Topic: Zoom H2 recordings from rock concerts

[slayer548]

I used my Zoom H2 to record the audio in all of these videos.  I record in 24-bit wav on the rear mics, and I try to record from the "sweet spot" of the room.  I'm starting to look into cleaning the audio up a bit more in post, and I'm also looking at a couple of different, non-YouTube sites so that I can host higher quality, better resolution files...but in the mean time, take a listen to these, and let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/atsMultimedia

[danzz1234]

I used my Zoom H2 to record the audio in all of these videos.  I record in 24-bit wav on the rear mics, and I try to record from the "sweet spot" of the room.  I'm starting to look into cleaning the audio up a bit more in post, and I'm also looking at a couple of different, non-YouTube sites so that I can host higher quality, better resolution files...but in the mean time, take a listen to these, and let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/atsMultimedia

www.sendspace.com
www.mediafire.com

Sounds really good! \m/

[elsongs]

Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but here's a recording of a jazz club I made a few weeks ago with my H2:

http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/35773/20071016jazz.mp3

[Nick's Picks]

wow...thats stupidly good sounding!
good job

[Arni99]

Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but here's a recording of a jazz club I made a few weeks ago with my H2:

http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/35773/20071016jazz.mp3

mic-gain?
levels?
post editing?
please tell us which settings you used.
thx  .

[boojum]

This is all very interesting.  The pre-release comment here seemed to be that th H2 was going to be a piece of shit.  I am glad you guys did not get burned.  Let's see how they hold up in the field.


Cheers

[elsongs]

Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but here's a recording of a jazz club I made a few weeks ago with my H2:

http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/35773/20071016jazz.mp3

mic-gain?
levels?
post editing?
please tell us which settings you used.
thx  .

The recordings were recorded as 44.1/16bit .wav using the rear mic setting.
Mic Gain = Mid
Levels = 100 (Default)
Post Editing = Either none, or Waves L2 ultramaximixer was used (16-bit CD master setting), But I forgot whether I added that or not. No EQ, no other plugins, if any.
Encoded to 128kbps mp3 using WinLAME.

The mic had the mini-tripod legs screwed on to the bottom and was sitting on an empty barstool, about 10-12 feet from the stage.
 

[Ozpeter]

This is all very interesting.  The pre-release comment here seemed to be that th H2 was going to be a piece of shit.  I am glad you guys did not get burned.  Let's see how they hold up in the field.

I think the verdict so far is that they are great when used as what they seem mainly intended for, a point-and-shoot one-piece recorder with a very flexible mic system.  Line in type operations are also fine so long as you can externally reduce the input level a bit, due to over-sensitivity of the line input.  The mic input is a disappointment, however - and a mystery, as one would have thought that it would use the same input stages as the internal mics, but from the noise level it seems not to.  I wish Zoom would come clean and let us know why this is, if only to satisfy curiosity.

[elsongs]

This is all very interesting.  The pre-release comment here seemed to be that th H2 was going to be a piece of shit.  I am glad you guys did not get burned.  Let's see how they hold up in the field.

I think the verdict so far is that they are great when used as what they seem mainly intended for, a point-and-shoot one-piece recorder with a very flexible mic system.  Line in type operations are also fine so long as you can externally reduce the input level a bit, due to over-sensitivity of the line input.  The mic input is a disappointment, however - and a mystery, as one would have thought that it would use the same input stages as the internal mics, but from the noise level it seems not to.  I wish Zoom would come clean and let us know why this is, if only to satisfy curiosity.

Is it just me, or does recording as mp3 as opposed to wav results in a file with a *very low* output level? Everything I've recorded as an mp3 needed to be boosted some 4dB-6dB on my audio editor program (Wavelab in my case) to sound decent.

[guysonic]

This is all very interesting.  The pre-release comment here seemed to be that th H2 was going to be a piece of shit.  I am glad you guys did not get burned.  Let's see how they hold up in the field.

I think the verdict so far is that they are great when used as what they seem mainly intended for, a point-and-shoot one-piece recorder with a very flexible mic system.  Line in type operations are also fine so long as you can externally reduce the input level a bit, due to over-sensitivity of the line input.  The mic input is a disappointment, however - and a mystery, as one would have thought that it would use the same input stages as the internal mics, but from the noise level it seems not to.  I wish Zoom would come clean and let us know why this is, if only to satisfy curiosity.

While the internal mics seem low enough noise to be useful even for natural acoustic sounds, connecting up external mics seems plagued with excessive low frequency and high switching spike noise as the input noise plots I ran indicate.  Mic input -3 dB bandwidth is 50-40,000 Hz.  So low frequency is being rolled off maybe too much for some purposes. 



Line input -3 dB response is 10 - 42,000 Hz and is most useful with external preamplifier with attenuation network to reduce signal to <-1.9 dBu H2 maximum allowed.





These plots and more H2 technical info to be posted sometime on my site in an upcoming review of this lowest costing feature-loaded deck.