take external mike and remain in surround recording, using the
external to sub for the XY feed. Very flexible programming, very small, and
so far flawless.

They're quite handy little recorders. I've been using one for a few
years as a scratchpad for composition and to snag the odd boardmix from
a gig. Their mics are not always well-matched. I have found variances on
the order of 6 to 8 dB. The one I'm using is very well matched, on the
order of a dB difference all around. That's the thing about inexpensive
mass production - there's a big dose of random in the recipe.

There is very little headroom in the analog input section, so you must
be quite careful when using it with external mics or feeding it with
line inputs.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/walkinaymusic
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Gary Eickmeier]

"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
Gary Eickmeier wrote:


My Zoom H2n has been terrific and I think it can do more functions than
the
H4n, believe it or not, for less money. Can do MS, XY, or both in
surround
sound. Can take external mike and remain in surround recording, using the
external to sub for the XY feed. Very flexible programming, very small,
and
so far flawless.

They're quite handy little recorders. I've been using one for a few
years as a scratchpad for composition and to snag the odd boardmix from
a gig. Their mics are not always well-matched. I have found variances on
the order of 6 to 8 dB. The one I'm using is very well matched, on the
order of a dB difference all around. That's the thing about inexpensive
mass production - there's a big dose of random in the recipe.

There is very little headroom in the analog input section, so you must
be quite careful when using it with external mics or feeding it with
line inputs.

I thought the H2n just came out a month or two ago. You may have the H2 - ?

Mine seems very smart about AGC. For example, it has three levels of AGC,
something like concert, conference, dictation. The concert records
relatively loud sounds at reasonable levels without pumping or going over
zero. The thing also has limiting rather than full AGC, which is nice. And
compression. Just a very flexible little studio in a box. Did I mention that
it mounts on a tripod?

Gary Eickmeier

[Mike Rivers]

On 3/15/2012 7:50 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Mine seems very smart about AGC. For example, it has three levels of AGC,
something like concert, conference, dictation. The concert records
relatively loud sounds at reasonable levels without pumping or going over
zero.

A big difference between the H2 and the H2n is that the H2
had a 3-position input attenuator switch for the mic input
(only - it doesn't work on the external line input). If you
keep the record level setting above 100 on the 0-128 scale
(I leave mine at 100) and use the attenuator to keep the
level meters on scale you'll avoid clipping. But if you have
the attenuator set too low and have to bring the level down
below 100 to keep the meters on scale, you'll get clipping
right at the analog input stage. This was a problem with
many first generation handheld recorders, not just the Zoom.

The record level control on the H2n (and the H4n as well)
reduces the analog input gain so that you can put any
reasonable level into the external mic or line inputs and
not have clipping as long as the meters stay off full scale.

I can't seem to get in touch with the marketing rep for the
Zoom recorders so I haven't had an H2n in here for review
yet, but I hope to shake one loose one of these days and
give it a shot. I'd like to see how the new mic arrangement
works out in practice.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[hank alrich]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
Gary Eickmeier wrote:


My Zoom H2n has been terrific and I think it can do more functions than
the
H4n, believe it or not, for less money. Can do MS, XY, or both in
surround
sound. Can take external mike and remain in surround recording, using the
external to sub for the XY feed. Very flexible programming, very small,
and
so far flawless.

They're quite handy little recorders. I've been using one for a few
years as a scratchpad for composition and to snag the odd boardmix from
a gig. Their mics are not always well-matched. I have found variances on
the order of 6 to 8 dB. The one I'm using is very well matched, on the
order of a dB difference all around. That's the thing about inexpensive
mass production - there's a big dose of random in the recipe.

There is very little headroom in the analog input section, so you must
be quite careful when using it with external mics or feeding it with
line inputs.

I thought the H2n just came out a month or two ago. You may have the H2 - ?

Mine seems very smart about AGC. For example, it has three levels of AGC,
something like concert, conference, dictation. The concert records
relatively loud sounds at reasonable levels without pumping or going over
zero. The thing also has limiting rather than full AGC, which is nice. And
compression. Just a very flexible little studio in a box. Did I mention that
it mounts on a tripod?

Gary Eickmeier

Yes, I have the H-2.

AGC is not something I can use, nor is any of the limiting or
compression of use to me. I want to capture all the dynamics and then
deal with dynamic range in post. My approach is to leave loads of
headroom, so as not to clip the analog stage.

The other thing to realize is that all those "effects" happen in the
digital domain. The signal gets there through the analog sections, and
that's where one must take care to avoid overdriving the inputs.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/walkinaymusic
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:41:01 -0700, vdubreeze wrote
(in article
):

This I don't know, but my friend, a pro video shooter who has his FCP
cubicle 10 feet from my ProTools cubicle here, had his newish H4 go
belly up in the middle of a shoot...
------------------------------snip------------------------------

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

--MFW

[Trevor]

"Marc Wielage" wrote in message
.com...
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:41:01 -0700, vdubreeze wrote
(in article
):

This I don't know, but my friend, a pro video shooter who has his FCP
cubicle 10 feet from my ProTools cubicle here, had his newish H4 go
belly up in the middle of a shoot...
------------------------------snip------------------------------

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

Professional covers a very wide range from wedding video's to Hollywood
blockbusters. I wouldn't expect the latter to use a Zoom, but the former
might want to use it in conjuction with camera audio, and would be adequate
IMO.

Trevor.

[Mxsmanic]

Marc Wielage writes:

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

Because?

[hank alrich]

Mxsmanic wrote:

Marc Wielage writes:

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

Because?

Because in comparison to the tools that are considered professional for
video and film sound capture it's not very capable. You're stuck with
what it hears from the position of the camera, which is often not what
one wishes to hear in relation to the image. You're stuck with the
configuration and pattern of the mics, which gives you nothing like the
flexibility of a good hyercard or shotgun mic on a boom.

You can shoot a wedding with all the ambient sound that will be
included, and if you get paid, you can call it "pro", though I doubt
that anyone actually makes a living that way. There's a rather large
difference between that work and professional audio for film and video.

MIke Rivers' comment about Frank Fillipetti using a Zoom for nature
sounds shows a genuine pro using it for a specific purpose, but I'd
wager Frank isn't using one to capture sound in conjunction with imagery
at a scene shooting.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/walkinaymusic
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

[Richard Webb[_3_]]

On Fri 2012-Mar-16 08:31, hank alrich writes:
No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.
Because?

Because in comparison to the tools that are considered professional
ha for video and film sound capture it's not very capable. You're stuck
with what it hears from the position of the camera, which is often
not what one wishes to hear in relation to the image. You're stuck
with the configuration and pattern of the mics, which gives you
nothing like the flexibility of a good hypercard or shotgun mic on a
boom.

INdeed. Have read of a couple guys using them in the bag on a shoot as a backup, or for transcription. ONe use I saw
floated was feeding timecode to one input, audio to the
other, but don't know how successful that was in actual
practice, but did see some mention of it in
ramps a few months back.

You can shoot a wedding with all the ambient sound that will be
included, and if you get paid, you can call it "pro", though I doubt
that anyone actually makes a living that way. There's a rather large
difference between that work and professional audio for film and
video.

YEah I know, most guys I know doing wedding videos are
photographers just setting up a camera on a tripod and using the audio from the camcorder on the tripod wherever it is.
I tried to talk a photog friend back in the midwest into
upgrading his kit way back, but he says he got paid anyway
g.

MIke Rivers' comment about Frank Fillipetti using a Zoom for nature
sounds shows a genuine pro using it for a specific purpose, but I'd
wager Frank isn't using one to capture sound in conjunction with
imagery at a scene shooting.

Right, no timecode capability, etc. Again it comes down to
use the right tool for the job.


Regards,
Richard
--
| Remove .my.foot for email
| via Waldo's Place USA Fidonet-Internet Gateway Site
| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.

[Mxsmanic]

hank alrich writes:

Because in comparison to the tools that are considered professional for
video and film sound capture it's not very capable.

Considered professional by whom?

How does one distinguish unambiguously and consistently between "professional"
and "non-professional" equipment?

You're stuck with what it hears from the position of the camera, which
is often not what one wishes to hear in relation to the image.

It is not a camera-mounted unit.

You're stuck with the
configuration and pattern of the mics, which gives you nothing like the
flexibility of a good hyercard or shotgun mic on a boom.

Why would a "professional" production unconditionally require that
flexibility?

You can shoot a wedding with all the ambient sound that will be
included, and if you get paid, you can call it "pro", though I doubt
that anyone actually makes a living that way. There's a rather large
difference between that work and professional audio for film and video.

So which is truly professional?

Over the years I've only been able to come up with one fully consistent
definition for "professional": Something is "professional" if it costs the
most you can afford to pay, or more. If it costs less, it's "consumer" or
"amateur" gear. Nothing else about the equipment matters.

[Mike Rivers]

On 3/16/2012 12:35 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

No "pro" should go out without a backup. But you'd be
surprised at how many pros are using the H4n. I ran into
Frank Fillipetti at the Zoom booth at the NAB show last year
or maybe the year before and he's done a lot of nature sound
work with his.

--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Neil Gould]

Mike Rivers wrote:
On 3/16/2012 12:35 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4
for anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

No "pro" should go out without a backup. But you'd be
surprised at how many pros are using the H4n. I ran into
Frank Fillipetti at the Zoom booth at the NAB show last year
or maybe the year before and he's done a lot of nature sound
work with his.

One of the questions that I had about these is the quality of the mic pres
used with their internal mics, since doing nature sound work usually
requires a lot of gain. I like the feature set of the DR-40, but I was
wondering how its preamps compare to the H4n in this regard. Reviews of the
DR-40 are not all that enlightening, and it's curious that in all the
replies, no one here has anything to say about the DR-40!

--
best regards,

Neil

[Mike Rivers]

On 3/16/2012 9:14 AM, Neil Gould wrote:

One of the questions that I had about these is the quality of the mic pres
used with their internal mics, since doing nature sound work usually
requires a lot of gain. I like the feature set of the DR-40, but I was
wondering how its preamps compare to the H4n in this regard.

Why do they always ask about "the preamps?" Or are you
planning on using it with external microphones? In an
integrated device such as this, you can't separate the mics
from the preamps from the converters. The question to ask is
"how does it do for recording nature sounds?" And for the
answer you'll have to ask a nature lover.

Unless you're close to a lion, nature sounds are all quiet
stuff, and what you're going to find is that you simply
can't get the meters very far up scale when recording. The
important thing is how it sounds when amplified to the
playback level that you want, which will almost surely be
greater than the sound level in nature (because that's human
nature ).

I suppose that a good test would be to turn the record gain
all the way up, start recording, smother it with a pillow,
and play back the recording to see what the noise sounds
like, maybe with 40 dB of gain applied.

Reviews of the
DR-40 are not all that enlightening, and it's curious that in all the
replies, no one here has anything to say about the DR-40!

I've been expecting one to fall into my lap but the guy who
has it who wants me to write a review just hasn't gotten
together with me yet to hand it over. Looking it over, it
seems like a logical competitor to the H4n, though they use
the second pair of tracks differently. I don't think you can
do 4-track overdubbing on the DR-40, it just gives you the
option of recording a second pair of tracks 10 dB lower than
the primary pair so you'll have them as backup in case
there's an unexpected overload.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[[email protected]]

On Friday, March 16, 2012 7:31:36 AM UTC-4, Mike Rivers wrote:
On 3/16/2012 12:35 AM, Marc Wielage wrote:

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

No "pro" should go out without a backup. But you'd be
surprised at how many pros are using the H4n. I ran into
Frank Fillipetti at the Zoom booth at the NAB show last year
or maybe the year before and he's done a lot of nature sound
work with his.



The person I mentioned bought it for the convenience and quality and just wanted to use it as part of a whole. Wasn't without second option. It sounded more like a quality control issue than anything specific to the model.

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Marc Wielage" wrote in message
.com...
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:41:01 -0700, vdubreeze wrote
(in article
):

This I don't know, but my friend, a pro video shooter who has his FCP
cubicle 10 feet from my ProTools cubicle here, had his newish H4 go
belly up in the middle of a shoot...
------------------------------snip------------------------------

No "pro video shooter" should be relying on something like a Zoom H4 for
anything but a very casual backup, in my opinion.

--MFW


Boy did I come into the backside of this controversy!

But since I am a pro wedding shooter, I must add to the tonnage. We
frequently use a little Casio digital voice recorder that is the size of a
pack of gum, attached to a Sony lavalier, stuck in the pocket of the groom
to get the vows at a wedding. Nothing like it! First, using some clumsy
wireless mike and transmitter would be bulkier and would give us fwip fwap
or bzzz bzzz every once in a while. Secondly, it would require one of the
video cameras to waste a track on the wireless feed. Third, digital audio
will stay in sync with digital video all day long, so editing is a snap and
we have one more source for the whole ceremony. We use it mainly for the
vows, but if the church sound system sucks, we can usually get the minister
and the bride and groom a lot better from the groom's lapel than from the
camera mikes.

PS, we don't like taking sound from the church sound system either, because
of mismatches and the simple fact that all it picks up is the minister and
the music, and we like to have all ambient sounds as heard by the
congregation. The vows are a special problem because they are usually not
heard by anyone but the bride and groom and maybe the minister, so the "on
board" recorder is the surest solution, and the sound is top notch.

And for those among you who drop their recorders from buildings, I would
vote for the Casio with no moving parts. A case in point, I taped one to the
podium for a graduation one fine morning. Led the mike cord up to the top
and taped it to the podium mike boom. Unbeknownwt to me at the time, the
little step stool that was hinged to the podium for short people, when
folded back into the cavity of the podium, was just wide enough to wipe my
recorder off the surface where I taped it and disconnect it from my mike
cable. Halfway thru the ceremony, sure enough, clump thump POP, and my
wonderful sound became a little more distant - but it did not stop! What
happened was the recorder got popped onto the floor under the inside of the
podium, and kept on recording with its own internal microphone!

The Casios are going for about $79.95, if you want something better than a
Nagra.

Gary Eickmeier

[Scott Dorsey]

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

But since I am a pro wedding shooter, I must add to the tonnage. We
frequently use a little Casio digital voice recorder that is the size of a
pack of gum, attached to a Sony lavalier, stuck in the pocket of the groom
to get the vows at a wedding. Nothing like it! First, using some clumsy
wireless mike and transmitter would be bulkier and would give us fwip fwap
or bzzz bzzz every once in a while. Secondly, it would require one of the
video cameras to waste a track on the wireless feed. Third, digital audio
will stay in sync with digital video all day long, so editing is a snap and
we have one more source for the whole ceremony.

There's a longstanding tradition of such things... I remember when the
Sony Professional Walkman came out, and some ingenious folks managed to
stick a 60 Hz crystal oscillator on one channel. We used to put them in
Eva-Marine bags, gaff-tape them to the side of surfers or to their boards
to get synch sound on the board. It was amazing at the time even though
the audio quality was sort of doubtful and synchronization was a bit of
a pain since you can't readily slate while surfing.

We use it mainly for the
vows, but if the church sound system sucks, we can usually get the minister
and the bride and groom a lot better from the groom's lapel than from the
camera mikes.

Makes sense.

PS, we don't like taking sound from the church sound system either, because
of mismatches and the simple fact that all it picks up is the minister and
the music, and we like to have all ambient sounds as heard by the
congregation. The vows are a special problem because they are usually not
heard by anyone but the bride and groom and maybe the minister, so the "on
board" recorder is the surest solution, and the sound is top notch.

In a bigger production folks will pull splits off the sound system and mix
it all after the fact, but you do what you have to do.

And for those among you who drop their recorders from buildings, I would
vote for the Casio with no moving parts. A case in point, I taped one to the
podium for a graduation one fine morning. Led the mike cord up to the top
and taped it to the podium mike boom. Unbeknownwt to me at the time, the
little step stool that was hinged to the podium for short people, when
folded back into the cavity of the podium, was just wide enough to wipe my
recorder off the surface where I taped it and disconnect it from my mike
cable. Halfway thru the ceremony, sure enough, clump thump POP, and my
wonderful sound became a little more distant - but it did not stop! What
happened was the recorder got popped onto the floor under the inside of the
podium, and kept on recording with its own internal microphone!

Yup, they are designed for that! Audio quality is nothing to write home
about but you can do a lot worse.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."