Zoom H2 question

[Slowgypsy]

Just got a Zoom H2. Primarily to be used for recording band rehearsal sessions, so each member can get a CD with that material for practice. I'd like to just turn the H2 on, and then then during the download in my computer, be able to separate the recorded material into individual song tracks and not just one very long track. My question is.... can I do this? I'm running a Mac, it does have garage band on it... if that's a useful program (haven't used it yet). Please be kind in your answers... I'm new at this. Any step by step info is very, very appreciated. Thanks....

[jumbosilverette]

Yes, you can do it. Each time you stop recording, the filename incrementalizes 1. So the first track would be 000.wav, the next 001.wav. and so forth. As far as Garage Band, it's a nice program but unnecessary unless you want to equalize or add additional material. Good luck. The Zoom is great and very easy to use.

[hunta]

Originally Posted by jumbosilverette

Yes, you can do it. Each time you stop recording, the filename incrementalizes 1. So the first track would be 000.wav, the next 001.wav. and so forth. As far as Garage Band, it's a nice program but unnecessary unless you want to equalize or add additional material. Good luck. The Zoom is great and very easy to use.

You can cut the clip up in Audacity (free) as well. It's probably a good idea to stop/start once in a while to save your recording anyway. Not sure how this works on the H2 but other recorders I've seen will lose your entire recording if they lose power or "crash". Some of the real high end recorders like Marantz will save on the fly, but I imagine the H2 doesn't.

[Slowgypsy]

Originally Posted by jumbosilverette

Yes, you can do it. Each time you stop recording, the filename incrementalizes 1. So the first track would be 000.wav, the next 001.wav. and so forth. As far as Garage Band, it's a nice program but unnecessary unless you want to equalize or add additional material. Good luck. The Zoom is great and very easy to use.

The thing is... do I actually have to start and stop the H2 during our sessions? I'd rather just turn it on and "edit" that one continuous track onto individual tracks later. Example: We rehearse for 2 hours and do 10 songs. The H2 was on continuous so actually I now have one 2-hour long track. I'd like to somehow load that into my computer and burn a CD that has 10 tracks representing the 10 songs we rehearsed... and simply cut out and discard all the time between songs. I totally understand that this is probably the simplest thing in the world to do... but like so many other things, I don't know how to do this. Keep the comments and suggestions coming... please!

[Peter Ferretti]

You should be good. Make sure you have the power adapter and a big enough memory card. I actually do the same process for my rehearsals/practice sessions and it works great. I have a 4GB card along with that adapter.

Then you can cut/eq/whatever you want in garageband or audacity and burn it in iTunes. Or toast. or whatever other burning program you have.


Best of luck.

[RiddimKing]

Slowgypsy:

I would recommend starting and stopping because you end up with discreet files in the chosen folder, and these are easy to name, and then edit in Garageband. But...if you don't want to go that way, this is what you need to do: Upload the soundfile to your computer (I record songs to my Zoom in MP3 format, not sure how this might change the following process if you are recording to .wav). Open a New Project in Garageband: add a "New Basic Track" (Under the "Track" menu). Drag and drop your sound file onto the Basic Track and wait for it to load. You can now listen/view your tracks. Set the track "cursor" where you want to effect a split and choose "Split" from the Edit Menu. You can make multiple cuts to delineate the sections you want to eliminate. Click and highlight the section you want to cut out, and then hit "Delete." After you've done all this (and along the way), make sure to save your changes. When you're done, you can export the file to Itunes ("File" menu). In Itunes, you select the track and under "Advanced" you can convert the track to MP3. (This is something you need to set up in Itunes preferences, though...and I can't remember the process, though you can Google it or check in Garageband for Dummies). Then you can drag the file to whatever application you want to use to burn a CD (or do it from Itunes). Hope this helps.

Rid

[RiddimKing]

I just re-read your posting. If you want 10 separate tracks on your CD...not one long track separated by short pauses, you shoud, after editing the long track, open a separate Garageband project for each song, and drag the now discreet "unit" from the original onto the track in each individual one. The rest of the process is the same.

[theshadow2001]

You can do it on the zoom

Menu ---> File---->Select the file you want to cut up---->Play to find where---->Divide


Anyway it's crap and it takes ages so you should probably just do it with a program.

[bigfatbass]

+1 the H2's onboard editing works, but is tedious and slow. It is not a unit designed for playback or easy scanning. Dump the whol thing into your hard drive and then google "free .wav editor (insert OS here)"

I've had good luck with Sound Studio 2.2.4 on my G5 Dual.

[fretlessrock]

There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest way is to chop the long track into smaller tracks and then load them into your CD burner app. I use different programs depending on what my final goal is. If you are going to fix overall levels and do a quick bit of compression, do to to the whole track, then clip out the individual tracks (copy, paste to new file), fix heads and tails, and burn.

If you can use an editor that supports regions, then you can just drop region markers between tracks. If the app supports regions then it will probably allow you to at least save as a SDII file or a disc image, and either will load to a program like Toast with the track splits intact.

My usual choice of app for this is DSP Quattro. I can do the entire process from editing, effects, track markers, and burning, all without leaving the app. DSPQ is having a few growing pains in the transition to Intel and Leopard, but it works great.

I also have Wave Editor, but have not done enough to be comfortable with its work flow.

Look around in the GB helpfile for track markers and see if you can do that. I have never tried, but you might be able to place markers and burn right from GB, or export to iTunes and burn from there.

[mambo4]

It's easy to start and stop the H2 between songs

Press red button once = record ready (light blinks) "filename001"
Press red button second time= record mode (light solid)
Press red button 3rd time = record stop (light off)

wait a few seconds while the track saves...

Press red button 4th time = creates a new file "filename002",record ready(light blinks)
Press red button 5th time= record mode (light solid) for new file
Press red button 6th time = record stop (light off)

repeat for each track.

i do this every rehearsal.

when you open the folders on your PC, you see a file for each track.

[Slowgypsy]

Thanks to all who offered their "pearls of wisdom"..... I've played with the H2 a bit tonight, recorded a few things both through the mic as well as direct.... yes, very easy to do. It loads into I-Tunes and from there it's straight forward. But... I can't seem to get Garage Band to open up these files. At the moment they're WAV files... do I need to do the MP3 conversion?? Or is there something else I'm missing here? Also, yes it's working via I-Tunes but... I-Tunes requires an internet connection to work, which I don't always have available. Any simple programs to suggest that just accepts the file from the H2 and lets me burn a CD? Any offers of wisdom most gratefully received. Thanks....

[Dave Muscato]

From what I understand, you don't open the [.wav or .mp3] files in Garageband; you create a new GB project, create a new basic track, and import the file (drag it into your newly-created basic track). You should be able to manipulate it from there.

I am having exactly the same issue with mine... It's a pain to start-and-stop the recorder, and an even bigger pain to chop it up using the on-board divider. Garageband is very slow and tedious, also... you have to create a new project for each track, etc. It would be really nice if the Zoom came with software that let you upload the whole file to your computer, then you chop it up and it automatically saves it as separate tracks, ready to burn. Maybe we should write to Zoom...

[jumbosilverette]

You can record directly as an MP3 on your Zoom, but the beauty of the H2 is WAV files are larger and contain more info. Converting a wav into an Mp3 file on a Windows machine is very simple. It's got to be easy on a Mac.

[kevinmoore73]

Originally Posted by hunta

Not sure how this works on the H2 but other recorders I've seen will lose your entire recording if they lose power or "crash". Some of the real high end recorders like Marantz will save on the fly, but I imagine the H2 doesn't.

No offense, but you imagine incorrectly. I've had the batteries die in my H2 and the recording is fine. This was for 44.1kHz/16-bit recording. Mp3 recording may behave differently.

[kevinmoore73]

Originally Posted by Slowgypsy

We rehearse for 2 hours and do 10 songs. The H2 was on continuous so actually I now have one 2-hour long track. I'd like to somehow load that into my computer and burn a CD that has 10 tracks representing the 10 songs we rehearsed... and simply cut out and discard all the time between songs.

This is exactly what I do with mine. Unless you're always "on the button" stopping and starting the H2 before and after each song, you're still going to have material to discard. Who wants to be a button jockey anyway? I go to practice to practice. I prefer to let the "tape roll," so to speak.

I edit my H2's recordings in Sony SoundForge on Windows. I'm sure similar programs exist for OS X. (And I'm pretty sure you can do it in Garage Band.)

[Dave Muscato]

Originally Posted by jumbosilverette

You can record directly as an MP3 on your Zoom, but the beauty of the H2 is WAV files are larger and contain more info. Converting a wav into an Mp3 file on a Windows machine is very simple. It's got to be easy on a Mac.

I think the OP was asking how to easily cut up a long file (say, a 2-hour rehearsal) into 10 songs, and cut out the 5 minutes-ish between each song, so that he could burn a CD of just the songs for each band member (with each song as a separate track). Converting to MP3 would still have the same problem... just one long mp3 file instead of wav.

[jumbosilverette]

True, Dave. but I thought he was suggesting in a later post that he could easily open mp3 files in Garage Band.

[Slowgypsy]

I'm still asking the same question... how to take one long recording and easily chop it up into individual tracks, burn onto a CD, and hand out to other members for practice. The WAV to MP3 info was added on my part cause I didn't know if Garage Band wanted that format, although I'm starting to think it doesn't matter. I think the H2 is a great piece of equipment.... just trying to make using it a simple process with minimum time investment. Keep the thoughts coming....

[kevinmoore73]

Originally Posted by Slowgypsy

I'm still asking the same question... how to take one long recording and easily chop it up into individual tracks, burn onto a CD, and hand out to other members for practice.

Someone early in the thread suggested Audacity. Did you download it and check it out?