Zoom H2

Well, as I stated in another thread, I bought one of these puppies on Saturday. I came home and recorded my dog barking and some guitar strumming.

My real purpose for buying it was to record my band's practices and shows. Last night was our first practice since I got it, so I finally got to really test it. This thing is worth every penny! I set it to record 320kbps MP3 from both front and rear mics. Hopefully, next week I'll have a 4GB card and can record in CD quality WAV format. My 1GB would only hold 1 and 1/2 hours in that format and we practice for 2. I got a stool and set it with the rear mics facing the band about 5 feet in front of the stage. I hit record and let it run the whole time (well, I did stop it to check levels a couple of times and missed a great comedy bit when the singer grabbed my bass and we played Blitzkreig Bop with me singing cause I forgot to start the recording back up).

Other than the vocals, this thing recorded great! The side monitors were turned in toward the stage, so it didn't get a lot of vocals. Bass was a little heavy, but I think it was all in the placement. Next week I'm putting it between the two side monitors and turning it sideways so the front and back is facing the monitors. Our singer is also bringing a camera tripod, because the Zoom has a camera mount on the bottom. But for $200, to be able to listen to our entire 2 hour practice is a huge deal. And no setting up mics and mixers, just put it down and hit record twice. I can hear our talking between songs, so it helped capture ideas and changes to song structures.

In addition to the samples above, I posted a link to our myspace page in the Hear, Hear section. I put another on my personal website because it is a cover of the Misfits' "We Are 138." You can grab that here. It is the best sounding track we got.

Overall, I'm very happy with the Zoom. With better placement next week and some EQ tweaks between the 2 guitarists and my bass amp, I think we'll be able to get some good sounding stuff. Definitely not studio quality mixes, but for capturing songs, ideas and some good outtakes, it is more than sufficient. I went home, hooked it up to my computer via the USB cable, copied the files and brought them into Reaper. I started listening and cutting into individual songs. The songs that we did more than once, I picked the best one and rendered them all out. Posted them on SendSpace and emailed them to the rest of the band, so within 3 hours of practice, everyone had a copy of every song we do to practice with the rest of the week. That should save a ton of "how did that go again?" time.