Improve Your Music

There are many items of technology which can improve the life of the average musician greatly and a good, simple digital recorder is certainly high on the list. At the end of last year I was looking around for some simple recording gear. The trouble was that I needed to do a variety of projects and I was concerned that I needed to buy a lot of gear. The main criteria was that I needed something portable that could take two inputs and initially I was looking at using a laptop computer as the main recording device. This meant buying some mics and a analog to digital converter of some kind. I came across the Zoom H4 Handy Recorder in a magazine and decided to check further.

What struck me first of all was that the unit could be used as a totally stand alone portable recorder. For simple tasks such as recording a band rehearsal or gig this was ideal. The H4 has inbuilt stereo condensor mics and can be used on 2 x A sized batteries making it very easy to use with a minimum of setup and fuss. Just select the file format, WAV or MP3, set the recording level and hit the record button. The results are excellent. The H4 uses SD memory cards of up to 2GB which will give you about 360 minutes of recording time in WAV format or about 38 hours in MP3. Of course cards can be easily swapped if you need more time than 38 hours!

The nice thing about this unit is that you are not stuck with the simplest functionality only. If you want to use external mics, fine. If you want to plug a guitar or bass straight in you can. It also has some inbuilt amp and mic simulation software if you need it although it’s not something I’ve used yet. It can even operate as a 4 track recorder with inbuilt mixing functions which would be great for the songwriter out on the road to use as a “sketchbook”.

Apart from using it to record band rehearsals and gigs, we took it along to a band competition recently to record some interviews. We just stuck an SM58 on a lead into it, a pair of headphones for monitoring, and off we went. The results were great.

Where it shines for me is that I can also use it in my little home studio as well. I simply plug it in to my system via USB and use the Cubase software included to record direct to my PC. Brilliant! The secret to this unit is it’s simplicity and it’s versatility. You probably won’t use it to record your next album but if your needs are simple then this device is for you. I thoroughly recommend it.

Free eBook

Related Articles