AV News 174 - November 2008
Digital Sound Recording
Peter Appleton
I am recently retired but spent most of my working life in the IT business. So
I have a general understanding of what the component parts of a computer
do and how they interact with one another. Ever since 1984 I had been
making single projector slide-tape sequences and had built up a loyal
following of audiences amongst local organisations. In early summer of
2005, I was introduced to Pictures-to-Exe and became hooked on digital AV.
After taking up digital AV I found myself struggling to get decent quality
voice-over recordings. All attempts were plagued by unwanted hum, hiss and
other extraneous noise. Even if I fed a known, good signal from one of my
existing sequences into the input sockets on the PC’s soundcard, I still got a
noisy recording. The root cause seemed to lie in what was happening to the
analogue signal after it entered the computer.
So I decided to investigate the feasibility of creating a digital recording
outside the computer that could be “imported” as a data file. Cost would be
a major factor. After much ‘Googling’, I eventually hit upon the Zoom H4
Digital Sound Recorder. As soon as I read its specification I knew I had found
a potential solution to all my problems. It runs on
two AA batteries (so, no mains hum!). It records to
an SD storage card (so no mechanical noise!). It
records in either WAV or MP3 format (so no file
conversions!). It connects to
the PC via a USB cable and is
seen by the PC as just
another hard-drive (so “importing” the files is just Drag
and Drop!). It cost me £250 or as Howard Gregory
would say: “about the same as a good quality extra lens
for the camera”. (OK, Howard, maybe two lenses!).
It comes with in-built stereo microphones and is
supplied with the wind baffle seen in the main
picture, an AC mains adapter, a USB cable and a
cradle that allows the unit to be attached to a tripod.
The in-built microphones have an adjustable gain
offering three pre-sets: Low, Medium and High.
The acid test is: how does it perform?
Unfortunately I cannot demonstrate that here in print but, thanks to the new
website for AV News, I can let you hear for yourself. I have prepared a short
demonstration recording, which is a 3 MegaByte MP3 file and it is available
at www.avnews.org.uk (follow the links to Issue 174 then select Zoom H4
Demo from the Contents page Ed). On that f [K\