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Sound mixer "Swiss knife" - finally?


Dejan Ceko

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I'll probably be buying one if these. My h4n has served me well for my purposes, and it's been exactly what I wanted. If the h5 is any better than that, it will be a great piece of gear for quick fx recordings (when you have nothing else) and backup recording, like board feeds.

If you know all the drawbacks and bad side of a piece of gear you can put it to good where it can do good.

The only Swiss army knife about it is the audio device feature. I've actually used that a lot for recording into DAWs. With a mixer and premium mics, the H4n sounds pretty good to my ears.

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Features at a glance

  • Uses a system of interchangeable input capsules that can be swapped out as easily as the lens of a camera
  • Includes detachable X/Y capsule (XYH-5) with extended signal capacity and shockmounted mics for reduced handling noise
  • Compatible with all Zoom input capsules
  • Four-track simultaneous recording
  • Large backlit LCD display
  • Records directly to SD and SDHC cards up to 32GB
  • Up to 24-bit/96kHz audio in BWF-compliant WAV or a variety of MP3 formats
  • Two mic/line inputs with XLR/TRS combo connectors, each with selectable phantom power and -20dB pad
  • Analog-style gain controls for each input
  • Protective "roll-bar" type covers prevent accidental movement of gain controls
  • Plug-in power (2.5 volts)
  • Built-in effects, including low-cut filtering, compression and limiting
  • Chromatic tuner and metronome
  • Auto-record, Pre-record and Backup-record functions mean that you'll never miss that perfect take
  • MS decoding
  • Multitrack to stereo internal mixdown
  • Normalize, Divide and Trim editing
  • Voice memo and up to 99 marks per recording
  • A/B loop playback
  • Variable playback speed and variable pitch without affecting playback speed
  • Multichannel and stereo USB audio interface for PC/Mac/iPad with loop back function
  • Mountable to DSLR or camcorder with optional HS-01 Hot Shoe Mount adapter
  • Uses two standard AA alkaline or NiMH rechargeable batteries
  • Over 15 hours of operation with alkaline batteries
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From the ZOOM website:

A “shotgun” is a long, cylindrical microphone which excels at picking up sounds in front of it while rejecting sounds to the sides and rear. Shotgun microphones are often used when you cannot position a microphone directly in front of a sound source. For example, if someone is speaking in front of a video camera and you don’t want them to hold an interview microphone up to their mouth, the solution is to use an off-screen shotgun mic.

 

SGH-6 Shotgun Capsule
Shotgun mics have a narrower focus (sometimes referred to as more "reach") than an average microphone. However, shotgun mics are not the audio equivalent of a photographic telephoto lens. Even though they do an above-average job of picking up sounds that originate from a short distance away, they always sound better when they’re physically close to the sound source. That’s why whenever you use the SGH-6 shotgun capsule, you should always strive to get as close as possible to the sound source, which often means hovering right at the edge of the frame of a shot.

 

[ phew.... better than ---- zacuto? heh.... :)

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Gimme a break. It's a $269 handheld recorder. I think it's useful for dictation and radio interviews and not much more. It's a toy, not something you could use for serious dialogue and a serious production.

 

For student use and people learning how to place microphones and stuff like that... sure, it's fine. My fear, though, is that the wackos who go out and buy Canon C300's or Red cameras will assume that this is all they need to replace a pro sound mixer on their production. I could literally see people sticking a Zoom Recorder on the end of a pole and trying to use that as a boom mic. There's much, much ignorance in the world.

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Gimme a break. It's a $269 handheld recorder. I think it's useful for dictation and radio interviews and not much more. It's a toy, not something you could use for serious dialogue and a serious production.

 

For student use and people learning how to place microphones and stuff like that... sure, it's fine. My fear, though, is that the wackos who go out and buy Canon C300's or Red cameras will assume that this is all they need to replace a pro sound mixer on their production. I could literally see people sticking a Zoom Recorder on the end of a pole and trying to use that as a boom mic. There's much, much ignorance in the world.

 

+ 1

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Apparently the h4 and presumably this unit is a great tool for atmosphere recordings. Editors have great things to say about what they get from these units. And mixers give it a thumbs up for "drop and get out of the immediate area to get clean atmos" recordings.

Sounds like a +1 to me...

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This is more than worth the low price tag. I'd use this any day for an easy backup or transcription recorder (with LTC on the extra audio track)

On top of that it makes a wonderful down and dirty FX mic, easy fast way to get scratch VO tracks in post workflow or any number of non-critical tracks.

There are tons of uses in our line of work that need either fast, simple or B-quality audio tracks. This form factor is easy to grab and use in an instant get what you need and be done with it.

In post, I needed a quick traffic ambience, grabbed the H4N and took it down to the street corner and got what I needed. Yeah I could have whipped up a stereo mic, wind kit, recorder, XLRs, Pistol grip, and shoot it, transfer the media, etc, but being able to grab the Zoom, run out the door and be done made it worthwhile. I just needed one little cars-by sound to tail out the end of an urban homeless outreach video, and the Zoom handled it perfectly. And it sounded GOOD. Sorry nay sayers, it won't replace our professional tools, but it doesn't sound like garbage if you're not having *unrealistic expectations*. It sounds pretty good and a lot of times pretty good is just fine.

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RS: " grabbed the H4N and took it down to the street corner and got what I needed. Yeah I could have whipped up a stereo mic, wind kit, recorder, XLRs, Pistol grip, and shoot it, transfer the media, etc, "

... and of course your rates and charges reflect this.

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blas: " I can see using this for atmos recording, though… "  Mike, and Field seem to agree...

but why ?

 

with noisy pre's, cheap mic's and cheap a-d's... really..?

I'd prefer quiet proper PROFESSIONAL TOOLS for recording quiet stuff..

 

Mike,

In my experience, for atmos used in the background, the noise floor is not an issue.

Practically by definition, "noise" is what one's trying to record… People shuffling, walla in a market, cars passing by on a street, birds chirping, etc. If what you need is any quieter than that, methinks atmos is not what one would record, but what do I know…

BK

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