Topic: Zoom H4essential Preamp for medium sized rock concerts

[PineappleWhiteOwl]

Hello peeps, hope you're all having a great day! I'm new to concert taping (although not new to recording in general) and I was hoping to get some gear advice from those in the know as I do my research and buy my first setup.

I'm considering both the Zoom H4essential and the F3. I understand that the F3 has much nicer pre-amps, and that this will make a noticable difference when recording a source with a large dynamic range and/or a quiet source.

Will the difference in these pre-amps be noticable when recording rock and/or rap indoors in a small or medium sized club venue (<2000 capacity)? I'm not sure these settings will be quiet or dynamic enough to make the difference readily apparent in the resulting recording.

I'm also curious about the ADC differences and whether the upgrade from the H4 to the F3 is definitely worth it.

Thanks!

[voltronic]

Full disclosure: I don't record this kind of stuff, but I can tell you from comparing specs that Zoom reused the old, noisy preamps from the previous H-series recorders and has them feeding a multi-ADC setup borrowed from the F series.

I would recommend the F3 even if you aren't going to notice the much better preamps with loud amplified music, and even if the multi-ADC stage doesn't benefit you with a relatively constant dynamic level. You might find yourself recording other genres in the future, with more revealing mics, and you don't want your deck to be your limiting factor. This is the more future-proof solution.

[PineappleWhiteOwl]

Full disclosure: I don't record this kind of stuff, but I can tell you from comparing specs that Zoom reused the old, noisy preamps from the previous H-series recorders and has them feeding a multi-ADC setup borrowed from the F series.

I would recommend the F3 even if you aren't going to notice the much better preamps with loud amplified music, and even if the multi-ADC stage doesn't benefit you with a relatively constant dynamic level. You might find yourself recording other genres in the future, with more revealing mics, and you don't want your deck to be your limiting factor. This is the more future-proof solution.

Thank you for your reply! I suspected this was answer I would get. I most likely will pick up an F3 for the improved specs. There is definitely a good chance I will record some jazz at some point, so I will want to keep my options open for that.

To be honest the only reason the H4 is still in consideration would be to make recordings while backpacking without needing an additional mic. Though I suppose there are many rugged, low-weight mic options that would work in conjunction with the F3 without adding size/weight to a pack. Regardless, the recordings I typically make with my phone in those situations have always been good enough to please me.

I'm rambling at this point, so thank you once again for your advice!

[Niels]

To be honest the only reason the H4 is still in consideration would be to make recordings while backpacking without needing an additional mic.

Zoom H1's are selling for around USD 25-35 on ebay. The pre-amps are not the greatest for quiet sounds but they are ultra light, compact and will give you better recordings than the mic in your phone.
There is no sound quality difference between H1 and H1n in case you are wondering.

[Rairun]

I used the Zoom H1 for 10 years. At gain level 37 (+ 13 dB) - not more, not less - it has slightly better EIN than better handheld recorders like the Roland R-05. I used it along with a Church Audio preamp to power my mics AND add gain/attenuate the signal depending on how loud the sound source was. It served me very well, but you're right that if you need the recorder to supply more gain than +13 dB, you start noticing the pre-amp self-noise. And if you're dealing with high dynamic range content (i.e. you have to dial the gain down so the loudest parts don't clip, but there are still quiet passages), then none of these 24-bit recorders will give you clean pre-amps for the quiet parts without proper gain staging, even the ones that are more well-regarded than the Zoom H1.

My rule of thumb was that I'd set the gain at -10db for what I imagined the loudest parts would be (and the highest peaks would end up at -5 dB or so). Most of the music would range from -15db to -25db, and everything would sound absolutely fine. If any of the music was quiet enough to hover around -35 dB, that's when the preamp noise would start getting noticeable.

I assume the same is true of the Hx Essential line because the preamps are the same. Good for loud music, not so good if the music gets quiet.

I've been using the F3 with a Uši phantom adapter for a few months. The only downside is battery life, but I've been getting ~6 hours on 2 rechargeable AA batteries by setting the phantom power to 24V (which then gets converted to 8V by the adapter). I'm getting much better performance during the tricky passages I explained above, but I'd say they were only ever present in about 20% of the shows I ever recorded.
 
 

[Rairun]

Also, you didn't say what microphones you are going to be using. If you are planning on plugging them straight into the recorder (or using only a battery box rather than an external pre-amp), the sensitivity of the mics will make all the difference here. I use a pair of CA-11 cards, whose sensitivity is very low, so the gain quality can be important.

Here is a recording I made with the CA-11 cards > battery box > Zoom H1: https://archive.org/details/florist2023-03-18

You will notice that track 11 (full band) sounds totally fine. Track 12 (solo) has a bit too much pre-amp noise for my liking. If you're recording stuff louder than that, you should be fine with the Hx Essential line. The F3 is a very good recorder though, I don't regret upgrading.