If you’re curious to hear the results of the H4 in action, Brad’s story was on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday. (More on the coworking story at Brad’s blog.) I make a brief cameo, and provide a fair bit of the ambient sound at the beginning, which I find amusing. But whether or not it’s the best choice for you, the H4 can certainly be used in pro applications.

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For field recording, sampling, recording practices and performances, video production, and a lot of other purposes, just about everyone wants an ideal digital mobile recorder. If you haven’t been following comments, we’ve had an extended discussion by readers on the Zoom H4 mobile recorder, its upcoming smaller sibling the H2, and competitive devices like Edirol’s R09.

Now, the excellent new blog bleeps has had some hands-on time with the H4 in movie production:
10 reasons a Zoom H4 is handy on a movie set!

Interestingly, the main issue other readers have had with the H4 — difficulty accessing mic level controls — wasn’t really a problem in this application. The basic internal stereo mics did just fine for stereo imaging. And there’s no shortage of uses:

• Recording primary on-location sound in stereo (even with the built-in mics, though the H4 also has XLRs)
• On-the-fly foley / sound effects
• Ambient audio, room tone, etc.
• On-location audio playback
• Lots of storage for interviews, extra tracks
• It’s not a camera.

Be sure to check out the full writeup for more details.

“It’s not a camera” may seem an obvious point, but you might be surprised by how big an issue this is, even on larger productions. Video production staff have a nasty habit of trying to record everything to cameras. That means pricey cameras dedicated to nothing but recording audio, with non-standard batteries (the H4 does AA’s) and extremely limited storage on arcane storage formats. That and, of course, most cameras are lousy audio recorders.

Those of you doing on-location video production, what do you use? Some readers here are using higher-end recorders for audio from Marantz and others. What readers are not doing is fancy SMPTE sync to the cameras, because virtually no productions have the time or interest in fiddling with something like that.

In other news, I bought the bullet and bit an H4 — wait a minute. Reverse that. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes; I’ll be using it on location for a couple of things later this week I think you’ll enjoy. More soon.

Everyone is looking for the Zoom H2, a nifty portable flash recorder with a merciful street of around US$200 and a built-in mic. We know because you’ve all started hitting our ancient page on the H2. It in fact isn’t shipping yet; Sweetwater has an explanation on their site:

The Zoom H2 is expected to begin arriving in stores in August (slightly delayed by an improvement to the microphone design).

Just to demonstrate I’m not linking to them for affiliate cash, I’ll, erm, not link to them. But I expect you can find them (add a dot-com to their name) or try your favorite retailer and perhaps get a similar story.

It looks very nice, and I have to admit I’m myself looking for a new portable recorder. It seems like it’d actually be worth spending the extra US$100 and getting a Zoom H4, which adds XLR/line ins and phantom power for when you need them. (It’s also got four-tracking capability and effects, but the external mic in to me is the big draw.) Advice?

There’s such interest in this, I think we may need to make a portable recorder mega-page. Leave your suggestions here.

We broke the story on the H2 and deferred to our friends on O’Reilly on reviewing the H4. But you will find lots of reader comments (surprisingly, more H4 feedback on the H2 story — check out comments). Could help you make a smart purchasing decision; I’ll be using it to make mine:

Recording@NAMM: Zoom’s $199 USB H2 Mobile Mic/Recorder, Found in the Wild
O’Reilly Reviews Zoom H4 in Hawaii: Good, with Quirks