MyPad posting notwithstanding, I don’t intend this as a product review site. Plenty of those already exist, and it takes actual work to do reviews right. On the other hand, I’m not hesitant to mention things I like.
My cousin invited us to a pickin’ this weekend, something we’ve been doing since our teens. The music, instruments, cast of characters, and energy levels have all changed over the years, but a pickin’ is still great fun.
On the way out of town, I stopped by a music store and bought a Zoom H1 digital recorder. My cousin has been trying to use a mini-disk recorder for quite a few years with mixed results. The technology has caught up to, and passed, the mini-disk, and I’ve been trying to talk him into an upgrade for several months. Since he is as averse to change as most of us, I finally figured out the only way it would happen would be for him to experience the difference.
Fact is, I had never used one of these critters myself, but the tech specs look good, and I had heard good reports about them, so I figured it was worth $99 to get smarter. And I might even be able to get my investment back if my cousin liked it.
How did it turn out? Well, I don’t have a Zoom at present, but I do have a check in my pocket from my cousin. We recorded about 3.5 hours of music over two days. The sound was good, the recording time was amazing, and I don’t think we even came close to using up the AA battery.
Although I operated it most of the time (translation: push the big red button to start recording, push it again to stop), he was comfortable that it would be easier to manage than the mini-disk.
I was going to describe my favorite features, but I really don’t know where to start. It’s light, flexible, really just generally amazing. This link has more technical details.
Maybe the best thing to do is to just post a couple of recordings. These were recorded in Jimmy’s living room. There were 2 guitars (Jimmy and Bo), a mandolin (Brant), an upright bass (yours truly) and the singers (Melinda on the first song, and Bo on the second). I just stuck the H1 on a tripod a couple of feet back from the middle of our semi-circle and let ‘er rip.
I used Audacity to clip these two songs out. The performances aren’t perfect (since none of the pickers are), but I thought they make a pretty good demo of the Zoom. The stereo separation is great, particularly if you listen with earphones.
So I’ll close with these two numbers. I may post some other songs if there’s any interest, so, as we say to the twelve-string guitar players, “stay tuned.”
Such great fun. Thanks for letting me be part of it.
Comment by Brant Beene — November 15, 2010 @ 10:13 pm
Yay! I wanted my own copy of these. It was even better on site, folks.
Comment by Carol Cole — November 16, 2010 @ 6:21 pm