Gadget lust nicely sated...

[mdlbear]

The Zoom H2 I ordered two Saturdays ago arrived this afternoon, too late for me to show it off at our 2pm group meeting, but early enough to mostly destroy my productivity after that. It's pretty nice.

It has its limitations. The recording medium is an SD card (or up to a 4GB SDHD card); since it's DOS formatted the max file size is 2GB. At two channels x 24 bits x 44.1kHz a 2GB card will give me a shade over 2 hours (based on the fact that the display shows 32 minutes for an empty 512GB card). Easily enough for a typical concert set, but I'd have to swap cards if there were two hour-long concerts back-to-back. They're getting cheap. I get the same two hours recording 4 tracks onto a 4GB card.

Of course, if I want lots of recording time I can always switch it over to MP3 mode.

It takes line or microphone in, which of course resetricts it to 2 channels. For what I intend to do with it, it's fine. Making it pretend to be a USB drive isn't completely trivial, but it's close enough (plug it in with the power off, and press a button); fortunately card readers are ubiquitous (except that I can't seem to find mine at the moment...)

So far I've only tried a little hand-held, spoken word recording; it sounds fantastic, to my (distinctly non-golden) ears. It's nicely pocket-sized, and has a camera tripod mount (with a "mic clip adapter" -- basically a conical piece of plastic -- that screws into it). Has a 9vdc adapter, and runs on two AA batteries.

On the whole a fantastic little toy tool. I look forward to playing with using it in the near future. A review will be coming soon -- after I get done with the shipping!

Comments

[eleccham.livejournal.com]

Wonder if there's any chance it could use an alternate FS?

Bizarrely, it doesn't show up on their product page.

[mdlbear]

Not a chance, unless you figured out what OS it was running, reverse-engineered the hardware for the drivers, and re-flashed it. (You can upgrade it from a file on the SD card.)

[mdlbear]

http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916

[patoadam]

As you know, I have been getting poor results with my Zoom H4. Would an H2 be better for field recording? If so, why?

[mdlbear]

Can't seem to find your post or comment about the H4. The H2 is small, self-contained and can record two channels at high quality (with AGC, for even better quality unattended), or four channels at CD quality for audience reaction (though I probably won't use this feature). I'm not planning to use it as a USB mic or as an interface device, so the fact that it sucks at the one and can't do the latter at all isn't a problem. It's also $100 cheaper.

If you really need four channels or long recording time at better than 16 bits, the H2 is the wrong tool (but so is the H4). If you need better microphones, the H2 is useless. It remains to be seen whether the quality is good enough for recording concerts from the front of the audience, but I expect it will be. I'll let you know after Loscon.

[patoadam]

Thanks. Food for thought.

Can't seem to find your post or comment about the H4.

It was an email I sent you on 3/18.

[mdlbear]

Got it.

For the noise problems you were seeing, I think the H2 and H4 are about equal, though the H2's option of a wider stereo separation on the back means that it will perform a little better close to the stage. Putting the recorder on a microphone stand or tripod, close to the stage (first or second row if you want some audience reaction), should give you the best results.

The H2 will do better in circles; the 2-channel surround pattern (actually just two cardioids back to back) is good. You can get the same effect with the H4 using a pair of external mics. You could actually do better if you use a pair of Crown or Radio Shack PZM mics, which have a hemispherical pattern rather than a cardioid and like being placed on the floor.

The ideal set-up for concerts would be three or four mics to allow a variable mix of audience reaction; the ideal set-up for circles would be four (though you could do pretty well with a pair of figure-8 mics; you could do that with the H4 and any multi-pattern mics).

[patoadam]

Thanks!