ZOOM H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder (Red)

Many years ago I miked a jazz band with a big name 1/4" reel-to-reel and two then state of the art condenser mikes half as long as Harry Potter's wand in return for free beer. I wish I had had this instead. Technically it is as good as without the tape hiss, weighs less than one mike and carries in my pocket not my car trunk.Factually my interest started with simply being able to record normal conversations. I tried a couple memo type recorders. They only recorded at an adequate level if held close to the mouth. The cost of those two failures was over $100 and Amazon sold this one for $91. (see $3000 below)Needless to say it works perfectly for group conversations with auto level turned on. And the stereo nature of the recording makes it much easier to understand who is saying what when everyone talks at once. This alone makes it superior to mono memo recorders. And if an officer should break into song during a traffic stop I am ready for him. (Think Buffy, Once More With Feeling.)I haven't had the chance to test it on live music as yet but the Ode To Joy in Beethoven's 9th was a faithful reproduction of what came out over the sound system.This goes back to everyone speaking at once. The better the frequency response the easier it is to tell who is saying what. I haven't had a knock-down, drag-out yet but I have no complaints either. (We are passionate not enemies.)So this unit does everything I wanted in an audio recorder. It will do what an amateur music recorder like myself did 30 years ago with equipment that would cost at least $3000 of today's dollars.All that said making it do what I want is easy. Even the switches on the back are easy to memorize and change without looking not that you will want to change them much. The hold position that locks selections is a brilliant addition. Get it right once and don't worry about it afterwards. This is incredibly useful if your recording session includes the consumption of alcohol or other intoxicants.If you are not familiar with what frequency and bit depth mean to resulting quality then simply record in the mode that has the shortest recording time on the display. That is the best quality it can do. Reduce it later if you want with most any commonly available free software.No matter what your SD card size a single recording can be no more than 2GB. That is the size of the card that comes with the recorder. That is 58 minutes at highest WAV quality (lossless -- see below) which is enough for any of Beethoven's symphonies. It is longer than any set a band is going to play. An 8GB card is good enough for anything short of an all night rave. It will take up to at 32GB card for 16 hours at best quality.BTW: Auto volume should NEVER be used for music but if you want a triangle to be as loud as a bass drum, knock yourself out. It destroys the dynamic range. The noise floor appears to be down there in the 24th bit which means you do not worry about it.Also do not worry if your peak recording level is not at the peak of the meter.It does not translate directly but from the tape days your peak should be about -6dB from the peak. This was not only because of non-linearities all through the analog system but also because the real peaks are always higher than you think and this prevents clipping. You hate clipping which is when the red recording light flashes. The latter reason applies to digital recordings.The microphones have a dynamic range limit also. This can only be adjusted by moving them further from the sound source. Doing this correctly is a matter of experience. It cannot be fixed by reducing the recording level. In other words, if you have done everything right and there are still problems, move the unit further from the source. If that fails contact the manufacturer.=== below*The crossed x/y pattern is important in digital recordings. These days the components are accurate enough that the phase shift issue mentioned in the produce description is significant. It changes the amplitude of frequencies by phase interference. It is minor but for the surprising quality of this unit it is worth correcting. Besides, its width profile does not increase for having to rotate the mikes outwards. It is such a trivial solution it is unclear why all stereo mikes and recorders do not use crossed paths.*Because the rear-looking w pattern is only useful when the recorder is in the middle of the musicians (unless you want to record the audience reaction) it is not clear why us amateurs would need the more expensive models. If you are a member of the band fine. If you are audience you can't put your recorder there.*The audio manipulation tools in the top of the line model may be great for instant gratification but for my money and effort they are best done in a computer with a terabyte to hold mistakes.*Compared to analog, digital is always lossy. Lossless means the quantization level is below what can be detected by the ear or eye. With the present standard level of quantization the few failures are rare and take experts to notice and amateurs have to know what to look for. However the noise floor and dynamic range of digital methods is so much more robust than any analog recording system there is no prefer analog over digital.

This is the audio solution I'd been searching for for my YouTube videos. It's really an all-in-one device - a pocket or belt clip-sized recorder (for a separate wired lapel mic), a standalone microphone and a USB desktop microphone. I'd tried a couple of wireless mic systems to allow me to move around in my videos without being tethered to the camera, but I just wasn't happy with the sound quality from any of them in the consumer price range. The Zoom H1, though, sounds great and achieves the same purpose while also filling those aforementioned extra roles that I never really expected it to.The included microphones (it has two for stereo) sound great - very high fidelity with low noise. Noise has been one problem I've had with every other microphone system I've tried, wired or wireless - either there's a lot of noise and/or hiss, or the sound is muffled on the high end as that's how the inherent noise is being controlled. But that's not true of the H1. If anything, despite the relative lack of noise it's a little too bright, but I'm pretty confident that a basic windscreen could tame that.Workflow using a separate off-camera audio recorder is a little different than recording through the camera, but with Davinci Resolve (even the free version) it's a snap to sync it up, so don't worry about it if that's what's holding you back. There's basically one extra step, which is to import the audio files in addition to the video files, but you can tell Resolve to just sync everything up by waveform (assuming you also recorded audio on camera) and it'll compare the files and automatically link and sync your audio files to their video files. I assume other apps have similar functions, although with some you may need to do it manually, which would make a slate helpful.With this recorder, while shooting myself I will typically have the H1 on my belt with a Sony ECMCS3 lapel mic connected and attached to my shirt. This allows me to move anywhere while filming (my camera also allows smartphone control), and I just need to remember to press record on both devices - honestly, this has been easy to get used to doing. The H1's record button is so big that you can just press it by feel, without looking at the recorder, which is, well, handy.If there's any minor criticism I might have, it's overall build quality, construction and design other than the big record button. The unit is plastic, and it's that nasty slippery smooth plastic that forever feels yucky and sweaty after the first few days of use without constant cleaning. Also, the buttons other than the record button are tiny and recessed, all the better so you don't accidentally press them, but initial setup can be a bit of a challenge as a result, as is changing settings whenever you need to.I've also noticed that there seems to be slightly more noise when I switch to 24k sample rates rather than 16k. For me, I don't need 24k since I'm just recording my speaking voice, but for someone recording music, it might be a concern. It's still a very tiny amount of noise, but I tested in silence and I could hear it through headphones with the volume turned up a fair amount. It was true with either the built-in mic or external mic activated, so I'm pretty sure it is the recorder. For what it's worth, I had auto level control turned off, and had the record level at around 75.Still, at around $100 (or much less for the white one as I write this), I consider this recorder a bargain. I'm recording literally all of my audio with it at this point, and it sounds great for both "live" stuff and in-studio voice-overs.I do recommend a few accessories to make this recorder truly useful and versatile. The first is a belt clip. Second is a desktop tripod. Third is an external lapel mic. And fourth is probably a windscreen to tame the high end (though I don't have one that fits yet myself). With a windscreen you don't really need a pop filter either, though I'm using one now myself. It's also handy to have a mini-USB cable to use the recorder as a USB mic, but you probably already have like 15 of those. With those things, you can do anything with this recorder, and you're going to get great, near-pro quality sound for not much money.