Zoom H4

lucylespian

Anyone have one of these groovers ?? I am thinkning about picking one up. I have been obsessing about the idea of recording stuff for a while, btu my guitar teacher put a flea in my ear on teh weekend, saying it really steps up your playing to do that, so now I'm even keener.
The price is oK.
Any other comments ??

armanHammer

I'm prolly gonna get it cuz I need to record my band in a live setting. Despite it's downfalls (only 4 tracks, cheap plastic, difficult to use interface), it's a great unit for the price. I hear the audio quality is outstanding, so no matter what it's a step up from a cassette recorder..

MLC2006

is that something like a loop station like a Boss RC20XL? because that's what I'm looking for......something to record a backing track so I can do solos and fills over. where are you looking at that Zoom H4 thing? do they sell it on MF.com?

armanHammer

MLC2006 wrote:

is that something like a loop station like a Boss RC20XL? because that's what I'm looking for......something to record a backing track so I can do solos and fills over. where are you looking at that Zoom H4 thing? do they sell it on MF.com?

I don't think it does looping. It's on zzsounds.com, as well as music123.com. There are some great deals on eBay, with free upgraded memory cards, etc.

keeponrockin

MLC2006 wrote:

is that something like a loop station like a Boss RC20XL? because that's what I'm looking for......something to record a backing track so I can do solos and fills over. where are you looking at that Zoom H4 thing? do they sell it on MF.com?

From the sounds of it it's more of a recording device.

lucylespian

Sorry, should have put up a link, here is one.

http://www.guitar.com.au/effects/zoom/h4.htm

It is a small hand-held 4 track recorder, which is also a DAW enabling recordin to Cubase LE that comes wiht it. It has two in-builst condenser mics adn stores on an SD card.
I plan to use it to record rhythm track and solo over, as well as record my lessons ands generally use it to critique and improve my playing. might even do some sound clips of my gear if I am happy enough to post here.

Novawind

Looks like it's on par with this:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Boss-?sku=241152

lucylespian

Novawind wrote:

Looks like it's on par with this:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Boss-?sku=241152

Yeah I was looking pretty carefully at that. The biggest difference is the quality of the on-board mikes with the Zoom. I was drawn to the Boss initially, but after talking to the guys in the shop, I ended up getting teh Zoom at lunchtime. There must have been a reason I decided on that, can't remember exactly what just now. The Zoom also works as a DAW, and has teh computer sod=ftware to allow for more tracks and editing, which I liked the idea of, should make it easy to record stuff and store it in my computer, maybe that was it.
I will have to RTFM tonight to learn how to use it.

armanHammer

Let us know how it is man.. and I'll be first to ask for clips!

lucylespian

OK, had a play with it last night. Very easy to use for a basic recording, with very good sound.

It has two basic modes, a stereo m mode using the onboard mics, which just captures all teh ambient sound, and a multi-track/overdub kind of thing.
i just used the stereo grab. When I started I was still working out the controls and produced some woeful playing. It is a real shock to the system to hear yourself played back.
Once I had the basic idea of how to grab a track, I got serious and did a bunch of takes of the rhythm part to Alive. That gave me the answer to the question, how does Stone get his sustain, which is, it's all in the fingers.
It is interesting to hear how sparse just a single track can sound too, with no bass/drums/vox, esp on teh clean paarts.
All my guitars need new strings, so the sound was not the best, and the grunt from my amps makes a lot of things vibrate in my room, which all came through. I tried a few differnt mic positions and amp settings, and started to get happier with teh sound I was getting. I can see a dedicated guitar mic coming my way though.
Every single mistake is there to hear, in all it's naked glory as well, so I can see this really lifting my game.
Once I am happy that I am getting the sound of my amps realistcally, I will post some clips. Someone is going to have to point me in the direction of a hosting site,.........."soundbucket" maybe ?????
The only hassle now is that Cubase LE is crashing half way through installation. Jeez I hate computers.

acutejam

Right, ZOOM has the edge over the Boss unit cause of the mic quality.

I actually got the new unit, the Zoom Handy Recorder H2 -- 2 channel only.
It has filters and compressors and limiters built in.
A tuner. A metronome.

And yeah, you can totally record a rhythm track and then LISTEN to it while practicing solo's or accompanying tracks to that -- but it's not a multi-tracker like the H4.

And yeah, it plugs USB into computer and you CAN use it as a pass through -- line in or mic passing to computer-workstation and headphone signal coming back through the unit.

AND it does surround sound recordings -- 4 channel in that regard -- dumps 2 or 4 aiff files to composite into a true surround sound file. So it's got 4 mics built in and it does a great drop of sitting in the middle of a jam session and picking everything around it up!