The Zoom H2 – Point and Shoot Surround Sound
31 05 2009
One of the downsides of shooting landscape videos is the problem with the built-in mics of a Camcorder. It isn’t that my Canon HF10 and Sony HC1 microphones are bad, but they are extremely susceptible to wind noise, making most location sound unusable. I’ve been struggling on what I was going to do to solve the problem.
A few years ago, I owned an excellent pair of Core Sound Binaural microphones that I used for environmental sound with a Sony Minidisc recorder. The microphones were lost, and I had planned on getting a new pair. I also wanted a new recorder; something that used flash cards so I could just copy the files over to my PC after recording. I figured that replacing my microphone set and purchasing a decent recorder was going to set me back around $450-600. Also high on my wish list was maybe finding a decent set of quad microphones to record surround sound in the field. Again, core sound has an excellent product with their Tetramic, but at $1000, it is out of my league, especially considering I still have lots of photographic equipment to purchase before my trip out west in 2010.
Last week I stumbled across the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, purchased it, and I couldn’t be happier. IF you do a Google search for the recorder, you will find lots of information.
Briefly, this small recorder comes with four microphones built-in; two in the front, set to a 90 degree field, and the two rear mics at a 120 degree field.
You can record in mono, stereo (using either the front or rear mics), four-channel stereo (using all four mics), or four-channel surround. Note that the surround feature is not 5.1 sound, and it really isn’t needed. Simply setup the H2 and it will output two stereo files. The front files are the 90 degree angle and the rear files are the 120 degree angle. In my case all I have to do in Sony Vegas is drop the two files into a Dolby 5.1 project. I can add just a bit of delay on the rear channel files to create a wider sounding sound field, mix a bit of the front channels into the center channel if needed, and Vegas can be setup to automatically create the LFE Channel based on certain frequencies.
The H2 remembers your last settings, so all I have to do is turn it on, arm it for recording, check my sound levels and then hit the record button. For surround sound, the H2 defaults to .wav files, and since the processing can be heavy for this process, I purchased a 4Gig Class 4 SDHC for asbout $15 and it works really well. The 4Gigs of storage will allow for about 3 hours of surround sound on the device.
I’m not going to go through all of the many features of the H2, but here are some highlights:
- .wav and .mp3 recordings at many bitrates
- files are time-stamped, and cue points can be marked in the file as you record
- USB port
- Many types of Automatic Gain Control, limiting and compression
- External mic input
- Comes with a stand (pictured), also a microphone stand adapter
- Can be mounted on a standard tripod
- Foam windscreen (seems to work well, although some other owners are using “dead cat” windscreens)
- Tuner for musical instruments
- Metronome
One common complaint I’ve head about the H2 is that the preamp for the external microphone is noisy. This was a common complaint when the unit was first released, and I’m not sure if the later models exhibit this problem. Another complaint is the “membrane” keypad. The keypad doesn’t bother me at all, and in fact will probably be better for keeping dust out of the unit when used outdoors.
The display screen is small and difficult to read. However, for recording purposes, once you have the unit configured for the way you want to record, it’s just a matter of turning it on and hitting a couple of buttons to begin.
My biggest worry is that the door for the SD/SDHC card slot seems a bit flimsy.
Sound Quality
The H2 doesn’t come close to matching the sound of my old binaural microphones. Binaurals have a depth and richness that is hard to explain. In my case the tradeoff in sound quality is offset by the fact that I can record front and rear 4 channel sound on location. I want to stress that the quality of the buit-in mics of the H2 are good, just not as good as my binaurals.
The H2 is a steal at $179 retail.
Below is a 1:44 sound demo I’ve recorded. The two four-channel .wav files from the H2 were mixed to a two-channel .wav file in Sony Vegas:
- H2 in Car as I go through an underpass in Huntington
- H2 in car – A motorcycle passes me
- H2 mounted on tripod – Nature sounds in the forest
- H2 on its floor stand on my front porch – rain and distant thunder
You’ll notice some phase shifting on the thunder, due to mixing down to stereo. In a four channel mix this would not be a problem.
I noticed today that IE8 seems to have a problem linking to the file. You may have to right-click the link and save it to your computer.
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