I recorded a freight train passing from 20 ft away and the engineer blew the horn right as the engine passed. And it sounds GREAT!

That H2 is a great recorder AND handheld mic.

Maybe "staticky" was the wrong word, but with the camcorder on board mic you hear the "hissing" in the background, or whatever it's called.

They weren't exactly the same distance apart, wasn't thinking about that, but they were pretty close distance apart.

The gain on the H2 was on high, when it was on low the volume it recorded me was very low.

I didn't do anything with the average audio levels, not sure how to do that even at this point, I just recorded both and muted one then the other, didn't do any audio "cleaning" or anything.

OK, so it's not a very scientific comparison, but clearly the H2 does a way better job, wanted to see for myself and thought I'd share.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I'll look into the audio level stuff and see if I can figure that part out as well.

Maybe "staticky" was the wrong word, but with the camcorder on board mic you hear the "hissing" in the background, or whatever it's called.

Both words are wrong .. a better term would be "room ambiance" or "echos" (even though you don't hear multiple echos fading out)

Also, I disagree that a true test would have both the zoom and the camcorder at the same distance. You get better sound the closer the mic is to the subject. You would get even better sound from the Zoom if you held it a few inches from your mouth. However it would be in camera shot, so even better would be to buy a lav mic and plug it into the Zoom (or, since the cord is long, directly into the camcorder) Something like this would work very well:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/664437-REG/Audio_Technica_ATR3350_ATR3350_Omnidirectional_Condenser_Lavalier.html

Also ... you didn't explain what the "wireless" kit was.

PS. I own a Zoom H2 .. and the Edirol R-09 .. and use them both for video as Dual System Sound recorders. In other words to record the audio seperately from the camcorder and then sync when editing. Not as hard as you would think.

This is the wireless kit I got with it: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/658886-REG/Audio_Technica__Wireless_Microphone_Zoom.htmlAudio-Technica Wireless Microphone & Zoom H2 Portable Recorder Kit - Clip-On Mic (T2)[/link]

It also includes the lav mic you mentioned, but I didn't use it for this test.

Thanks for the info!

Kevin, thanks for posting your findings. It would be nice to also hear a recording through the wireless Lav. How about bring the H2 to our June Vegas User Group meeting so we can have a play.

Also, for weddings do you think the H2 could be stuffed in the groom's pocket or placed on a belt clip? Is it small enough, and can you lock the controls?

/jerry

Just thought it should be recorded that in this thread, JC and BW have agreed on something.
... on to Palestine.

Peter
(proud owner of Zooms H4 and R16)

Got 2 H2's and an R16... great products!

But why would you need a wireless system to transmit to the H2? Why not simply plug the lavalier into the H2 and put it on the person speaking!

That kit price is great. I paid almost that much for the H2 way back when.

The Sony PCM-D50 is a very attractive alternative in the entry-level portable digital recorder market. Among other impressive features, it boasts an amazing 40+ hours of battery life on a pair of AAs.

The Sony PCM-D50 is a very attractive alternative in the entry-level portable digital recorder market. Among other impressive features, it boasts an amazing 40+ hours of battery life on a pair of AAs.

Looks good, with the exception that it uses Sony's proprietary memory cards instead of SDHC. Not to mention that it costs $445 while the Zoom H2 is $138.50 (I paid $200 for it in 2008), both prices from B&H of course, not Brooklyn crooks.

I've had the Zoom H2 for over a year, it's a nice little device and can record excellent audio, but you have to play with it because it has several dynamic range compression levels and with some of them you will get clipped audio and with others you will get audio that's barely audible. Added to that it has three mic gain settings which really make a difference depending on the situation.

Last weekend I recorded a wedding in Asheville and I set the H2 on the stage on a mini tripod to record the band, which was playing what they called "gipsy jazz", and the recording came out great. After doing a high shelf in Vegas to bring out the highs a little bit, it sounds amazing considering that it was on a stage with not the best sound equipment. For this I used the AGC/Comp preset "Limit 2 (Concert)" after testing different modes during a bit of the band's rehearsal.

The only three drawbacks I see in this device is that it doesn't have a belt clip and also the little door you have to open to put the SD or SDHC card in and out is really flimsy, connected to the main casing by two tiny legs, one of which will eventually break, as it did with mine, and I'm the kind of geek that's really careful with gear. But the reason why it will break is that this thing is USB 1.1, and so the transfer speed is really slow, for which you will have to take out the card after each recording to put it in a USB 2.0 card reader or device.

My mistake, the PCM-M10 is actually the device I was thinking of. The cost is comparable to the Zoom H4N, but it has some really killer features, such as the 40+ hours of battery life and a non-proprietary SD card slot.

The D50 that I mentioned above actually provides about 25 hours of battery life, which is still very impressive.

Thanks for the heads-up on the M10, I was unaware of its existence.

ForumAdmin, nice looking unit with good reviews on B&H. Does this unit allow you to lock the external controls so they don't inadvertantly get change when stuffed away in a pocket?

/jerry

"Does this unit allow you to lock the external controls"

Yes, there is a HOLD function on the power switch which locks the controls.

We have a Zoom H2 and also a Zoom H4N.
We often set them up as "supplemental" audio for our 2-camera shoots (mainly school shows); run2 to 4 mics direct to our cameras, and then set the Zooms close to some of the action -- for example, in a show that had occasional "narration" offstage, we put a Zoom on the same mic stand that was used by the narrators. The audio from the Zoom was much better, for some reason, than the audio that ran from their in-house mic through their board.
We set both Zooms to record at 48KHz, 16-bit.
My only minor difficulty: In postproduction, the H2 audio stays in synch with camera audio for 20-30 minutes, before the "drift" is noticeable. So we have to segment the shows into pieces about that long, if we want to use the H2 audio. The H4N audio, on the other hand, seems to stay in very good synch with the camera audio all the way through a show of up to 2 hours or so.

This is very true, the tolerance of the master clock frequency of the H2 (and the original H4) aren't as close to the ideal 48 Khz as the H4n. Fortunately, it is very easy to fix in Vegas.

This is very true, the tolerance of the master clock frequency of the H2 (and the original H4) aren't as close to the ideal 48 Khz as the H4n. Fortunately, it is very easy to fix in Vegas.

How? I'm asking because I might get another digital recorder, and I would like another H2 as long as this can be easily fixed like you say. Honestly I haven't used it so much to tell this problem, but Jerry told me about it, so I would like to find out more.

Someone else answered with this ... There were a couple of times that I've had to "re-sync" audio from an outboard recorder to a video for an hour long shoot. In every case the outboard audio started to move "behind" the video. (your mileage may vary) In other words the video showed a sound event, but you didn't hear it 'till slightly later.

In those cases it's a fairly simple job to expand the timeline sufficiently so you can pick a spot between words. Make a cut *only* on the outboard audio track. Then overlap it slightly until sync is restored.

This is the wireless kit I got with it: Audio-Technica Wireless Microphone & Zoom H2 Portable Recorder Kit - Clip-On Mic (T2)

No, that's not the same lav mic. The one I suggested in only wired, and comes with a 20 ft cord.

I just bought a second one of those for a shoot this weekend. Someone wants me to shoot a one on one interview and I want to mic both parties. I'll run the two mics into my Zoom H2 with a patch cord to retain stereo.

But that's MICRO SD.
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it has some really killer features, such as the 40+ hours of battery life and a non-proprietary SD card slot.

When the second audio starts to drift esp. on long programs, the best solution I have found is to chop it into ~10 min chunks, being careful to do so in quiet spots and at zero crossings, then let PluralEyes do the lining up for you. I went back and re-synced all my old shows this way, some with up to 5 audio tracks, and the results were stunning!

Hey, that's interesting.

I'm reading that these wireless lav mics can cut out or hiss all of a sudden, isn't it risky?

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I'll run the two mics into my Zoom H2 with a patch cord to retain stereo.