If you are musician or podcaster you may have noticed that there has been an accelerated trend toward pocket-sized stereo recorders, which started out as a niche market for musicians, audio professionals, broadcast journalists, sound-effects collectors has grown to the consumer market mainly podcasters. The folks at SamsonTechnologies have seen this and came out with an affordable pocket recorder called the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder.
The Zoom H2 comes with four microphone capsules offering 4-channels for 360° recording in addition to stereo recording, which is found on other pocket recorders and is capable of recording 16 and 24 bit WAV files at sampling rates up to 96kHz and MP3 files at bit rates up to 320Kbps, which stored on an SD card.
What's in the Box
A 512MB SD card is included in the box and slides into the bottom of the unit.
Also included in the box are two AA batteries that are stored in the back of the unit, an AC adapter (9VDC 300mA and mini-USB to USB cable all of which can be used to power the H2.
A set of earbud headphones for monitoring as well as a standard 3.5mm to 2 RCA adpater cable that could be used for line out, line in or external microphone in via the jacks on the side of the microphone.
You also get a windscreen that slides over the 4 microphone capsules and rigid metal grill.
A desktop stand, which isn't really needed unless you are one to pull on any attached cables or have cables that are heavy enough to tip the H2 over. Or plan on recording several instruments in a room or recording space.
The bottom of the H2 has some pretty good rubber feet and it can easily be used with out the stand. If you click on the picture you will see that the above desktop stand and microphone stand adapter below uses a standard coupling hole found on cameras so it could even be mounted to a camera tripod.
Standard microphone clip adapter that screws into the bottom for using with standard microphone stands or it can be held in the hand as an interview microphone. This option is really nice for the home recording artist that wants to focus on recording vocals or instruments.
And last but not least a black drawstring bag for carrying everything and/or protecting the H2 in your travels.
Using the H2:
The H2 is lightweight (4oz) and fairly easy to operate with one hand. The LCD display is backlit with a green LED that turns on when a button is pressed or a switch is slide and times out after 15 seconds by default(you can configure the timeout time in the menu settings).
The display shows the L & R input levels, elapsed and remaining time, file type, folder, battery level and state of playback/recording.
A dedicated Menu button displays a fairly well organized menu that is navigated by using the Fast Forward and rewind buttons to move up and down the menu structure and the Record button to make your selection from options including:
- Lo Cut - which attenuates low frequencies and is good for removing wind noise or pop noise for vocal recordings.
- Rec Mode - is the recording mode and format as well as sampling frequency
- AGC/Comp - Automatic Gain Control (for general recording and speech) as well as Compressor (boosts lows and attenuates highs) and Limiter(attenuates set frequencies to prevent distortion) microphone support for General, Vocal, Drums, as well as a Limiter for General Concert, or Studio settings.
- File - access to the files used for playback and additional options as seen in the pictures below for renaming the file, encoding in MP3, Normalizing, Dividing, Mark list and deleting.
- Folder- where the files are recorded
- Monitor- on/off
- Plug-in -on/off
- Pre REc - on/off
- Auto recording-which can be set to on/off or at certain start and stop dB levels that you set.
- Mono Mix
- L/R position
- Metronome
- Tuner
- Play Mode
- AB Repeat
- Light - 15 seconds, 30 seconds, on, off
- Contrast of the screen from 1-8, default is 5
- Battery - Alkaline or NiMH
- SD Card - remaining space in percentage, MB, and minutes of recording or to format it
- USB- as storage or as USB audio microphone with adjustments to the Frequency(44.1kHz or 48kHz) and connect.
- Date and Time settings
- 3D PAN – when using surround sound you can adjust the center of the sound field
Some of the cool features is that that the Zoom H2 as seen in the menu options is that it has a metronome and tuner built right in, which is great for musicians traveling light. The tuner is pretty good in that it allows you to calibrate to a certain frequency, Chromatic tuning , Guitar, Bass, Open A, Open D,Open E, Open G, DADGAD.
The H2 has no dedicated record level knob or buttons and the input level is adjusted by selecting one of the three different Microphone Gains from the gain switch located on the right side between Low, Medium and High.
For playback Volume controls are located on the left along with a headphone jack to monitor out as well as listen to playback of your recordings. Also on the left hand side is the power switch for turning the unit on and off as well as the DC power connector to the included transformer.
What is kind of confusing when using the H2 is that when you press the record button you aren't really recording, but are in record standby, which allows you to adjust the recording levels by pressing the Fast Forward (+ Rec Level) and Rewind (-Rec Level) buttons. Pressing the Record button a second time begins the recording. Using this in a live setting between multiple interviews I found this confusing and actually missed recording some of my interviews thinking that the blinking Play/Record button and dancing levels indicated that I was recording, when in reality I wasn't and was just checking the levels. A solid Play/Record light indicated proper recording and it a few times to get used to that.
To stop the recording you just press the Record button a third time and it will automatically create another recording file the next time you record. You can adjust a pre-record buffer to via the menu to about 1 or 2 seconds depending on your sampling rate, which will allow you enough time to capture something you might have missed when pressing the record button a second time to start recording.
Pressing the Play/Pause button while recording allows you to leave markers/bookmarks so you could quickly fast forward to during playback or in your editing/synch process if you are using the microphone in conjunction with a video camera.
Microphone Pattern Selection
The front L and R cardioid microphones are fixed at a 90 degree relative angle , while the rear L and right cardioid microphones are at 120 degrees apart. When all 4 microphones are on for 4-channeling you get full 360 degree recording.
Choosing the mode you are using is very easy just press the MIC Pattern keys at the top of the microphone.
Front 90 degrees is for sources within a 90 degree angle of the front recorded in stereo.
Surround 2CH records the sound from the front side and rear side of the unit in 2 channels.
Surround 4 CH records the sound from the front side and rear side of the unit in 4 channels, which are saved as a pair of stereo WAV files in a dedicated folder for four-channel mode. So when playing back you can mix the front and rear signals appropriately and allows for the creation of 5.1 channel audio with an appropriate surround sound encoder.
Rear 120 degrees records sound located with a 120 degrees on the rear side of the H2.
Once activated you will also notice the MIC Active indicator on the front and back illuminate. If the sound level is too high causing distortion, the indicator light will flash. To set your input sensitivity you can adjust the gain with a switch on the right side from H – for sources ata distance or have low volumes, M – good for accoustic guitar or other low volume instruments and L – for recording a band performance or other loud sound source.
H2 Computer Use
The H2 can be used with your computer via the USB port. As soon as you plug in the H2 whether the unit is on or off, you will be prompted by the H2 how you want to use the H2 as either a USB storage device or audio device. Depending on you choice the appropriate drivers will be installed.
H2 can be used as an external SD card reader (if your computer doesn’t have one) which allows easy copying of your recordings directly to your computer for further editing or archiving.
The H2 can also be used as an audio interface for Windows and MacOS based systems. The input signal to the H2 can be recorded directly on the computer at a sampling frequency of 44.1kHz or 48kHz and the output signal of the computer is available on the H2 via the PHONES/LINE OUT jack. So the H2 makes for a great podcast recorder or Skype microphone to use with your computer.
Conclusion:
The H2 Handy Recorder is a compelling affordable pocket microphone allowing for many versatile functions as a studio microphone, for interviews, podcasts, recording lectures, computer microphone, etc. The Zoom H2 retails for $199 and can be found bundled with larger memory cards,4 High Capacity AA Nimh Rechargeable Batteries,battery charger, screen protectors,etc at the same price of $199 at places like Amazon.com