The Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder
The right way to portable recording.
Sometimes it seems like, these days, everyone who owns a guitar, owns the Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder. For some reason, everyone I go I run into some guy shoving one into my face. They sold a million of them. And there’s a good reason for that. For the musician, or the recording artists, it is probably the handiest piece of equipment you’ll ever own in your lifetime. No more finagling with cheap plastic mono mics or dodgy audio input lines. The Zoom delivers quality above all. I’ve been using portable recording music devices since the earliest days of FireWire on a the most archaic of Macs. I’ve had some good experiences. I’ve had many bad experiences. I’ve tried many devices, but this has probably been the one device that has stood out amongst all the others.
Loaded with accessories, and features, the Zoom is the way to go for a vast majority of musicians and casual recording artists that dot the landscape. We particularly like the fact that it came with its own mini stand. Unfortunately both amateur and professional musicians and recording artist alike, seem to forget the importance of this fact. The conducive nature of the surface that you’re recording on is infinitely importance in achieving the quality of recording you want. Have you ever been sitting in some guy’s office, and he pulled out a recording from a meeting. Everyone huddles around the recording but intermittently dispersed throughout his and ear deafening sequence of bumps and burps. These arise when somebody, for example, paintings, or drop something on the table, or, the device itself is bumped around. That’s why microphones, or any sort of according devices, need to be positioned in a fashion such that they are not conducting sounds.
As an audio technician, buy them from the old school. This means, I don’t use the manual for anything except holding coffee. For me, a good interface means that I’ll never have to open the manual. And as of today, I never have for this device. A place for everything, and everything in its place. This is a sign of a great interface and the zoom doesn’t fail to provide. The GUI menus are feature rich and easy to get through. And, we were particularly impressed with interface screen-which is wider and seems to be brighter than most models out there. We like the fact that we have the freedom to save in multiple ways and mp3 formats. But above Zoom holds so much data so cheaply that, out of the box, I just set it on a high MP3 quality and haven’t touched it since.
Some editing can be done on board. But honestly I’ve learned my lesson long ago. I almost never added on-the-fly. Actually, I almost never edit at the same day of the recording. The ear plays tricks on you anyway. Best to give your brain a rest after recording. And the zoom (like the Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder) allows you to easily offload an entire concert to your computer in minutes. From there I usually important into SoundForge and blast away. Because the zoom is so great, this usually mostly involves only trimming and fades, as well as some minor cutting.
