Zoom H4n Pro Handy Recorder

There are three types of users that absolutely need to consider the Zoom H4n:1) The guitar or bass player who wants to capture an idea for a song, along with a vocal track - For this user, the H4n provides a built-in tuner, a built-in metronome, and a simple recording interface that can have you up and running in no time. I'm not this user, but several of my friends are, and when they sat down and looked at it, they wanted to buy mine from me.2) The person people go to for "Can you record my band at ______ on Tuesday night?" - For someone who wants to capture location audio, especially a mix of ambient sound and a feed from a system, the H4n is very close to ideal.For this type of session, I use the built-in stereo mics to capture un-mic'd sounds from the stage (drums, tambourine, misc noises from the props from on stage) as well as the sound of the auditorium. I place the H4n on a tripod at the foot of the stage, aimed roughly at stage center.For sound that comes through the house system, I bring in a pre-mixed feed from the sound board, and feed it into Input #1 at the base of the H4n, and record everything as 4-channel audio. Afterward, I mix Input #1 into both channels, bring the level of the stereo built-in mics down just a tad, export an MP3, and have a perfectly listenable mix that required almost no setup time on my part, and is mixed and exported in less than 10 minutes. Can it get any easier?3) Someone recording audio for video/film - The new crop of video-recording DSLRs (the Nikon D90, the Canon 5D MkII and 7D, and the Panasonic GH1) all record audio, but you'll be better off recording audio separately, for a variety of reasons. (The fact of the matter is that most indie video should go this route, regardless of the camera being used, but that's a whole 'nother issue.) The H4n provides phantom power, has combo inputs (1/4" or XLR), and can even do some rudimentary signal processing, if you're so inclined. (I don't do this, and defer such things to post, but I can understand why some might work differently.) The H4n can record in BWF WAV format, which means if you carefully sync up the clock in the camera with the H4n, and then drop the resulting audio & video into your editor and have them properly sync'd.There are several DSLR configurations that work well with the H4n, but a great setup is mounting the H4n to the camera's hot shoe (get one of the many shock mounts that will handle the H4n), using the built-in mics to get ambient sound (which will be in stereo, if you want it, and will always have the correct left/right perspective to the camera) and then feed audio from a boom mic or a lav (or both) into Inputs #1/2. You have an 1/8" stereo output that you can then feed into the mic input on these cameras (usually a mono input, so get a stereo/mono adapter), and then your camera audio, while not great, will be something you can use to sync against (Pluraleyes is a great option there).Another setup for video is to put the H4n on a tripod that is roughly in the center of the "180 degree rule" space, capturing ambient sound that way, and again feeding Input #1/2 from a boom mic and maybe a lav. You'll probably not want to use the ambient sound, or may not want to use much of it, but it will give your editor a feel for how he/she may want to pan dialog if it's a stereo recording. (Knowing how far left or right someone's voice naturally sounded in the room, relative to a given point, can help you mix things in a way that will sound more natural. Technically, phase issues come into play as well, but you can fake things pretty effectively this way.)*****I currently have a 16GB SD card in the H4n, which gives me about 6 hours of 4-channel recording at 44.1Khz/16-bit. For video, you'll want to go to 48Khz, and you can go to 24-bit for a bit more dynamic range, but I'm skeptical about the ability of this unit to really give you more than 16-bits worth of range from the built-in mics. (You *might* be able to get that from some external mics with really low self-noise, but I haven't seen any test data to support such a configuration.) Because of the ridiculous amount of recording you can do, I generally start the H4n at the first take of a scene, and then capture all the takes in one clip. When we're done with all the takes for that scene, I stop the H4n, set up for the next scene, and then roll it as we begin the first take there.I suppose I could find some things to complain about, but at this price, it seems kind of silly. The remote control is a probably good idea if you plan on mounting the H4n on a camera or on an elevated boom, but I've not missed it.EDIT/UPDATE: DEAD BATTERIES WILL MEAN CORRUPTED FILESOne of the more recent ways I've used this is to grab sound at weddings from string instruments or other players that might not be mic'd. I did this recently, and was unable to find an AC outlet, so I had to run on batteries. Unfortunately, the batteries will only go about 45 minutes when they're phantom powering a Rode NTG-3 (the mic I have trained directly on the instruments), so it croaked during the service.Here's the bad part:When the H4n dies while recording, it will corrupt the files on the SD card. Some users online have reportedly been able to recover the files, but I was unable to do so (IT consulting and data recover is part of my business). If the batteries die when you're recording, expect that the files will be toast.

I generally don't like to rate anything five stars because I feel like there's always some room for improvement and a product is never really perfect. While I wouldn't call the Zoom H4n perfect, I think it set out to be something and achieved it fantastically. It exceeded my expectations, especially for the price, and I use it any chance I can get.I'll start with something trivial...but not really. It records to SD/SDHC media. If you have something like the M-Audio MicroTrack II, you're stuck with Compact Flash. For an audio recorder there's really no need for larger and/or faster cards. SD/SDHC is larger and fast enough and it's tiny. Most laptops and desktops these days have SD/SDHC slots in them and I love any chance I get to leave the USB cable at home.But on to more important things...One of the wonderful upgrades in the H4n is that there is a mic level switch on the right side of the device. Previously this was achieved through a menu. But the new preamps in the H4n are really what make it a better device than its predecessors. The recording quality you get from the built-in mics alone is impressive, but when you hook up a nice microphone to the H4n it sounds just too good for a portable recorder. You can plug in XLR or 1/4" inputs as well. There is a lot I could talk about in regards to the versatility of this device but I'll only mention one other thing in the interest of keeping this relatively short. One feature I find really compelling, being that I travel a lot and it saves some room in my suitcase, is that you can use the H4n as an audio interface with your computer rather than just a stand-alone portable recorder. Most of the music I make utilizes sampled or synthesized instruments, and so I'm generally only recording vocals (with the exception of acoustic guitars). This makes it very easy to grab vocals just about anywhere with Cubase and my laptop. Zoom includes a free copy of Cubase LE but it works just fine with regular versions of Cubase.Battery life is decent. It's certainly as good or better than anything else, but it's still less than I'd hope for. I does use AAs so you can just replace the batteries as needed, or use rechargeable batteries. I use those rechargeable batteries with the USB port as much as I can and those work quite well. Standard AAs tend to last for about a ten hour work day of use (that's been my experience, anyway). The battery life is definitely sufficient, but it's not impressive.The zoom comes with a number of recording settings, allowing you to select various levels of quality in your WAV and MP3 files. If you're willing to bring your sampling rate to 44.1 Khz and your bit rate to 16, you'll be able to turn on a power efficiency mode that'll increase the battery life significantly. So, if you need to get that extra power out of your batteries, the H4n offers an option. While it won't always work for everyone, I think it's a nice addition.A downside of the device, for some, may be the size. I definitely like the pocket-size of the M-Audio MicroTrack/MicroTrack II, but zoom definitely achieves a much higher level of quality (the important thing) and so I think the increased size is worth it. It's ultimately necessary for the XLR inputs anyhow. Still, this is not something you're going to put in your pocket. A cargo pocket, maybe, but not a regular pocket. I don't really care, but it is a fairly large device for a portable so that may be worth noting for some.The H4n comes with a bunch of accessories. You get a screw in stick for holding or, I assume, placing in a microphone stand (it looks like the base of a microphone). You get a case, a 1GB SD card (which is often sufficient), a power adapter, a wind screen for the stereo mics, a USB cable and probably some other things I'm forgetting. My point is that they give you pretty much everything you need to get started out of the box, except for the batteries. I always like it when a company includes the batteries, because it says to me that they want their product to be usable as purchased, but it's obviously not that big of a deal. The accessories you get with the H4n pretty much say that already. In my experience, it's uncommon to even get an SD card.There are a lot of things to talk about here and going into them all would take a long time. The H4n offers a lot of great options. It has a somewhat clunky but very usable interface. It's very simple to operate with virtually no learning curve. It would be great to go into detail about the interface and other features and so on, but it's all pretty good. They did an excellent job with the most important parts of this device and that's really what matters the most.Overall...+ Phenomenal recording quality for a portable recorder+ Excellent built-in stereo microphones+ Record level adjustment buttons on the hardware, rather than just on the software+ Two combined XLR and 1/4" inputs+ Battery save mode by recording 44.1 Khz 16 bit WAV+ Replaceable batteries+ Doubles as a USB audio interface+ Comes with many accessories (most of which are actually useful)= Reasonably fast operation= Good but not exceptional battery life= On the larger side