testing the Zoom H2

[TheMUSEism]

What is the second thing you play? I play guitar and would love to learn it! :D

[wwelti]

@TheMUSEism Hi, it's the wellknown minuet by Johann Krieger. Good luck learning it, it's not too difficult.

[TheMUSEism]

@wwelti Thanks! :)

[JamesMLeo]

thank you for posting the test. I am really looking forward to getting my tax return so I can pick of one of these!

[gungor1985]

i got a zoom h2 and for the low stuff i use it on high gain for the low stuff and it comes out fantastic low gain is great for bands and stuff med if ur playing a aucostic guitar u can rise the wav level if u have a audio program even like kristal

[Manu9078]

I'm having trouble with mine. I only just want to record my voice and guitar and I leave it in the 90 degree mode on medium gain, but when I finish recording and transfer it to my computer, the volume sounds low. and my recording volume is set to 118. Is it normal to have to turn up my volume almost half way to listen to it well?

[wwelti]

Hi,

I don't have it here any more, but I didn't have trouble with it. However, with most recording devices you can't record properly from too much distance. I recall that there was some kind of level display on the H2. Maybe you want to use this to properly adjust the recording level.

However, there is another, better solution. The H2 offers a 24 bit recording mode. Recording with 24 bit allows you to digitally amplify your recording a lot on the pc without degrading the quality.

Regards, WW

[kd5exr]

Wonderful playing. Too bad there was no video.  Thanks.

[tubetwang]

thanks for the nice demo wwelti

[cezar96]

Hi, would you classify this recorder as a pro or as a beginner recorder? Thank you

[wwelti]

Hi!

I'd classify it as both a pro and beginner recorder.

Why?

It's affordable for the beginner, very easy to use, and allows the beginner to get great results with little effort.

The pro will like it because it's so cheap and such a small package. It probably won't last forever in a rough pro job, but then it costs only a fraction of what the real "pro gear" costs. It's important for a pro to have some cheap backup unit, if the real thing doesn't work for some reason, for example.

[benmardous]

HU,

Nice playing. What's the name of the second piece. Did you learn it from the music or by ear?

B

[wwelti]

Hi,

You can find tabs for the second piece in the free e-book "Solo Ukulele für Einsteiger". Just google for it and download it ;)

W

[wwelti]

I forgot to mention, it's the Minuet from Krieger.

[BluesRoadHK]

I'm REALLY REALLY love your demo!! And the picture is good too!

[Mclovin2063]

When you did the whistle with the uke, was that 2 seperate tracks layered or one single shot recording?

[wwelti]

Hello,

no layering, just a single capture.

[lamparalaptopiaguita]

1. is the cable proprietary, or can you use most usb cables out there?

2. compatible with vista 64x ?

3. does it have folders, and how many of them are there in the device?

4. How much space in GB is there in the device? Is it compatible with SD cards?

5. is it sold it in canada, or ship to canada? Or give me some popular Canadian online music equipment stores.

THANK YOU ;)

[wwelti]

Hello,

1.) I didn't use the usb cable,

2.) No idea... but hopefully yes,

3.) No idea if you can make seperate folders,

4.) yes, I used a 2 GB SD Card with it, and then copied the files from the SD Card to the PC

5.) No idea, I'm living in Europe.

I had it only for a few hours, and my primary concern was recording quality -- which was pretty decent.

[Mclovin2063]

I just saw one for sale in Winterpeg so i am sure you can get one anywhere lol

[colscols]

dude why dont you look at the manual its free to download or is that to hard ?

[TanteA]

Ich habe auch einen H2 Recorder, seit Dezember! Sehr schön, das Krieger-Menuett :-)

Anette

[wildpianoman16]

Well, still it was a great test. I may use the H2 to record recital rehearsals especially when it comes to rehearsing the concert choir for the choir piece I'm composing.

[wildpianoman16]

Wow! The H2 has stunning, stunning quality. Nice Ukelele performance by the way. I love all those acoustic instruments. I play piano, but I love the guitar, harp, ukelele, and other related instruments. I also compose. I've composed for guitar too. Maybe I'll compose for ukelele someday. This gave me an idea. Anyway, keep it up! Great performance.

[wwelti]

Composing for the Uke is the best, with re-entrant tuning... It all works out so easily :) -- It never worked that well for the guitar for me ;)

(no I'm not a good composer, but it's fun ;) )

Cheers, Wilfried

[Wylligr]

Oh, its so good sound, with re-encoded too!!

[wwelti]

Thanks :)

[AndanteLargo]

Hi Wilfried,

Great sound even if YT degrade the sound. Vimeo is better in my opinion too but no audience... and livevideo too!

Like the whistling...

See you.

Peo

[wwelti]

Hi Peo, thanks :) ... Yes Vimeo video quality is great. I put this recording on Vimeo as well as a test, and audio is great. Well, since I'm just an amateur I don't really need much audience. YT audio quality was never too good, but if they continue with their latest "feature" (which is adding some distortion to the sound) I'll put my next recordings on Vimeo. Hope my YT subscribers won't be upset ;)

[jnclassicalguitarist]

Great sound, Wilfried!

Very enjoyable, especially the first part with the whistling.

Guten Tag,

Julie

[wwelti]

Thanks Julie. The whistling was the fun part ;)

[FranSpain]

gREAT!!  I want one of those!!

[wwelti]

hehe... Me too ;)

[wwelti]

Ok. Although the video was already online on YouTube for 12 hours now with good audio quality, YouTube finally re-encoded the video and degraded the quality a lot. Hmmm. It is time to look for a better video portal.

[liberado]

A better video portal is Vimeo, with high quality stereo sound.

Here you can see and listen a video sample, the audio have been recorded with the Zoom H2:

w w w . v i m e o . c o m / 1 1 7 0 1 5 6

[liberado]

(remove the spaces in my link)

[wwelti]

Thanks for the tip. I will give it a try.

[LStrachey]

nice sound all round

[wwelti]

thanks :)

[oldwhtman]

Sounds good Wilfried. I have one of those myself. Could you share some of your H2 settings and how far from the instrument you placed the H2. Also, did you record to the H2 memory or connect via USB to use it as an audio interface with your PC software.

[wwelti]

Hi Mike!

Actually I didn't fiddle around with the settings. I just switched it on, set the gain switch to medium, and then pressed the record button twice. I didn't use USB, I copied the audio file directly from the SD card. The H2 was about a half meter away from the uke in front of me.

However, before uploading to YouTube I prepared the vid as a flash movie with high audio bitrate but very low overall bitrate, so YouTube didn't re-encode and the audio quality was not degraded (luckily ;) )

[oldwhtman]

Thanks for the info. I shall try what you've done. It sounds better than my efforts. I usually put the H2 much closer (about 1/3 of a meter) and record directly to the computer using a linux program called mencoder that gets the video and audio at the same time.

[wwelti]

Hi Mike,

maybe your problem is that you get computer noise on your recording. Try to record without your computer. If you need to capture video as well, you could use your cell phone for this job ;)

However be sure not to loose audio quality in the encoding process of your video. simply using the next best software and hoping all will be well usually doesn't cut it. And even YouTube will degrade your audio quality when it re-encodes your video.

Regards, Wilfried

[Luthval]

nice toys isn't it ? (I mean on the pict the uke and the zoom...)

Nice sound !

Val

[wwelti]

Thanks Val. Indeed, very nice toys. :)

[billkilpatrick]

googled "Zoom H2" to discover what it was but your ukulele - and your playing - sound good ... no matter what!

[wwelti]

Thanks -- Well, the Zoom H2 -- it's really a great gadget, too bad I can't keep it. So practical.

[MoskeetoUke]

schöne Soundbeispiele und guter Klang :) Irgendwie sehr natürlich

[wwelti]

Danke. Offenbar hat es wirklich geklappt daß YouTube die Tonspur auf 192kbps Stereo belassen hat :)

[jemflower]

Hört sich trotzdem gut an, manchmal ist weniger eben mehr ;-)

[wwelti]

Danke. Ja, so mag ich es am liebsten -- ohne lästige Nachbearbeitungen :)