I bought a Zoom H2

I bought it as a composition aid. I can set it by my tea cup in the
morning while sitting by the wood stove in the kitchen, visiting with my
wife and sharing with her my early-daily musical musings. She loves
guitar music. ("Good thing, hunh?", she says with a twinkle in her eye.)

I can take it in the car and not lose those lines, lyrics or melodies,
that come out of nowhere and go right back there if not corraled
quickly.

But, damn, if this l'il sucker isn't just WAY better than I anticipated.
So far I've only a few test trackings done, all at 16/44. The first
takes were the morning capture (and it's working fine for that; I have a
Latinesque instrumental coming together over the last few days, and also
some kind of country pop song, all the good ideas of which are now
stashed on the laptop, dragged 'n' dropped from the H2). Those were
taken stereo with the "front" 90º mic pair. I was startled at the high
quality of the sound., just the basic "no shit??" kind of reaction.

I do note the USB xfer rate is tedious, and a card reader would help.

Last night I took it to a trio rehearsal aand ran it in 4 ch "surround"
mode.

There was a dining room table with Susie Wilson, vocalist, along one
long side at midpoint, and Ken Cawley, slide resonator player, and I,
guitar and vocal, on the other long side.

I put the H2 midway between us with the 90º pair aimed at Susie and the
120º pr aimed at Ken and I.

So Susie is centered in a stereo capture and Ken and I are caught in a
wide stereo image, bot not panned-to-the-sidewalls.

When auditioning directly from the H2 their mix/decode/whatever does an
amazing job of combining all that into a stereo playback.

Via the Senn HD280's there is an uncanny feeling that one is in the
middle of all this.

The 512 MB card doesn't offer a lot of 16/44 x 4, though; surround mode
ate it for a snack without burping. I'm looking forward to the 4 GB SDHC
card arriving today.


Based on my use of this recorder so far I will now stand up in front of
y'all and commit professional audio heresey:

Henceforth, the eternal newbie questions, what cheap mics, what pre,
blah blah, if asked me by any solo artist now, will get the
recommendation to get an H2 and learn:

- how to position oneself in a room
- where to put the "mics"
- how to deliver a balanced performance


Manage that well and this tiny inexpensive box will deliver silly good
quality. For two hundred bucks one gets two pair of decent cheap
cardioid condenser mics, bettter than just "okay" conversion, both in
and out, AFAICT from listening directly to the output in the cans, and
portability. Nevermind the interesting surround function.

Many fine recordings, historically, were made using kit with resolution
nowhere near what this puppy offers. In my view, the beginner kit game,
for a soloist, is over: this is the tool, and if one gets it right on
the input side one will have usable tracks.


Hell, I haven't even tried it @ 24 bits yet.


--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam