Zoom H4n Recorder

[Les Corley]

I'm thinking about getting an H4n digital recorder & I have a couple questions. Is it worth the price & if so can you record sound on sound. Thanks for any input

[Denman John]

Bought one a couple of months ago and have been very satisfied with it so far. I've recorded jams with it and open mic performances. Great sound for live applications with the built in mics and you can connect another mic, which I haven't played with yet. When I first got it I recorded a couple of tunes in a quiet setting and was very please with the "raw" recording. Haven't really played with it in Garageband or other audio programs, but will be playing more with it in the future.

So yeah, I think it's worth the price. There's a lot to learn about recording and this recorder is a great foot in the door.

[LongBlackVeil]

Bought one a couple of months ago and have been very satisfied with it so far. I've recorded jams with it and open mic performances. Great sound for live applications with the built in mics and you can connect another mic, which I haven't played with yet. When I first got it I recorded a couple of tunes in a quiet setting and was very please with the "raw" recording. Haven't really played with it in Garageband or other audio programs, but will be playing more with it in the future.

So yeah, I think it's worth the price. There's a lot to learn about recording and this recorder is a great foot in the door.

Good to hear, I have one on the way. I just plan to record guitar tracks and then practice my mandolin over it while listening really

OP: ill let you know how I like it when mine comes in sometime next week

[Iron]

I have an old H2 which still has more whistles and bells than I need, really nice recorders, only thing I didn't like was the text window very small I suppose they fixed that on the newer models, other than that no complaints.

[banjoboy]

This recorder is pretty cool. I bought one for my son for Christmas. He has recorded several songs that he wrote, playing guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, piano, and harmonica. I should work very well for what you want to do.

[Les Corley]

What I really want to know is, can I record mandolin & then go back & record on the same trac or recording with guitar & then maybe ukelele is this possible ? Thanks

[JeffJones]

I have one and I think it is great, definitely worth the money for me.

I have used it to record one one channel and then record another track alongside the original. Which I think is what you are asking about.

I think you may even be able to bounce existing channels to a mixdown and then layer more channels. Why you would want to do that in the device and not just record through the device into Garageband, or similar, I don't know. But I think you can do it.

I have used it to record practices, to record shows, as a headphone amp for IEM's (don't ask), and even record 4 channel's of audio to go along with videos that I mixed down and synced later on in Final Cut.

Heck, just today I was using it to test my new clip on condenser and pickup combo setup on my mandolin. I was able to play a little bit and record the pickup and mic separately and then play each back to hear what the sound quality of each was. I was also able to play around a bit with the what different blends of the two would sound like, without the sound of the live mandolin coloring my perception of what the mic and/or pickup sounded like.

[SincereCorgi]

Love mine (an older model). I record all my students' lessons with it and send them mp3s. They're very easy to use. My bandmate has the latest one and it's nicer in that it seems to come with a much better case and cables. We use it to record all our shows from the board and so far it does everything we want it to.

[Les Corley]

Thanks to all the replys that's a big help/ I'm going to own one tomorrow. Thanks Les

[Spruce]

The strong feature of that machine is it's ability to record live shows...

Take a feed off the board on two tracks (get creative), and put the recorder in the "sweet spot" and use the two onboard mics to record to the other two channels as a FOH mic...
Mix to taste later...

Takes about 5 minutes to set up, and I swear you can make recordings that are releasable--with a bit of practice...

[almeriastrings]

What I really want to know is, can I record mandolin & then go back & record on the same trac or recording with guitar & then maybe ukelele is this possible ? Thanks

It has a severely limited multi-track recorder (MTR) mode. You can do it, but it does not begin to compare with the ease of use or convenience of a device designed specifically for this purpose. It is limited to 16-bit-rate 44.1kHz recording, for one thing - which while not much of a compromise in strict audio terms, can be a real issue if you later want to mix it down with other (24-bit or alternate sample rate) recordings on a PC/Mac based DAW. It is just generally 'clunky' as a machine for over-dubbing.

Much, much better for that is the little Zoom R8. You can also do regular stereo recording on these too. Excellent little recorders... still highly portable but very versatile and capable of great-sounding results. I have the R16 myself which we use for simultaneous 8-track recordings live in situations where running a Macbook + interface + all the rest is not viable. These are super-stable, reliable, fast to set up and weigh hardly anything. Mic pres are a bit noisy at very high gain settings, but this is not an issue with condenser mics - they would struggle with unaided ribbons, however.

[Folkmusician.com]

The H4n is a great recorder if you need a capable low cost, or compact solution. The onboard mice and preamps are ok.

Takes about 5 minutes to set up, and I swear you can make recordings that are releasable--with a bit of practice...

This is exactly my experience. I have used it for quick recording sessions that did get released by local bands. It doesn't sound as good as a couple of average quality mics through a pro-sumer pre-amp, but it is good enough with a little mixing.

The H4n does do 24bit/96kHz in stereo mode or 24bit/44kHz in 4 track mode.

It is just generally 'clunky' as a machine for over-dubbing.

I could not agree more! This is one of the first things I tried when I bought it. It just didn't lend itself well to the task. I suppose it is fine if you are recording guitar, then playing over it, but there are much better ways to go about this sort of thing. The H4n is perfect as a field recorder (especially where you need 4 simultaneous tracks). You can run the mics and two separate inputs at the same time. Pretty cool for such a small, inexpensive device.

One nice thing about the H4n (and most others like it), is that it can be used as an audio interface for your computer. The H4n and a laptop give you all sorts of options.

[foldedpath]

One nice thing about the H4n (and most others like it), is that it can be used as an audio interface for your computer. The H4n and a laptop give you all sorts of options.

One important limitation, is that the Zoom H4n will only record in 16 bits when used as an audio interface with a computer. All the compact Zoom recorders like my H2 work this way, because they operate as a simple USB audio class device instead of supplying their own drivers, like a dedicated interface. It's also limited to 44.1k or 48k when used as an interface.

Recording in 16 bits isn't terrible; it's what we used to do before 24 bit converters became common. But you do have to be more careful setting your levels in the sweet spot between clipping and the noise floor. Recording in 24 bits has so much headroom that you can leave a large safety margin below the clipping point.

Bottom line: it's a nice field recorder and can do basic overdubs in standalone mode, but I wouldn't recommend using it as an audio interface if you record often in that mode. A "real" audio interface will support ASIO mode recording for low latency, higher bit depths/sampling rates and will be much easier to use. The audio interface feature in these little compact recorders is more of a bullet list marketing feature than anything else.

[Barry Canada]

Could the H4N be connected as an interface to an ipad2 and subsequently recorded into GarageBand? And if so how is this done and is this recommended?

[JeffJones]

Some people are able to use this:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC...connection-kit

to add a USB input to their iPad/iPhone. Then you plug you H4N into the usb plug and cross you fingers that it shows up as an audio input device. I have not done it so I can really say where in the iOS interface you would go to select the H4N as an audio interface.

I do not believe that is a use of the Camera Connection Kit that Apple supports, unless things have changed. So you probably will not get support from Apple if it does not work, but a lot of people use it that way. (Someone please correct me if that is incorrect)

That said, the benefit of the H4N operating as a simple USB audio class devic,e as Foldedpath mentioned, is that this functionality is baked into iOS as part of the USB spec. So plugging your H4N into your iPad should work just fine, it is just not what apple intended with the camera connection kit.

[SincereCorgi]

...then you plug you H4N into the usb plug and cross you fingers that it shows up as an audio input device. I have not done it so I can really say where in the iOS interface you would go to select the H4N as an audio interface...

Has anybody tried this? The iPad mic is reasonably okay for what it is but I'd love to do something like this.

[JeffJones]

I should probably qualify my post a bit more, emphasizing the "cross your fingers" part a little bit more.

I have not done this with an iOS device. I did use an iPhone for a long time and was very interested in trying this out. I spent a good amount of time looking around online to determine if this was possible and if so how to make this work, but I never bought the camera connection kit to give it a try. I never had a need for the Kit outside of this use, and it never made it to the top of my things to spend money on. I read enough accounts online of this working to make me believe that it could work (I know, I know, trusting what I read online...) But, and this is a big but, whether or not this worked seemed dependent on the version of iOS the person was running.

I moved over to Android phones and had not really though about this again until Barry's post. But, my parents have an iPad and I think a camera connection kit. So I will try to give this a try next time I am over there with my H4N.

[GreenMTBoy]

Does anyone here know How does the Tascam dr-40 compare with the ZoomH4n ???
They are both about $200.

[foldedpath]

Has anybody tried this? The iPad mic is reasonably okay for what it is but I'd love to do something like this.

There have been a slew of recording interfaces released in the last couple of years for the iPad, most of which are going to be a better choice than using a Zoom recorder because they're supported hardware/apps. Take a look here:

http://www.sweetwater.com/c1058--iPa...Interfaces/all

I know the iPad can work this way, because I use the camera connection kit on my iPad2 to control my RME UFX recording interface, using RME's TotalMix software app.

I'm not recording *to* the iPad, I'm just using it as a large screen display to control the UFX's own standalone USB recording mode, when I'm doing basic audio capture and don't need to hook it up to a laptop for multi-tracking. However, if I wanted to run Garageband or something on the iPad as a recording app, I could use the RME UFX this way as an audio interface.

If someone already owns an iPad and a Zoom recorder, it might be worth a shot trying it. But with so many other good interfaces out there that are supported for the iPad, and running at more than 16 bits, I don't think it's an optimum solution.

[JeffJones]

I have not used the Tascam but it looks like a newer Tascam version of the H4N. I just looked through the Tascam page for it and it looks like generally it does all the SMS stuff.

There were a few extra software features that it looked like it has that I doubt I would ever use. The one difference that looked interesting was the onboard mic adjustment. The H4N mics are always in an XY configuration, meaning they are right next to each other to reduce phase interference. The Tascam mics can be switched to an AB setup where they are a few inches apart. This should give you a more pronounced stereo effect, which might be a problem for music applications but would be nice when using it in other applications, like on a video shoot.