Zoom H4N Pro Handy Recorder

There are three types of users that absolutely need to consider the Zoom H4n: 1) The guitar or bass player who wants to capture an idea for a song, along with a vocal track - For this user, the H4n provides a built-in tuner, a built-in metronome, and a simple recording interface that can have you up and running in no time. I'm not this user, but several of my friends are, and when they sat down and looked at it, they wanted to buy mine from me. 2) The person people go to for "Can you record my band at ______ on Tuesday night?" - For someone who wants to capture location audio, especially a mix of ambient sound and a feed from a system, the H4n is very close to ideal. For this type of session, I use the built-in stereo mics to capture un-mic'd sounds from the stage (drums, tambourine, misc noises from the props from on stage) as well as the sound of the auditorium. I place the H4n on a tripod at the foot of the stage, aimed roughly at stage center. For sound that comes through the house system, I bring in a pre-mixed feed from the sound board, and feed it into Input #1 at the base of the H4n, and record everything as 4-channel audio. Afterward, I mix Input #1 into both channels, bring the level of the stereo built-in mics down just a tad, export an MP3, and have a perfectly listenable mix that required almost no setup time on my part, and is mixed and exported in less than 10 minutes. Can it get any easier? 3) Someone recording audio for video/film - The new crop of video-recording DSLRs (the Nikon D90, the Canon 5D MkII and 7D, and the Panasonic GH1) all record audio, but you'll be better off recording audio separately, for a variety of reasons. (The fact of the matter is that most indie video should go this route, regardless of the camera being used, but that's a whole 'nother issue.) The H4n provides phantom power, has combo inputs (1/4" or XLR), and can even do some rudimentary signal processing, if you're so inclined. (I don't do this, and defer such things to post, but I can understand why some might work differently.) The H4n can record in BWF WAV format, which means if you carefully sync up the clock in the camera with the H4n, and then drop the resulting audio & video into your editor and have them properly sync'd. There are several DSLR configurations that work well with the H4n, but a great setup is mounting the H4n to the camera's hot shoe (get one of the many shock mounts that will handle the H4n), using the built-in mics to get ambient sound (which will be in stereo, if you want it, and will always have the correct left/right perspective to the camera) and then feed audio from a boom mic or a lav (or both) into Inputs #1/2. You have an 1/8" stereo output that you can then feed into the mic input on these cameras (usually a mono input, so get a stereo/mono adapter), and then your camera audio, while not great, will be something you can use to sync against (Pluraleyes is a great option there). Another setup for video is to put the H4n on a tripod that is roughly in the center of the "180 degree rule" space, capturing ambient sound that way, and again feeding Input #1/2 from a boom mic and maybe a lav. You'll probably not want to use the ambient sound, or may not want to use much of it, but it will give your editor a feel for how he/she may want to pan dialog if it's a stereo recording. (Knowing how far left or right someone's voice naturally sounded in the room, relative to a given point, can help you mix things in a way that will sound more natural. Technically, phase issues come into play as well, but you can fake things pretty effectively this way.) ***** I currently have a 16GB SD card in the H4n, which gives me about 6 hours of 4-channel recording at 44.1Khz/16-bit. For video, you'll want to go to 48Khz, and you can go to 24-bit for a bit more dynamic range, but I'm skeptical about the ability of this unit to really give you more than 16-bits worth of range from the built-in mics. (You *might* be able to get that from some external mics with really low self-noise, but I haven't seen any test data to support such a configuration.) Because of the ridiculous amount of recording you can do, I generally start the H4n at the first take of a scene, and then capture all the takes in one clip. When we're done with all the takes for that scene, I stop the H4n, set up for the next scene, and then roll it as we begin the first take there. I suppose I could find some things to complain about, but at this price, it seems kind of silly. The remote control is a probably good idea if you plan on mounting the H4n on a camera or on an elevated boom, but I've not missed it. EDIT/UPDATE: DEAD BATTERIES WILL MEAN CORRUPTED FILES One of the more recent ways I've used this is to grab sound at weddings from string instruments or other players that might not be mic'd. I did this recently, and was unable to find an AC outlet, so I had to run on batteries. Unfortunately, the batteries will only go about 45 minutes when they're phantom powering a Rode NTG-3 (the mic I have trained directly on the instruments), so it croaked during the service. Here's the bad part: When the H4n dies while recording, it will corrupt the files on the SD card. Some users online have reportedly been able to recover the files, but I was unable to do so (IT consulting and data recover is part of my business). If the batteries die when you're recording, expect that the files will be toast.