Topic: zoom h2

[tedzepplin]

Nice clips, thanks for posting them.
One question on your recording setup. 
You mentioned that the H2 was 30 feet away from the stage. 
But, where was the H2 actually placed.  Was it Center, Right, Left of the stage?

Also, how were the drums mic'd?  You mentioned through the PA. 
Did you just setup your H2 in a specific location and relied on the onboard mics to pickup the drums through the PA stack?

The H2 was placed in the center - directly inline with the front of the stage. the PA speakers were about 15 or 20 feet apart from each other hanging from the ceiling above the stage. Subwoofers were on the floor in front of the stage. The kick had a mic - I think it was poking into the hole on the front of the head. the hi-hat had a mic, the snare had a mic, I don't remember if there was an over head drum mic. I'd guess that the floor tom and rack tom had mics too. these went into the PA mix. the bass was a 70s SVT into 6 x 10 cab with a direct box after the bass and before the amp. The guitar amp was a marshall JCM 800 with one of the speakers mic'd into the PA. I don't really know how much of the bass and guitar were in the PA mix or just the amp sound from the stage.

The H2 was set to record with the internal 120 degree mics.

The bar had a lot of metal ceiling tiles and hard walls It's a loud room - even an acoustic duo seemed too loud.

[heyitsmejess]

the 1st recording ive seen circulating using the H2 (by my favorite band, ta boot!)

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=162994

[skiphunt]

I'm curious how you can quantify if a recording of a live band is "decent" or not?

Hey skip! The way you quantify it is to record something that sounds nice, not some PA that sounds bad, then listen to your recording. How does it sound? Would you listen to it again? Would you give it to somebody else to listen to? Many years ago (78?) a guy I knew went to the Ramones concert at the Armadillo World Headquarters and recorded it using one of those old cassette recorders. He said after the show that he thought it sounded pretty good, then the next day he listened to it and realized how bad it was. 

The point being, can you listen to your recording a few days later and still enjoy it? If so, it's decent, or at least decent enough for you. As you know, I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to audio, and I'm not sure the H2 would live up to my standards, but I freely admit I'm spoiled. That said, if it works for you, who cares what I think.

I'm still working on your mic question, thought I would pop in here and see if folks had used an external mic with the H2. Doesn't sound like too many have, at least not self-powered full size mics.

Skip, several times you mentioned recording at 96/24. What happens at 44.1 or 48/24? Does the unit not sound as good? FYI, the only time I record at 96 K on my Deva is when I'm recording acoustic music or orchestras. There isn't a need to use a sample rate that high. The big bang for your buck is 16 > 24, not 44.1 or 48 > 96 or 96 > 192...

Wayne

Wayne, I did sample recordings at each and the 96/24 just seemed like it had more detail to me. The other settings sounded fine, but to my ears... 96/24 had a more refined sound.

Regarding how you qualify good recordings... etc. I meant that more based on when you hear someone's sample recording... and it either sounds great, or it sounds horrible.. as a third party who wasn't there and doesn't know what the conditions were or the quality of the PA.. how can anyone make any honest evaluations from this? Seems like too many variables. I used an example of going to the bar down the street and recording the band who was playing. They sounded horrible, and the PA was horrible. Not worth recording. But, let's say I DID record it and the H2 had done a flawless job and reproducing just had bad it was. Someone who wasn't there might say the H2 sounded horrible.. when the PA was to blame.

Regarding the H2 not being for you.. and you being "spoiled", etc. No, I don't suppose it would. You don't mind carrying alot of extra gear, mics, cables, pluggin into the board, etc. When I first asked you about portable recording devices.. my criteria was something that sounded decent, with care could also sound very good, easy to use, standard battery power, and small enough to fit in a pocket of my camera bag in case I want to capture some ambient sound of a "place" I'm photographing. The H2 meets ALL of this criteria in spades. If I was earning a few bucks going to record live sound for bands, or dialogue... and thats ALL I was doing.. I'd carry more gear like you and have a different "rig" with the best mics and preamps I could find. But, that's not what I'm doing, so the H2 fits perfect.

Thanks for looking into the cable question. I'm just baffled as to why some of my external mic recommendation and cable requirement questions have been soooooo difficult to get a straight answer on. I tried to get the answer in another thread and got many answers that conflicted with each other. Who are you supposed to listen to?

[skiphunt]

I've tried my Sennheiser ME66 (self-powered) with and without a line-matching transformer. I've also tried a RODE NT2 and NT3. Both self-powered but the RODE NT2 shotgun gives me such a low signal when powered that it's completely unusable. I thought maybe there was something wrong and it wasn't getting power. But I tried it on my friend's HVX200 without camera-supplied phantom power and it worked just fine. Must be some incompatibility with the H2. Strange that my ME 66 works fine though.

I've also tried a little Sony ECM-717. It's a little consumer mic powered by a watch battery. http://reviews.cnet.com/microphones/sony-ecm-717/4507-6469_7-20038201.html?tag=nav

It doesn't seem to matter much if the "plug-in" power is turned on or not. With the H2s plugin power turned on and the Sony turned off.. it's not really supplying the mic with anywhere near enough juice to get a decent signal. If the plugin power doesn't help with a little powered consumer mic.. what the heck is it for? And, even with it self-powered I have to have the H2's gain on HI and the level cranked up to about 125.

I also tried a little Sony ECM-DS70P http://reviews.cnet.com/microphones/sony-ecm-ds70p/4505-6469_7-20648800.html
This mic is not self-powered and I get nothing from it unless I turn on the "plug-in" power. Even still, the signal is pretty weak and I have to have "plugin" power turned on.

I've also noticed that with any and all of these mics so far.. when recording and getting an acceptable level.. if ANYTHING jumps up a bit, I frequently get this sound like the mic has hit some "ceiling"? It just abruptly sort of gives you this jarring sound like you've just thumped the end of the mic. You can get a good recording if you're very careful and the source audio is fairly steady. However, the mics on the H2 seem to be MUCH more forgiving. If I get out of range, it just distorts a little. Never this jarring "thumped" sound. Do you know what's going on? Someone said I might be overloading the preamps.. but doesn't the external jack use the same pres as the onboard mics? If so, why would I ONLY have the problem with external mics?

It's appearing that not just any mic will work well as an external mic with the H2. I'm hoping that someone with access to many more mics dials in the perfect external mics to use, because my results have been all over the place.

Thoughts about what's going on? And or, a suggestion on the best all-around external mic to use with the H2? Best shotgun for dialogue to use with the H2? Best external mic for environmental ambient sounds?

[mfoley]

Probably already mentioned here....but the H2 won't do a 2gb seamless split....

[flintstone]

A note on the O'reilly H2 forum leads to photos of the
recorder's interior.  Let the mods begin! See

http://s243.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/aramri/Zoom_H2/

Flintstone

[Ozpeter]

Why did they cross the mics, thus partly covering one mic with another, rather than having them pointing outwards in a kind of tight square?

[guysonic]

Why did they cross the mics, thus partly covering one mic with another, rather than having them pointing outwards in a kind of tight square?

Looks to me a front/back M-S mic array?

[illconditioned]

A note on the O'reilly H2 forum leads to photos of the
recorder's interior.  Let the mods begin! See

http://s243.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/aramri/Zoom_H2/

Flintstone

Do you got a reference to who took these pictures?
I having trouble reading the chip numbers.

  Richard

[flintstone]

The note on the O'Reilly site was posted by "greenmachine."
The Photobucket album is called "aramri."  There are no
links on these sites to send a message to these people. 

If you join the O'Rielly group, you might post a note
to the forum asking for higher resolution photos.

http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/04/zoom_h2_digital_recorder_detai.html

Flintstone

[Ozpeter]

Looks to me a front/back M-S mic array?

It's simply, as advertised, a pair pointing forwards at 90 degrees and a pair pointing backwards at 120 degrees (defining front and back here can be tricky!).  And I suspect that if you wanted you could derive a pseudo-MS pair from that in post production.  But why have the rightward-pointing mic (of each pair) to the left of the leftward pointing mic, thus potentially confusing the stereo image as audio coming from the left will reach the rightward pointing mic first, etc etc?  Though from the recordings I've downloaded from the net, the imaging does seem perfectly good.

[tmon]

Thanks to all who have posted H2 recordings. 

[slayer548]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFsd-l82gFA

Here is footage I shot on Friday night, with audio from the H2.  The Zoom was in the venue's balcony, and I recorded with the rear mic array.  The right stereo channel is a bit muddled, because I had it setup too close to a wall...live and learn, eh?

I'm very very impressed with the sound quality out of this thing.

[Roving Sign]

Probably already mentioned here....but the H2 won't do a 2gb seamless split....

Anyone else confirm this?

[Semayat]

Probably already mentioned here....but the H2 won't do a 2gb seamless split....

Anyone else confirm this?

I would love to get a confirmation too.....
Is that true with a 4gb or more, you can only record 2gb because the h2 won't split the track ? 
Tks for any infos.

Semayat