Tascam DR-07 Quick Review and shoot out with Zoom H1

[designerx2006]

tascam sounds much better... thank you for the video.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@designerx2006 Glad you liked it and thanks for commenting. I love the Tascam. Only thing I can't do is find a really nice case for it! If my wife would let me, I'd get an extra Tascam and another lavalier mic for doing some "talking head" videos I'm setting up in the next few weeks. But she won't let me!

[nomanoki]

Great review, thanx for that comparison!



[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@nomanoki My pleasure and thanks for stopping by.

[SheriffPlease]

Awesome video!! Thanks a ton for doing this, I couldn't find anyone else with a decent comparison of these two recorders. The "A/B" comparison was great. I believe I'll be ordering the Zoom H1 here in a bit, it seems to fit my needs a bit better. I'll be using it with my D7000, GoPro, and GoPro 3D cameras since they all have quite dismal sound quality. The smaller size and lower cost make me a bit more willing to put it some of the places my GoPros will be venturing to. Thanks again.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@SheriffPlease Hey, that's great to hear! And boy do I wish I had a D7000 - great, great camera. I agree with your point about the "take it anywhere' of the H1.

[wedontknowone1]

ok 1, i love that room!!!!! its soo cool,2. thanks for the comparason, 3. your accent makes you sound like a genius!

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@wedontknowone1 Thank you very much. Where I live we all sound like that.

[m00tmike]

Santa just brought me the dr-07mkII. I was actually wanting just the dr-05 and was pleasantly surprised. Santa said the he got it for just about $120 on amazon which is only about $20ish more than the dr-05 or H1 from what I've seen. I'm really excited to have the two mic positions and I love how sturdy the Tascam feels. From your review it seems that the dr-07 has greater quality and if you then factor in it's cheaper price (maybe for the holidays only?) seems like a no brainer to me.

[darkstonecastle]

ACTUALLY......upon further evaluation.... I downloaded your video and imported into my movie software. AFTER ADJUSTING THE VOLUME LEVELS, you can barely tell a difference in the two. I actually think I may prefer the H1 for the human voice. The DR-07 is a tad bassy for me. The volume goes up twice as much at 2:35 in your video which creates enormous bias in favor of the DR-07. I didn't catch this when I first watched, but after examining it I find the sound quality to be not much different.

[darkstonecastle]

I really liked the way you did your test (not revealing till the end which was which. Zoom sounds good, but Tascam sounds great!

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@darkstonecastle I live the Tascam a LOT, but honestly, if you didn't have both to compare, I think I'd be very happy with just the H1.

[darkstonecastle]

@mygoodstuffreviewed I ended up (after much contemplating) getting the Tascam DR-07 MK2 over the Zoom H1, and your video had a lot to do with it. It's what first made me aware of this MK2 and caused me to research it further. Now that I own it and have played around with it for a few months, I am extremely pleased with it. It blew away the Yeti Blue mic that I had, I ended up selling that.

[ExiledGeist]

wow the difference very audible with headphones, tascam is really better

for a musician that the tascam is a bit bigger is not a problem!

thx for the review

[Circacx203]

helped me a lot , thank you

[raphory]

Thanks a lot for this demonstration. One question I still have is: how useful is the hability to move the mics around the unit? Does it really affect the sounds or is it just a marginal difference?

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@raphory For what I do, it would make no difference, but I believe if you are recording anything at a bit of a distance and want more of the "ambient" sound to be recorded, you'd open the mics up. Think of a band playing on stage, or an orchestra, that kind of thing. Also, apparently, you'd pick up more of the room sound if you open the mics, so to get the "buzz" of conversation in a restaurant, for example, you'd probably open the mics.

I guess it depends what you want to record. :)

[raphory]

@mygoodstuffreviewed Thanks for the quick reply! Actually I want to record meetings with that device. Sometimes I need to have the sounds "around the table", 360 dergrees, so I won't miss anyone, sometimes I just want to record the guy who's explaining his power point on the front of the table. I wonder how much the change of positions of the mics would affect the quality and volume of the "ambiant noises" around. The Tascam DR 08 looks great too...

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@raphory The open mic position would help, but it's still quite directional. You really need an omni mic, or boundary mic if you want to capture everyone. I *suppose* you could open the mics and use the unit upright, that might capture quite well from the full area. Remember you can plug other miss into this recorder, so if you did need a more specialist mic you could probably do it.

Distance from the recorder would come into play too, so on small tables it might work fine as is.

[raphory]

@mygoodstuffreviewed Yep, I was thinking about another mic to plug in the unit. One last question: if I use another mic via the mini-jack, does it "mute" the integrated mic, of are they all working together? Like, can I record discussions in one part of the room, and in the same time, answers made in the other part of the room?

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@raphory The on-board mics are muted when you plug in another mic, unfortunately. I think more expensive units (much more expensive), let you use the on-board and separate mics, but quite honestly for the price you pay for those you could buy 2 or 3 Tascams.

You could also think about a couple of Zoom H1s, which perform quite well. I have a video comparing them if you want to take a look. Two H1s cost about the same as one Tascam and you could position them separately.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@raphory The on-board mics are muted when you plug in another mic, unfortunately.  I think more expensive units (much more expensive), let you use the on-board and separate mics, but quite honestly for the price you pay for those you could buy 2 or 3 Tascams. You could also think about a couple of Zoom H1s, which perform quite well. I have a video comparing them if you want to take a look. Two H1s cost about the same as one Tascam and you could position them separately.

[raphory]

@mygoodstuffreviewed Thanks so much for the time you took to answer me. I finally went to a music store in my town (Paris, France) and told them I didn't know which one to buy. The owner was confident the Zoom H2 was what I needed. As it wasn't the most expensive, I finally bought it. After some tests (rehearsals with my rock band, walking in the streets, professional meeting), I must say it's a really great recorder. For your review, did you check the gain level on the side of your H2?

[BenjaminNBS]

Very helpful, thanks!

[omhuz]

thx this helped.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@omhuz My pleasure :)

[AquarelleArtist]

Thanks. I'll let you know when the time comes.

[AquarelleArtist]

Yes, eventually I plan to have video shorts on YouTube, with in depth DVDs for sale. It will be a while though. I work very slowly. aquarelleartistdotcom in very preliminary stage.

Best drawing book: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards. You'll find you DO have artistic talent with this book. You just need to unlock it.

Cartoons: look into ToonBoom.com for a great program for creating cartoons.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@AquarelleArtist Thanks for the recommendations. I'l take a look at them. I'm looking forward to seeing your work on Youtube.

[AquarelleArtist]

Which lavalier mic do you have? Looks as if wireless lav mics are more expensive than pocket recorders.

thanks,

AA

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@AquarelleArtist I use the fairly cheap Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone which is currently $17 at Amazon!

It's not wireless, but if you couple it with something like the Tascam, it's as good as (or better) than wireless, in my opinion. Sound is pretty good, too.

My only complaint about it is that the cable is so long! If you only ever use it hooked up to a recorder in your pocket, you don't need 20 feet of cable!!

[AquarelleArtist]

>Connecting lavalier mic - Thanks, I'd love to see it.

I am using a Canon 7D to create a 'watercolors' video series.

Images are great, but the 7D's sound has a hiss all on its own. Add an oscillating fan and the AC and it is awful. My voice is quite drowned out. AC off is not an option. Upper 90sF (35 - 37C) is standard summer fare here.

My camera will be set up behind me, looking over my shoulder, so a lav mic would work better as long as I don't walk off and forget to unplug - Wireless!

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@AquarelleArtist P.S. I'd love to see your watercolors videos when they're uploaded. Will they be on Youtube? Do you do any drawing/sketching videos, because I'm wanting to learn how to draw.

Since I have no artistic talent I'm looking for something that will let me "fake it", for simple cartoon style drawings.

[AquarelleArtist]

Thank you for making this comparison review. In my opinion, the Tascam wins. I like the resonance of the deeper tones.

I'm strongly considering the Tascam dr-07mkII in hopes I can set the mic position to record more of my voice and less of a nearby air conditioner. I just wish it had the ability to connect a wireless lavalier mic as well.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@AquarelleArtist Hi. I love the resonance from the Tascam too. And good news for you, it can connect a lavalier mic if it's the mini-jack type connector. I have a lavalier mic myself, so if I get time tomorrow I'll try to make a quick video demo for you.

The Tascam also offers power for the mic, so plug-in power mics work.

There's a number of lo-cut options so you could probably take out the sound of the air-con.

[Lennybird91]

Thank you for this straightforward comparison. I was actually considering both of these microphones; this helped me make up my mind completely. (Do not read until you've watched video) I believe the Tascam has a far wider frequency range than the Zoom H1, bringing out your lower voice tones. If you dislike the low tones coming in (I'm using Logitech speakers w/ Subwoofer), the Tascam has a high-pass/low-cut filter, which will help minimize lower frequencies.

[Lennybird91]

@Lennybird91 Concurrently, the Tascam also sounds like it picks up very high frequencies. Along with my Logitechs, I have two bookshelf N-333 Yamaha speakers with an extremely highly frequency response (36khz aluminum dome tweeters). I could hear high frequency background noise, but it wasn't overwhelming. Hopefully with the EQ settings, this could be trimmed off, too. The Tascam did seem to be recording at a higher volume, so this may have been the issue.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@Lennybird91 I think you're right about the Tascam recording at a higher volume - with manual level setting I would expect different results. I'll post another comparison video of the two shortly. You didn't actually say which model you went for. Was it the Tascam? They're both great little units, but for me the Tascam wins. If I could only ever use the Zoom H1 I wouldn't be unhappy, however, because they're very, very close in output quality.

[Lennybird91]

@mygoodstuffreviewed Thank you for the replies. Yeah, I neglected to say that I'm probably ordering the Tascam DR-07 MKii tomorrow. I'm transferring in as a junior to a journalism school this Fall, so I wanted a relatively small high-fidelity voice recorder that could switch between AB and XY pattern for interviews and the like. This Tascam also seems to have pretty good battery life as well. The sound is great, thanks to this comparison. Now I need to figure out how to make a wind screen :-)

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@Lennybird91 I have the Zoom H4 (the earlier model) and it's great, but it's a little bulky. There's also way more options on it than I would ever use, frankly, and for spoken voice it's a bit overkill. You can use it as a computer audio interface in its own right, so that can tip the balance for some people, but for overall quality, portability and general "cool factor", the Tascam definitely wins for me. You know the Tascam can lay markers on your recording, right?

[Lennybird91]

@mygoodstuffreviewed Yeah, I read about the Tascam having the marker feature. If it didn't have that feature, I wouldn't purchase it. How does it work once the wav files are transferred onto the computer, though?

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@Lennybird91 That's a very good question - to be honest I don't use it that way myself. It's 1 am here so let me find out and do something tomorrow and upload a vid. to show that, since I can see it might be useful to start using markers for edit points when I'm syncing up to video for Youtube.

[Lennybird91]

@mygoodstuffreviewed Before I found the Tascam mic while perusing basically all the voice recorders on the market, I was also considering the Zoom H4n, which is about double what the Tascam costs. It certainly has more features, but for me, that doesn't make up for its bulkiness. I really only need track markers anyway.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@Lennybird91 Thanks very much for your valuable feedback - I've been playing with the H1 and the DR-07 some more and I still prefer the Tascam. I like that it picks up the bass element of my voice (I just like how that sounds). That being said, I made no efforts on this video to optimize any of the settings of either unit. I also left the windows open and it was quite a windy day (you can see that in the background on the trees to the right). 

[mclaren777]

I listened with headphones and I actually preferred the H1 over the DR-07.

[mygoodstuffreviewed]

@mclaren777 That's interesting, because I suppose in the end we all have different tastes, so the "best" depends on what you want and what you like. I like the Tascam so much that I'm using it all the time now, especially with Dragon Naturally Speaking (which I use a lot).

I may record some more audio on both and listen with headphones to see what differences I can hear.