I’m still figuring out all the ins and outs of the Zoom H4 digital audio recorder I got last week, but so far I’m impressed.
I took it out for a spin this weekend, at Vancouver’s Greek Festival. Part of what I captured was a concert by the local band Selinounda, a 43-second sample of which is below.
I recorded it with the H4′s built-in mics, using the basic set-up: turn it on, hit record once to put it on standby, let the automatic gain control set the levels, and then hit record again to get it started. The original was recorded as a 16-bit 44.1 kHz WAV file, which I converted to MP3 in iTunes. There was no post-processing: the file below is as-recorded.
Based on this, and some other ambient sound recording I did at the festival, I like both the ease of use and quality of the results. So far, well worth the money.
An aside: One of the interesting bits about carrying the rather odd-looking thing (made even odder with the addition of the windscreen) through the crush of people at the festival, is that none of those around me seemed to be aware I was recording.
