Zoom H4

Maybe the h4 is easy to use, once you are familiar with it. My opinion ist that the h4 is no fun to use. The joystick feels kinda loose, the jog-wheel can only be operated using your thump with the h4 held in the right hand. When the h4 is mounted on a mic stand you can basically only hit the record button or stop. Everything else seems out of reach. Also it has a tiny display. Searching a position in a log track is slow, just as data transfer. All in all the worst thing about the h4 is its usability or lack of ergonomics. Everything else is just fine.

Recordings that we did in a reheasal situation are very good. No hiss and also very dynamic.

Generally I like Zoom stuff and never had a problem, e.g. with my good old ps-02.

The combination of a multi track and stereo handheld recorder is a very cool idea. In terms of features, sound quality and connectivity the h4 is an outstanding device. The poor ergonomics and cumbersome handling makes me look for something else. No problem, there are a lot of other good recorders on the market.

I'm pretty picky about gear, and I have been looking for something for a while to record live gigs and demos. The drummer in the band had a zoom h4, so I borrowed it for a month. Needless to say, I bought one when he wanted it back! It records in both stereo and 4 track mode (great for demos!). It's fairly easy to use once you are familiar with the layout and navigating the menus. The toggle wheel is not the most intuitive, and is a bit of a pain at times. However, after playing with the device for a while, I'm comfortable with navigation. Recording is easy in both modes. The reason this does not get a 10 is because of the toggle wheel. (The newer H4n eliminates the toggle wheel, which I'm sure is due to consumer feedback.)

I've used it in a number of recording situations. I use the stereo mode to record off the board for live gigs and practices. It took a while to get a good sound -- the compressor does not help in stereo mode! It gave me a lot of pumping. However, once I turned off the compressor, the sound was fantastic. I've used the mikes to record my acoustic guitar at home in 4 track mode -- the built-in mikes have a clean sound. I haven't used the internal effects. I record dry, upload the data to Audacity, and edit there. Some people have complained that the preamps are noisy. Maybe at a professional level, they are, but to my ear, the sound quality for such an inexpensive piece of equipment is great. If you are looking to record live gigs off a board, or record an acoustic jam, you cannot go wrong with this unit.

It hasn't let me down in the 6 weeks I've used it, but clearly, it hasn't passed the acid test yet. The casing is suspect and feels cheap. The same goes for the buttons. However, like all electronic equipment, you are going to have to take care of it. I bought a digital camera case to take it around with me. Seems to be working so far. It is a high drain device, so you should either use the included adapter or have a lot of spare batteries with you.

Great device. It was exactly what I was looking for -- an inexpensive way to record practices and live shows, and to record a few demos of original music. I love the fact it can do both -- it is the only recorder I know of with a built in 4 track, and since it works with SD cards, you can record 4 tracks, upload to your computer with an sd reader (most computers come with them these days anyway), edit using your favorite DAW (I use Audacity, but it comes with Cubase LE), and then bring the mix back to the H4 to record more tracks. Or, you can even hook it up as an audio interface and record directly to the computer (I haven't tried this personally yet, so I cannot comment on the latency issue). Every musician should have one!

To me it is pretty easy.
The main problem the backlight on the screen could stay longer if you use it with the power supply.

This is also like a response to the man, who addressed me. I mostly use it with power supply.
Thanks for your input.

This is my update.
The last time I was really upset. But, eventually, one of the older guys in the store helped me out.
He contacted Zoom and asked them to put my device on the priority list.
It came back soon. The technician gave some explanations to the break-down which seemed doubious to me. Very doubtful ones. I don't have time to write too much.
The bottom line - - - this little thing now works!
And my heart softened.

Now I like it again.
Don't forget the price :-) and that it is not a big recording station!
I recorded a couple of great things ... ha-ha
I heard makes some other good stuff, I'll try them one day.

I,m writing this quickly just to refer to vlad. I don't know if you only use batteris or use an adaptor. If it's just batteries, Ive had problems with batteries.Even with new batteries it wouldn,t work.But if I squeeze down on the battery cover the power comes on. This isn't acceptable for me. When I want it to work with batteries it should work. I don't have time to complete this review but it might help you out. Now I need to take it back to Steve's Music in Montreal.

Relatively easy to use, that's true.

No. Absolutely not. I bought mine at the end of July. I used it just about 6-7 times. I AM VERY CAREFUL with electronic equipment. And what? After 1 month it said "good-bye" to me and never came back to interacting with me.
I can judge its processor crashed or, better to be said, went to comatose and happy condition. No sing of coming out of this peaceful sleep.
I went back to the store. They informed me this wonderful Zoom Corporation does not replace products without trying to fix them. Well. In couple of days the equipment was delivered to the Zoom dealer in Montreal, Canada ...
After more than one month and no indication to hear any sound neither from the recorder or the the dealer of Zoom corp. in Montreal, Canada, I myself asked the retail store for 3 times: how is going the process?
Today they told me - after calling to the service department - NOBODY even HAS LOOKED at my recorder.
I stop here. Go and figure yourself ... I mean if your are a musician whose pockets are not padded with cash and you bougt somethin to record your music to and not to sit around and wait until a guy somewhere out there would be so kind to put aside his dignity and come down and take a glance at whatever piece of crap you brought to them.
The little customer paid cash and studied the manual and wasted his time - so what? Now forget about the little customer.

Should I say something here after you read my frustration and anger in the 'reliability' section above?

Buy and judge it yourself.
Good luck.

Fairly straightforward considering how much stuff this little thing packs. Upgrade to the latest firmware version - from the Zoom site - dead easy. Sorts out several bugs and adds a few more features.

Record? Uh, hit the big red button a couple of times.

Pretty much impossible to fault

1. As a recorder - the built-in electret mics are really excellent and may well be all you need - great on acoustic guitar, vocals, stealth recording, or putting in the corner while your band rehearse and forget about it. Great stereo image and 24-bit resolution means you can record at cautious levels and normalise later on (built in to the latest formware - or use Cubase) without adding any additional noise.

2. As a USB interface - note it's "only" 16-bit resolution 44.1/48kHz into Cubase in this mode. Still really excellent, though especially at this price level. Use the built-in mics, or add something a bit better like a Rode or similar. A bit of hiss, maybe, but nothing to worry about.

Secret weapon is that this thing really rocks as a headphone amp! For those of us now using iTunes or similar as our primary means of storage/listening, hearing stuff back through the H4, as opposed to the crappy audio cards built into most PCs and especially laptops, is nothing short of a revelation. Use the line out into your HiFi amp and you've got a source to rival even top-end CD players. It's so good, in fact, that I've started having to use Apple lossless encoding as the MP3 artifacts are suddenly audible with the increase in playback quality.

Seems OK so far.

Very good - I lost the Cubase CD/Serial number and Zoom Japan supplied me a new one within a couple of days by email support. Useful for a reduced price upgrade to Cubase 4 when you're ready.

Did I mention the bundled Cubase LE??

After using cassette and SD-based multitrack for a long time, using DAW software is like winning the lottery.

All round, given the quality and features (audio resolution, mics, external mic sockets, effects, USB, multitrack, bundled Cubase) this has to be the bargain of the decade.

Extremely highly recommended.

There is a learning curve to this incredibly small recorder, but not too bad. After an hour or so I was cruising through the menus without a problem. I thought the interface was a lot like a complicated MP3 player with a thumb scroll/button. The screen is very small, but it does have a backlight which helps.

The 2 track stereo mode is very simple to use. The 4 track mode is slightly more complicated. You can only record 2 tracks at once, but all 4 will play back simultaneously. Also, you cannot use the built-in mic and the line plugs at the same time. I suppose you could plug a mic into one of the lines, but why have a built-in mic then?

The sound quality is so good on this thing that I realized I am NOT as good on guitar as I thought. Definitely CD quality. There are plenty of effect options in 4 track mode. I found the effects were awesome using an electric guitar plugged directly in, but when used with the mic and an acoustic guitar some of the effects just didn't sound too good. Strangely, the effects are not available in 2 track stereo mode. The bass effects sounded excellent. Fortunately for me I am not a bad bass player, but every "mistake" shows up crystal clear on the recording.

I have only had the unit for a week, but it seems rugged enough. If you treat it gently it shuold last a very long time.

Haven't neaded to use it yet. No opinion.

Overall, this is a sweet unit for $300 if you want a musical sketch pad or you want to produce high quality demo recordings. My only disappointment when I sat down to make my first demo recordings was me. The unit is flawless .. I am not. This is an amazing little machine that I wish I had a long time ago. It has definitely improved my playing and given me room to grow creatively.

Easy to use, and a great recorder from zoom. this is not for serious multitrack recording, but it's perfect for quick songwriter demo-type stuff, podcasting, or if you want to cut a quick 4 track song. the whole thing with the unit is catching an idea while fresh. if that's what you're looking for, this is perfect.

you can record, for example, a drums-bass-guitar-vox 4 track demo in about 20 minutes if you have the instruments laying around and you know what you want to do. you can record direct, or use the onboard mics, and don't believe the crap someone wrote below about XLR only sounds good, the onboard condensers are very responsive. If you sit down with this thing and record vox and accoustic guitar you'll be amazed. plus you can record at 96k.

the negatives are in mechanical stuff. zoom's one product refactoring from getting this H4 right, and the H2 unit they have, which is a 2-track-only recorder, is the right direction. The H4 needs better buttons. The on-off power switch and the battery compartment are pretty flimsy. you have to be gentle with it. the mounting system is also not that great and should be redesigned. the joystick idea is o.k., but maybe something else would be better. regardless, it feels like it's going to snap off the unit. the chassis is nice and light, but what it translates to is you have to be careful.

however, the onscreen menus are very easy to understand once you get the hang of it, and the manual is good.

the key thing with the zoom h4 is that if you use batteries, you can be completely free of cables as you're tracking things.

The sound quality is excellent. you can use it as a portable hard-disk recorder, essentially, because you can bypass all effects. 48k CD quality, or even 96K if you're two-tracking.

No problems so far, went to the Zoom site and updated the software on the unit recently. Again, you wonder how long it's going to last because of the light plastic chassis, but it's been a good soldier so far.

website is maintained and updated, haven't had to deal with customer service directly

I do rock band rehearsals, accoustic vox and guitar stuff, and ambient recording, so for all of these things the unit perfect. i use rechargeable Ni-MH batteries and you can get a good 4 hours of heavy use with one charge. Great portable recorder, and it will be interesting to see if Zoom decides to overhaul this. They are one step away from an incredible product. If Zoom kept the dead-easy-to-use functionality but overhauled the mechanical design? Then it would be perfect.

Pretty darn easy to use as a stereo recorder. Thats what my bosses sent it to me to use for.

Sounds good recording voice only from an xlr feed from the mixing board.

Worked fine for three days during the conference I was recording.
When I sat down to copy the files via usb to my pc it just shut off.
Now it won't turn on. Period. With the power supply plugged in it just gets really hot.
Piece of crap be careful.

No idea, it's not my unit to get fixed.

If it didn't burn out on me while copying files via usb I'd say it's pretty good for live recording in stereo.

Very easy to use with, I thought, a nice logical layout of the various fubctions in user interface. Considering size and price it is difficult to fault. It would have been nice to have more external controlls for the more commonly used functions and a larger screen with a rotatable display would also be nice... but hey... The main strength of the combination of portability, flexibility and sound quality. It is nice to be able to record an acoustic set outside, go to rehearsal room and do a electric set, lay down a couple of extra tracks, listen to it immediately or later in bed and do a bounce or two for good measure.. Just INCREDIBLY usefull as a versatile recording tool. Best of all, it does not have to be tethered to a computer (nice cheap flash memory), uses batteries and mains....

I have been using the H4 in stereo and 4 track mode. Recording the band in stereo mode and laying down tracks in 4 track. I have only been recoring in WAV format 44.1 so far. Works great in both modes. Sound quality is truly exeptional for this price point. Internal mikes is a nice surprise - i bought it to use with external mikes only, but find myself using the external ones more and more. They are very true and transparrent.. recording sounds like it sounded. Had great results in recording my all valve George Dennis Blue 60 combo at various levels. At this price point 10.

Not been using long enough (couple of months). So far so good

Website well designed and helpfull (downloaded and installed v1.04 software). Not dealt with Zoom Customer support directly

Great device. Truly usefull. Made me a better musician - I can record, listen and analyse my and the band playining with unprecedented speed and flexibility - anywhere anytime. It would be difficult for me to be without it... I would DEFINITELY replace it if stolen

Easy to use at a basic level: I unpacked it, put batteries and a 2Gb card in it, and started recording (in stereo mode) without needing the manual.
But... DO READ THE MANUAL! Most functions are hidden under menus and I didn't even know you could press the scroll wheel, which is how you enter changes.
Being such a small unit, it's understandable that there cannot be many buttons and controls, so everything has to be hidden under menus. But it's quite intuitive once you play with it a couple of times.
I have used it mostly in stereo mode. Dead easy, and it connects straight away to a PC (WinXP) so transfer of recorded files is simple, and you can then edit them at will.
I only tried it in 4-track mode once. Again, just as easy. Selecting tracks to record on, and inputs etc is very intuitive. Zoom has done a great job at packaging so much into such a small unit and make it easy to use.
But you do need to read the manual. Especially if you want to use any of teh special features, like FX, guitar/bass/mic simulations etc.

Sound is GREAT!
I was already counting on buying a pair of condenser microphones (Behringer C2, a small pair of nice sounding condensers at low price... they require phantom power, but the H4 supplies that!). However, I like the built-in microphones and I won't buy any external ones anytime soon.

I haven't even tried the guitar/bass/mic simulations, so I cannot comment on that. I don't think I'll use them, to be honest, as I try to get my sound with other units.

I used it in stereo mode to record voice: very warm yet crisp sound.
To record a bass combo, at low volumes at home: fantastic sound!
To record the band at rehearsal: it works! The rehearsal didn't sound as good... but then it really doesn't sound too good in real life in teh room we use ;-) And all I did was turn the H4 on, placed it on a music stand where it was convenient for me, and pressed record (after adjusting the input level roughly). It captured a good image of the band. In fact, I can hear some things better in the recording than live!
This was my first attempt, and teh sound levels were low. I exported the wav files to my computer and opened them in SoundForge: the waves looked tiny (I need to adjust levels more carefully this time, I was afraid to record too loud and saturate, but it looks like this unit can cope with anything from a whisper to a loud band!). In SoundForge I added a touch of EQ to remove some boominess from my bass (next time I won't place the H4 right in front of teh amp :-) and compress the signal a little (the dynamic range the H4 can pick up is amazing... I compressed to be able to get a louder sound when we're discussing things between songs, but still not saturate when we start playing)... then I normalised the overall volume (to RMS)...
This process brought the original veyr low levels to quite loud without distortion... without noticeable added noise in the quiet bits. This means that the H4 is very quiet in operation (well, it has no moving parts, but electronically seems sound).

I am very pleased with what this small thing can do.

It's not the most solid looking box. You have to be careful with it. Don't drop it etc... just be sensible.

NA

Overall rating? a 10, of course.

You get a tiny device that is able to work on batteries or plugged in, with a veyr good stereo condenser mic built in, making it a breeze to record anything from speech, to a loud band rehearsal with good sound quality. It also can work as a 4-track amchine, using 2 inputs at once. It will provide phantom power if needed to external microphones, it will provide guitar/bass amp&speaker simulation if required when plugging in directly, it can model the mic response of different types of mic (might come handy when using it to record from a guitar amp, for instance)... it has tons of FX... you can easily transfer files to and from the H4/PC. It can record in WAV or MP3 formats (user selects teh bit rate, etc), it will play back wav or mp3 (hey, it's an MP3 player too ;-) it will even just work as an external drive so you can use it to store data, and as a card reader...
How multitasking can you get?
I'm not likely to use the FX section, for instance, but it's nice to have.
I was originally looking for a cheaper alternative. But I am so glad I got this one. Fantastic unit.

This works flawlessy as a live recording unit making awesome warm recordings of jam sessions! I have not tried 4 track mode or any of the effects. The software Cubase seems very hard to understand so I have not been able to edit any of our jam sessions.

See above for recording jam sessions with the onboard mics I would have to give it a 9.

It seems reliable enough. I have used it 30 hrs or more and it works flawlessly.

no idea

I have been playing 28yrs now. I would buy this unit again! I play all original music but love anything from 70s (as almost all guitar music was good in the 70's) such as Rush, Robin Trower, Scorps, Sabbath, Nugent, Aerosmith, Kansas and UFO to King's X, Porcupine Tree, Adrian Belew, Ohm, Mike keneally, Satch, Opeth, Annihilator, Clutch, and on and on... This thing is so small and the mics work great, really a great unit for $260.00 it cannot be beat!

Looked like a great product - advertised everywhere in UK and USA

DOA when arrived EVENTUALLY after 3 weeks

UK distribution Exclusive Distribution took 3 weeks to delivery stock - then when told unit was DOA said another 4 weeks before they could get a replacement - or I could get it repaired within a week or so but I never trust something DOA

sent it back to the Uk shop where I bought it from

very disappointed