Topic: Zoom H1

[HarpDoc]

Anyone tried one of these little suckers yet? They're only $100 and run for 10 hours on 1 aa battery. I wonder if the quality would be good enough to suffice for ste...lth?

[fmaderjr]

It probably sounds OK, but you'll always do better using a decent external mic.

Plus I think I read that it has the same problem that plagues the Zoom H4 and H2 (but not the H4n). At a very loud show you may get distortion because turning the record level below 100 to keep the meters from hitting 0 dB won't prevent a distorted recording (because the record level control comes after the ADC, a truly stupid design).

[Ozpeter]

Anyone tried one of these little suckers yet?

The answer to your question is probably "no" as you'll see on the Sweetwater site the following note -

"The new Zoom H1 Handy Recorder is scheduled for release on August 20."

[person]

To answer an earlier question, I used this at a fairly standard rock-pub show alongside a H4. Check the levels beforehand to make sure I had headroom (the live meters are great!) but there was still brickwalling on the H1 but not the H4 (the H1 was a bit closer to stage, which may be the reason - can't be sure now). So yeah, the recording level being after the ADC is a bit... useless here. I'd be glad to be told it was a misconfiguration on my part, though, if anyone else has tried one of these.

[tailschao]

To answer an earlier question, I used this at a fairly standard rock-pub show alongside a H4. Check the levels beforehand to make sure I had headroom (the live meters are great!) but there was still brickwalling on the H1 but not the H4 (the H1 was a bit closer to stage, which may be the reason - can't be sure now). So yeah, the recording level being after the ADC is a bit... useless here. I'd be glad to be told it was a misconfiguration on my part, though, if anyone else has tried one of these.

The recording level isn't after the ADC. A while ago in another thread on this forum there was a link to a thread on a different forum where the H1 was put through some analysis, I'm 99% sure the conclusion was that a recording level of 15-20 ish (I forget the exact number) was 0 gain. Anything below that is digital attenuation, and everything above up to 100 is internal pre-amp gain. Again, I forget the total amount of gain availible... 30-40 dB ish I think.

Considering the recording Level control is the only adjustment of levels (On the H2 you have a separate 3-step gain control, in addition to the post-ADC recording level - I will concede that this is a ridiculous design), then it cannot be post-ADC on the H1 because then there would be zero way to control the pre-amp gain. Which, considering that the input jack is both Line In and Mic In, is impossible.

If your recording was brickwalled it's because the internal mics were overloaded. I'd never use the internal mics of a sub $100 recorder in any situation unless absolutely necessary (never mind a high SPL situation). Even then, I'd assume it was going to turn out junk.

IIRC, the same 'analysis thread' indicated that the pre-amp gain between 20 and 36 was (relatively) noisy, but after 37 there's a sudden drop off in the noise level, and it's pretty clean from then up.

I own a H1 - I would never use the internal mics. In a real pinch, I would be willing to use the internal pre-amp. What I bought it for, however, was for use with an external pre-amp. As a Line In, ADC & Bit Bucket I see nothing wrong with it at all. I can't imagine that a decent external mic & pre will sound significantly worse going Line In on the H1 compared to Line In the more expensive recorders, and for such a low price, I can deal with flimsy build quality.

[kylieshotpants]

Hi

I stealth with a H1, pulled 17 shows so far and and more than pleased with the results- only had one major overload, but the show was way heavy on bass/drums.

I go binaurals, 9v battery box.

You have to be a bit careful opening & closing the doors due to cheapo design, but it's excellent value for money

best part is the big red record button for ease of stealth

[sunjan]

As a Line In, ADC & Bit Bucket I see nothing wrong with it at all.

"bit bucket" assumes you can feed the recorder wtih a digital stream. It's been said before, but a recorder that only offers analog input is not a bit bucket.

[tailschao]

As a Line In, ADC & Bit Bucket I see nothing wrong with it at all.

"bit bucket" assumes you can feed the recorder wtih a digital stream. It's been said before, but a recorder that only offers analog input is not a bit bucket.

I didn't mean those three things separately, I mean - as a Line In port followed by an ADC followed by the circuitry required to save the newly digital data to an SD card slot. By 'Bit Bucket' I meant the internal 'Bit Bucket', as in, the SD card saving circuitry which is directly connected to the ADC circuitry. I didn't mean Bit Bucket as a separate use.

Is there an accepted single-word term for that? A term for using a recorder as just a Line In port and everything which comes after it?