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Double Bass Zoom H2 Recorder. Any experience?

Greg Clinkingbeard

Greg Clinkingbeard

Commercial User
Apr 4, 2005
4,629
2,345
Kansas City area
Disclosures
Black Dog Bass Works
#1
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

On a recent gig with a 10 pc jazz group, we recorded the performance with one of these little things. The band, seven horns and rhythm section were set up in kind of a V with the horns brass and reeds somewhat facing each other. The rhythm section was in back. The mic was set up out front center. We did the recording with the intent of being able to critically listen to ourselves, warts and all.:( There are a few warts.

In listening to the playback, it bothered me that the bass was almost inaudible, although it was pretty loud, warm and fat on the gig. The other instruments, particularly the drums sound thin. I'm wondering if this is due to a proximity effect; the low end response falls off the further away from the mic we are.

We're doing it again on Monday and the leader wants me to turn up and fatten the tone for the sake of a recording, which I will do, but I wonder how much it will help.

I'm curious to know if any of you have experience with this little thing. For the convenience and price, it seems to be a useful tool.
 
#2
I have a friend who recorded our folk quartet earlier this week with one of these with great results. My DB came through with a full sound. Mind you I wasn't competing against a big horn section. Maybe you should check whether it is set on MP3 record or WAV record. Wav is CD quality but MP3 is, I believe, one tenth of the quality of WAV.
 
#5
clink said:
In listening to the playback, i...base/acoustic/invsqs.html"]inverse square law explains that the intensity of the sound will drop off rapidly as you move away from the source. If the Horns were 6 feet away from the mics and you were 12, they could be heard as much as 4 times louder (than the bass) on the recording than they were in the room, depending on the characteristics of the room. Moving mics a couple of inches can make a big difference. Just get the bass and/or amp closer to the mics.

You have make a test run or two and check it. Bring some really good headphones (Sennheiser, AKG, or similar - probably run you about $100 a pair) to listen to a soundcheck. Otherwise you're guessing.

Another option - omni microphones are excellent for picking up low frequencies at a distance. If you can plug in external mics, try a pair of Naiant MSH-1's. Cheap and good. I own four. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Click to expand...
 
#6
Let's not confuse intensity (a physical quantity) with loudness (a psychological quantity). Holding frequency content constant, perceived loudness roughly doubles with every 10-dB increment. If two sounds of equal frequency content were in the acoustic far-field (where the inverse square-law holds) and one was twice the distance from the microphone as the other, then it's intensity would be 1/4 that of the closer source. That translates to a 6-dB difference and the loudness of the closer source (all other things being equal) would be perceived to be less than 2x (not nearly 4x) that of the farther source.

The rest of the observations were quite correct. One has to factor in relative intensity and the degree to which the various instruments are off-axis from the microphone.

Now to the matter at hand. The H-2 is one fantastic device. It is a stupidly good deal! I have made several recordings of our group with it. I was quite successful placing the microphone about 15-20 feet from the ensemble and slightly higher than the level of the horns. The mix heard at the location of the H-2 was very much what was captured in the recording. Buy an H-2!
 
#7
drurb said:
Now to the matter at hand. The H-2 is one fantastic device. It is a stupidly good deal! I have made several recordings of our group with it. I was quite successful placing the microphone about 15-20 feet from the ensemble and slightly higher than the level of the horns. The mix heard at the location of the H-2 was very much what was captured in the recording. Buy an H-2!
Click to expand...

Ditto, except the device was 50 feet away. The boys and girls in the band told me I was just a hair too loud (just the way I like it!) and this was confirmed by the zoom.

In your case, could it have been that there was a vast difference between what was being heard on stage versus in the audience?
 
#10
drurb said:
Now to the matter at hand. The H-2 is one fantastic device. It is a stupidly good deal! I have made several recordings of our group with it. I was quite successful placing the microphone about 15-20 feet from the ensemble and slightly higher than the level of the horns. The mix heard at the location of the H-2 was very much what was captured in the recording. Buy an H-2!
Click to expand...

It's good to hear. I'm suspecting that the low cut filter was on.
We made an mp3 recording, so that may also be the culprit.
FWIW, I wasn't involved in any of this, until receiving a link to download the mp3.

A couple of things:
The mic was set at about chest level about 15 feet directly in front of me. I was directly between the drums and piano and behind the horns. The mic was set just a few feet beyond the outside horns when visualizing a V shape.
I felt like the bass was very warm, woody and a bit louder than it needed to be when playing, but it sounded nothing like that in the recording.

This ensemble is a budding jazz band playing all original material. Our 'gig' is mainly for rehearsal. Our setup and now the recording is done primarily with the intent of being able to hear the entire group clearly so that we can improve. The writer/arranger also wants to hear his material played correctly to make a few adjustments now and then.


Friends in the audience have said we sound good. I've been told the bass sounds nice out in the room. It would be nice to capture that.:D
 
#13
I have 4 songs of my band recorded in MP3 mode on my band's MySpace site if you want some other examples of what the H2 can do (link in my sig).

Within a week, I should also have a basic review of the H2 and H4 recorders at the Premier Guitar website among the web exclusives:

Link Removed

Overall, I think you should be able to get a usable recording...be sure the sensitivity switch is set for a good level without clipping. Probably the low setting would work for the full band. Maybe use the 120 degree mic side for the larger group.
 
#15
adbass said:
Ditto, except the device was 50 feet away. The boys and girls in the band told me I was just a hair too loud (just the way I like it!) and this was confirmed by the zoom.

In your case, could it have been that there was a vast difference between what was being heard on stage versus in the audience?
Click to expand...

Certainly what one hears on stage is almost always very different than what is heard at the location of a listener in the audience. We're a small group and don't use stage monitors. What we'll usually do is evaluate the mix at an audience-member position. Then, I might change my position on stage relative to my rig and the other members of the group so that I can hear myself and so that I can hear them. It's always a compromise.
 
#16
fingers said:
Doesn't bass have the tendency to sound louder further away because of the length of the sound waves?
Click to expand...

I'll try a bit of interpretation of the question. It's not the case that the bass will sound louder the further away you move it. I figure that's not really what you meant because, obviously, if we move it a mile away, it won't be louder than it was at a reasonable distance. I'm supposing you were really asking about what happens in a reverberant room as the bass is pushed farther away. There too, it will not be more intense and sound louder as it is moved farther away. What is true is that those long wavelengths can, practically speaking, fall off less in intensity than shorter ones (high frequencies) because they may not be absorbed as much and because room modes (resonances) may support them. It's not that the inverse-square law doesn't hold, it's that high frequencies can suffer the drop from the inverse-square reduction PLUS absorption. Think about what you hear when the noisy neighbor in the apartment next door is playing his/her music too loud late at night and keeping you awake. Boom-boom-boom. The bass comes right through the wall (the highs are largely absorbed) and even as a DB player you're not happy to hear it! :)

Now, add to all of this that low frequencies mask high and that instruments usually producing the higher frequencies (e.g., horns) have a more directional radiating pattern and you find that more often in rooms, it's those relatively low frequencies that are the survivors. In other words, WE have the power (pun intended), so those other guys shouldn't mess with us. Then again, take the performance outdoors and, boy, are we ever in trouble! ;)
 
#17
low.eadg said:
Here is a post from someone who's done his homework. A lot of good information and more on the Zoom H4 & H2 forum.
Click to expand...

A fine resource-- thanks!

You might be better off ignoring the following if you've not read that linked post:

Overall, it's good advice but I'd like to elaborate on the the part about leaving the level set at "100" and why, as the author of the post points out, it is sometimes worth lowering it. The record-level functions as a multiplier of the numeric samples after they are converted. Basically it determines how the voltages coming in from the microphone are scaled. Just for fun, let's say that leaving the setting at 100 assigns a value of 32768 (full-tilt at 16 bits) to a 1-volt signal. We'll suppose as well that we have the gain setting for the mic set at "M" as suggested. Okay, now a 1.1-volt signal come in. Oops! We've run out of numbers! That means we've clipped the signal in the conversion process. Had we pushed the level setting below 100, we'd have given ourselves the room we needed. The bottom line is that one should pay attention to what the H-2 recording meter is saying. It will show you when you are clipping.
 
#18
tornadobass said:
I have 4 songs of my band recorded in MP3 mode on my band's MySpace site if you want some other examples of what the H2 can do (link in my sig).

Within a week, I should also have a basic review of the H2 and H4 recorders at the Premier Guitar website among the web exclusives:

Link Removed

Overall, I think you should be able to get a usable recording...be sure the sensitivity switch is set for a good level without clipping. Probably the low setting would work for the full band. Maybe use the 120 degree mic side for the larger group.
Click to expand...

Great Review on Premier Guitar Dan. If I would have known you were an H2 expert when we met I would have let my parking meter expire. :) I have been looking into getting one for quite some time to record band practices and now I think im sold.
 
#19
Glad it was a helpful review. I tried to discuss the recorders in practical terms rather than speaking to the techie. I think the H2 will especially have appeal to players who want to record gigs, practices and even livingroom jams.
 
#20
A fantastic unit. Much, much better than the Microtrack. I'm actually a field recording artist as well as bassist, and this thing for the money is superb. I've recorded a number of gigs with it. Some of Doug Whimbish, Combination Head and Wojtek Pilichowski. Here's a link to Wojtek Pilichowski recorded on the day I bought the H2 at Music Live in Birmingham. He was doing an Ashdown clinic. I'd only had the unit for 10 minutes. Unfortunately I missed the beginning of his set. The download is good for 7 days or 100 downloads.
 

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