Re: Zoom H4...Does anyone have any really good clips?

It's easy to hear these things when you've already been told what you're listening to ;-) I'd probably come out a self-deluding fool on a blind A/B test.

If someone had told me the andyandrichie clips were recorded with Schoeps mics and vintage Neve preamps, I'd either have missed it entirely, thought I needed to re-evaluate my listening, or at best been amazed how much the H2 sounded like mega-expensive vintage gear.

Still, I think it helps when you know the equipment well enough and used it in enough different circumstances to have a sense of what its voice and coloration are. It also helps to have other gear to use as a baseline. I remember back in the day when I had a 12 bit Ensoniq EPS sampling keyboard: After a while I got very familiar with its sound of digital graininess. After a while, I hated the sound of that thing. When I first got the damned EPS though, I thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard.

It's kind of like recognizing that "Cher" sound that happens from excessive pitch correction applied to vocals. Once you know what it is, you can identify it. If you've loaded a few H2 recordings into the same DAW, room, location, and monitors that you've used with other clips recorded on other gear, and keep making the same adjustments and corrections to the H2 tracks, you get a pretty good sense of its sound and voice. For example, I notice that my guitar always had a certain type of plinkiness when it was recorded by the H2, and I was always trying to tweak it down.

Also, you might notice the difference in Jim's clips more on different speakers or headphones, or through a different system. Everything sounds like the same tinny crap on my laptop speakers or on a set of crappy computer speakers.

Also, listening to a mix or fidelity is quite a different thing from having a good ear and memory for lines, chords, and music. If you spend time working with recording and mixing, you can get very focused in on things like frequency response, EQ curves, attacks, compressions, different types of distortion, and things that are more mix-specific than music specific.

I remember a couple years ago playing an outdoor concert and the soundman was a little green. He kept getting a hum from one of the mics. I told him to check and replace the XLR cable because I recognized the sound as RF and 60-cycle hum -- and I knew from experience the sound and level of an balanced XLR line that had become ungrounded or unbalanced. I suggested he check and replace the XLR cable on the humming line, and he scoffed at me, dismissing me as a wannabe who couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of a mixing board. 45 minutes later, after he'd hit every switch on the mixing board and triple checked every other connection, he finally replaced the damaged cable I'd suggested and the problem was solved. If he'd had it happen to him before, he'd have recognized the sound.






"Paul K" <username@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:PM00045DBD3C656A68@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chickenhead wrote:
www.soundclick.com/andyandrichie

Agreed. That's about as good as I've ever heard an H2 sound (and nice
playing too!).

Perhaps it's just a placebo psychological effect from knowing it was done
with an H2, but I'm still definitely hearing the H2 mic sound. The H2 mics
do something weird, tinny, and a little harsh in the high end, almost like a
high-end compression and boost; and the midrange detail seems to be lacking.
I can hear some of the same artifacts I get when recording with my own H2.


You have awesome ears (ditto for the people who responded to Jim Soloway's
different clips). I can sometimes tell the difference between recordings, but
it seems to me by the time you get to an MP3 most subtlely is gone. The
differences, *if* I hear them, dont make one better than the other. In
ensemble recordings balance makes a big difference (to my ears) but in solo
stuff (played on the same guitar by the same person)

I agree that the andyandritchie stuff sounds pretty good. It seems like they
placed it/their amps in just the right place.

Here's one I recorded on the H4 that I think picks up the bass very well,
although less so the guitar:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6427016

(ignore the clams) I'n general I think the H4 (and H2) do what they are
suppose to do really well.

Paul K
--
http://www.youtube.com/TopologyPaul
http://www.soundclick.com/paulkirk

.

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