Topic: zoom h2

[wbrisette]

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

[cpatch]

There's a full review of the H2 up on O'Reilly's site, including samples and links to H2 5:1 surround encoders:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/digitalmedia/2007/09/13/review-zoom-h2-surround-recorder.html?page=1

Craig

[guysonic]

There's a full review of the H2 up on O'Reilly's site, including samples and links to H2 5:1 surround encoders:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/digitalmedia/2007/09/13/review-zoom-h2-surround-recorder.html?page=1

Craig

Kudos Craig for excellent review link with first really good sounding recordings done with H2 internal mics. Makes me think internal mic response graph showing 10 db down at ~70 cycles is not telling enough on what's possible in the lower octaves; maybe it's simple proximity effect boosting the bass on some of the sample musical recordings?

It's starting to look like the H2 is worth the price of admission, which is not much to pay considering. 

Now to get one and see what the external analog inputs can do in a technical type review!  Keep you posted for sure.

O'Reilly review also with a ton of other links on surround recording/techniques/software.   VERY informative and what I've been looking for at least on the subject of converting stereo to surround formats.

[vegas06]

Just a not on the H2 pre amps.
I just field tested the H2 at a wedding reception, micin the DJ's Bose audio stack.

I accidetilly had teh H2's pre amps set to M (Medium), and all was good for the first portion of the reception.  That is until the DJ royally cranked up the board output, which sounded like crap in the recption veue, when he did, but what ya gonna do. Anyway, when I had a chance to check the H2's audio input in my headphones, I noticed that the H2 was distoring extremely heavy. 
The audio was distorting in a high squelching sort of way, and was totally unusable.  I turned the pre amp to L (Low), and all was good.

I had the audio level set to 102, to avoid the limiter issue when the H2 is set below 100.

Anyway, the H2 did perform well, before the extreme sound increase and flawlessly after I changed the pre amp to Low.

So the key is that I must remember to set my pre's on low, or I could be stuck with a useless squelching mess.

[guysonic]

Just a not on the H2 pre amps.
I just field tested the H2 at a wedding reception, micin the DJ's Bose audio stack.

I accidetilly had teh H2's pre amps set to M (Medium), and all was good for the first portion of the reception.  That is until the DJ royally cranked up the board output, which sounded like crap in the recption veue, when he did, but what ya gonna do. Anyway, when I had a chance to check the H2's audio input in my headphones, I noticed that the H2 was distoring extremely heavy. 
The audio was distorting in a high squelching sort of way, and was totally unusable.  I turned the pre amp to L (Low), and all was good.

I had the audio level set to 102, to avoid the limiter issue when the H2 is set below 100.

Anyway, the H2 did perform well, before the extreme sound increase and flawlessly after I changed the pre amp to Low.

So the key is that I must remember to set my pre's on low, or I could be stuck with a useless squelching mess.

What kind of mic did you use? 

Seems the H2 did OK with better choice of setting, but with using the same mics and trying same setting for usually much bass louder Rock/Pop club/concert venue I'm wondering if deck has enough headroom margins to not need mic having bass filter or mic pad for clean recording.

Hope to have H2 by end of week for doing input frequency response plots and signal sensitivity tests for knowing what to expect from this tiny inexpensive recorder that seems to have gotten a lot of good press already.

As alway, plan to keep TS posted on the details.

[illconditioned]

Just a not on the H2 pre amps.
I just field tested the H2 at a wedding reception, micin the DJ's Bose audio stack.

I accidetilly had teh H2's pre amps set to M (Medium), and all was good for the first portion of the reception.  That is until the DJ royally cranked up the board output, which sounded like crap in the recption veue, when he did, but what ya gonna do. Anyway, when I had a chance to check the H2's audio input in my headphones, I noticed that the H2 was distoring extremely heavy. 
The audio was distorting in a high squelching sort of way, and was totally unusable.  I turned the pre amp to L (Low), and all was good.

I had the audio level set to 102, to avoid the limiter issue when the H2 is set below 100.

Anyway, the H2 did perform well, before the extreme sound increase and flawlessly after I changed the pre amp to Low.

So the key is that I must remember to set my pre's on low, or I could be stuck with a useless squelching mess.

What kind of mic did you use? 

Seems the H2 did OK with better choice of setting, but with using the same mics and trying same setting for usually much bass louder Rock/Pop club/concert venue I'm wondering if deck has enough headroom margins to not need mic having bass filter or mic pad for clean recording.

Hope to have H2 by end of week for doing input frequency response plots and signal sensitivity tests for knowing what to expect from this tiny inexpensive recorder that seems to have gotten a lot of good press already.

As alway, plan to keep TS posted on the details.

Thanks!  I appreciate any tech talk you can provide...

  Richard

[vegas06]

Just a not on the H2 pre amps.
I just field tested the H2 at a wedding reception, micin the DJ's Bose audio stack.

I accidetilly had teh H2's pre amps set to M (Medium), and all was good for the first portion of the reception.  That is until the DJ royally cranked up the board output, which sounded like crap in the recption veue, when he did, but what ya gonna do. Anyway, when I had a chance to check the H2's audio input in my headphones, I noticed that the H2 was distoring extremely heavy. 
The audio was distorting in a high squelching sort of way, and was totally unusable.  I turned the pre amp to L (Low), and all was good.

I had the audio level set to 102, to avoid the limiter issue when the H2 is set below 100.

Anyway, the H2 did perform well, before the extreme sound increase and flawlessly after I changed the pre amp to Low.

So the key is that I must remember to set my pre's on low, or I could be stuck with a useless squelching mess.

What kind of mic did you use? 

Seems the H2 did OK with better choice of setting, but with using the same mics and trying same setting for usually much bass louder Rock/Pop club/concert venue I'm wondering if deck has enough headroom margins to not need mic having bass filter or mic pad for clean recording.

Hope to have H2 by end of week for doing input frequency response plots and signal sensitivity tests for knowing what to expect from this tiny inexpensive recorder that seems to have gotten a lot of good press already.

As alway, plan to keep TS posted on the details.

Sorry for the late response.
I was using the built in mics only for this test. 

[requiem]

hello everyone, this is my first post in this forum and i have a dumb question
could someone please clearify if the H2 can be used with external electret microphones just as the H4?

[guysonic]

hello everyone, this is my first post in this forum and i have a dumb question
could someone please clearify if the H2 can be used with external electret microphones just as the H4?

YES, H2 has stereo minijack external MIC input, but who knows yet if there's electret type mic power?

[Ozpeter]

Yes, you can use the same mics as with an MD recorder - 3V power? - it's in the manual.

[tedzepplin]

Here are a couple clips I made of my band recorded with the  Zoom H2. The setting was 24bit 96k. rear mics-120 degrees pointing toward the stage - set about 30 feet from the front of the stage on a mic stand about 6 feet high. The drums were mic'd through the PA. I bumped the file down to 44k 16 bit. and then down to MP3 for posting here.

The recorder was set on the LOW mic gain setting with the record volume set at 115. No internal compression or limiting. No auto-gain.

The first clip is the file RAW - no EQ or any changes.
The second clip is the previous file with some mastering applied with T-Racks - EQ and compression added.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=5789635&q=hi

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=5789642&q=hi

[guysonic]

Here are a couple clips I made of my band recorded with the  Zoom H2. The setting was 24bit 96k. rear mics-120 degrees pointing toward the stage - set about 30 feet from the front of the stage on a mic stand about 6 feet high. The drums were mic'd through the PA. I bumped the file down to 44k 16 bit. and then down to MP3 for posting here.

The recorder was set on the LOW mic gain setting with the record volume set at 115. No internal compression or limiting. No auto-gain.

The first clip is the file RAW - no EQ or any changes.


The second clip is the previous file with some mastering applied with T-Racks - EQ and compression added.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=5789635&q=hi

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=5789642&q=hi

I sometimes record exceptionally complex acoustic sounds like piano/string instruments, full orchestra/chorus with a ton of harmonic related content.

And I can't help but think the choices with downsampling DO affect a recordings qualities in ways quite noticeable.

There's no choice of 88.2K sample rate on the H2 so downsampling to 48K is at least technically wiser if not easily audible.

With 96K, NOT possible for having (whole-integer; sample timing/musical harmonics) flawless processing to 44.1K CD rate.

If not absolutely needing 44.1K for something from a 96K sampled master, suggest downsampling (whole integer/no fractions) to 48K rate instead, making potentially better quality encoding.

Of course, many might argue, by not ever hearing quality difference between whole integer and fractional downsampling.   However, it's hard to dismiss preferring technically-purer integer methods that could be viewed as having nearly exact 'bit-for-bit' type conversion accuracy. 

[tedzepplin]

If not absolutely needing 44.1K for something from a 96K sampled master, suggest downsampling (whole integer/no fractions) to 48K rate instead, making potentially better quality encoding.

Thanks, I learned something new today.

[slayer548]

First off, I would like to state that this is a terrific thread, on a terrific forum.  I've learned quite a bit here just from poking my head in to a few doors.  Thank you all.

I have a side business of shooting concert videos for bands, and I've been looking for a better way to record audio than the in camera mics.  It was a toss up between this and the R-09.  I decided to get a Zoom H2, and so far I've been very impressed with it.

Once I have some footage shot that is cleared for release, I'll post up some samples...in the mean time, I'm going to work on cleaning up the audio.  It does sound a little hollow.  I'm sure a lot of that has to do with placement and whatnot, but can anyone give me some advice on what settings would be helpful for me?  And what can I do to clean up what I have?

Again, thank you for a wonderful forum!

[vegas06]

Here are a couple clips I made of my band recorded with the  Zoom H2. The setting was 24bit 96k. rear mics-120 degrees pointing toward the stage - set about 30 feet from the front of the stage on a mic stand about 6 feet high. The drums were mic'd through the PA. I bumped the file down to 44k 16 bit. and then down to MP3 for posting here.

The recorder was set on the LOW mic gain setting with the record volume set at 115. No internal compression or limiting. No auto-gain.

The first clip is the file RAW - no EQ or any changes.
The second clip is the previous file with some mastering applied with T-Racks - EQ and compression added.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=5789635&q=hi

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=5789642&q=hi

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?