Zoom H4N reduced pricing for those interested

Wed May 26 14:13:50 UTC 2010

It’s an interesting discussion.  I think that the dichotomy between technology and “human aspects” is unnecessary. My goal in researching technology and working to improve it has always been for technology to become completely transparent, so that the “human aspects” take center stage. Unfortunately, in our work, technology often gets in the way. I believe it is because our needs are very unique and we are not targeted by manufacturers and their marketing departments as a viable market. They do not make equipment with fieldwork in mind. We constantly need to improvise, we need to tinker. When I talk to engineers and marketing people from Sennheiser, Shure, or Samson, they have never even imagined that their equipment is used by linguists. 

The problem is that if you go to a major retailer of audio technology you are walking across a mine field of poor advice and vested interest. The sales people have no experience with linguistic fieldwork. They have no idea what works and what doesn’t and why. We buy things based on their advice and we fail miserably in making things work because they’re designed for an entirely different purpose. If you are a radio or TV news reporter, technology is completely transparent to you, and you can focus on the story. The alternative so far, has been to piece together customized kits based on word-of-mouth advice from fellow researchers. This type of approach clearly doesn’t always work, which is why we’re having this discussion here. I think it’s great to have a forum such as RNLD to share our knowledge and experiences. I am sure others find it as useful as I do.

Bartek

From: Daryn McKenny [mailto:daryn at acra.org.au] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 5:48 PM
To: RNLD List
Subject: RE: Zoom H4N reduced pricing for those interested

Thanks Andrea, but I got no idea what “good-naturedly-polemic” means, seeing it has the word ‘good’ in it I will take it as the technical term for ‘a really, really good fella’. J

But that I suppose is the point I am trying to get across, there have been some excellent technical answers here which are all relevant but we have been a bit minimal on the human aspect of this, we can and do get caught up with technical way too much, and we all know what is technical today is going to be ancient tomorrow.

If we have to tug at the heart strings every now and then so be it, that’s what people do to me to bring me back to reality seeing as though I am also caught up in the technical world, so to Dr Terry that was a little tug from me, if you can afford it get a H4n or similar, if you can’t, fine, we all know that any recording is better than no recording and you are already doing great recordings with the H2.

We, like many others around the world, are currently digitising our old audio cassettes, the original recordings date back over 40 years, in other words yesterday and today all I have been listening to is these old recordings wishing we could have been able to have recorded that speaker today, because of the technology used then and what we have now.

Here is a link which you may have seen on ILAT: http://www.allanadam.com/index.php?page=home, what they are doing with their minimal support just brought me back to earth a bit.

Regards

Daryn 

Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association Inc. Trading as:

Miromaa Aboriginal Language and Technology Centre

P | 02 4927 8222    F | 02 4925 2185    E | daryn at acra.org.au    W | www.acra.org.au <http://www.acra.org.au/>  & www.miromaa.com.au <http://www.miromaa.com.au/> 

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From: Andrea L. Berez [mailto:andrea.berez at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, 25 May 2010 10:37 PM
To: Daryn McKenny
Cc: RNLD List
Subject: Re: Zoom H4N reduced pricing for those interested

Hi folks,

I have one of each; I find them both very good and I use them in different setting as each has different advantages. The H2 is my primary recorder for one-on-one sessions. I have never had it break, it is very easy to use, the sound quality is very good, and it has great battery life. Perhaps most importantly for me, my 80+ year old consultants think it looks familiar. It looks like a microphone, not a gadget from outer space. I also feel better tossing it in my bag and running around with it, since damaging it would not be such a financial hit. 

I use the H4n for larger, multispeaker situations where I can really take advantage of the two XLR inputs and some long cables. This is really useful for Elders Meetings and the like. I am very pleased with the quality of the 4-channel input, and the USB transfer is lightening-fast. I would also choose this one for recordings for detailed phonetic work, probably with an appropriate headmount mic (which I can't yet afford). However, it takes longer to set up (especially with externals), is hungrier for batteries than the H2 (in fact I don't dare use the external mics without plugging the thing into an electrical source for anything longer than about half an hour), and its appearance is too intimidating for intimate settings, especially with new consultants. 

If you have the money and the space in your kit for a back-up recorder, why not get one of each? There are pros and cons to both, and it's nice to have the luxury to choose the best tool for the situation at hand.

And Daryn, perhaps you were just being good-naturedly-polemic, but I think your "hard sell" line is a little too, well, hard. We all want the best possible recordings, but we have to balance that with other demands. There are times in my fieldwork where the highest-quality recorder is not the right tool for the job.

Just my two cents,
Andrea

And PS yes I do track in my metadata which recorder was used.
-----------------------------
Andrea L. Berez
PhD candidate, Dept. of Linguistics
University of California, Santa Barbara
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~aberez/

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 11:40 PM, Daryn McKenny <daryn at acra.org.au> wrote:

Terry my hard sell to you would be this:

BUY IT, your language work is to important and after you and your work is done hopefully younger ears are going to take over and you don’t want the young ones saying “I wish that Dr Terry fella had used a better recorder…”

Regards

Daryn 

Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association Inc. Trading as:

Miromaa Aboriginal Language and Technology Centre

P | 02 4927 8222    F | 02 4925 2185    E | daryn at acra.org.au    W | www.acra.org.au <http://www.acra.org.au/>  & www.miromaa.com.au <http://www.miromaa.com.au/> 

P  Please consider the environment before printing this email

The Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association Inc. respects the privacy of individuals and strives to comply with all areas of the Privacy Act. The contents of this email are intended for the purpose of the person or persons named in either the "To" or "CC" boxes of the email. Any person not named in these boxes in receipt of this email should immediately delete this email and advise the sender accordingly.

From: Terry J. Klokeid [mailto:klokeid at victoria.tc.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday, 25 May 2010 5:17 PM
To: RNLD List
Subject: Re: Zoom H4N reduced pricing for those interested

Thanks for your prompt and frank response, Mark.

The only thing is,

(a) our team has never had any H2 break. That's 4 H2s that have held up over about 2 years, and they travel about a fair bit.

(b) we find the sound quality excellent

and

(c) we use the built-in mikes, not plugins.

Consideration (b) concerns me. We find the sound quality excellent - is that due to the fact that our ears are all over 60 years old?  Some being in the 75-80 year old range. Do younger ears hear differences in speech sound quality that escape us?

I could go buy an H4n tomorrow, as I'll be visiting the Big City (as we call it), but I do need to be convinced.

Dr. Terry J. Klokeid
Nuchquu-a

Adjunct Professor of Linguistics, University of Victoria

Coordinator, Nuu-chah-nulth Language Council

Developer, Huu-ay-aht Language Recovery Program

North Island College, Room S111A 

3699 Roger Street 
Port Alberni, BC  V9Y 8E3          

250.724.8743

klokeid at uvic.ca

On 2010-05-24, at 11:19 pm, Mark Post wrote:

In my experience, the H2 (a) is cheaply made and prone to breaking (b) has terrible inbuilt mics and (c) only has a 3.5mm input, hence requiring either an XLR->3.5mm adaptor or willingness to settle on a substandard mic. For the additional money, the H4n performs *much* better on all of these fronts. I still use H2s as emergency backups, and they are certainly nice and lightweight/small, but the H4n really does produce far, far better recordings!
Mark

On 25/05/2010 16:11, Terry J. Klokeid wrote: 

On this list, I discern an avoidance of the Zoom H2, which can be purchased for less than half what the H4 costs. Can someone please explain what  reasons there are for not using the H2.  Our language team uses H2s and we are happy with the gadget. Are we missing something? 

For example:

On 2010-05-24, at 10:56 pm, Daryn McKenny wrote:

...The Zoom [H4N ] gets mentioned a bit here, I just thought I would let you all know that our supplier in Newcastle is currently selling them for $439... This product first started at $899 then $649 and now this price, too good. 

-- 
Mark W. Post, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Anthropological Linguistics
The Cairns Institute
James Cook University
QLD 4878 Australia

EML: mark.post at jcu.edu.au
TEL: +61-7-4042-1881 (AU)
TEL: +91-97183-63544 (IN-Del)
TEL: +91-94360-42352 (IN-NE)

Web: http://jamescook.academia.edu/MarkWPost

Terry J. Klokeid

klokeid at uvic.ca

Dr. Terry J. Klokeid
Nuchquu-a

Adjunct Professor of Linguistics, University of Victoria

Coordinator, Nuu-chah-nulth Language Council

Developer, Huu-ay-aht Language Recovery Program

North Island College, Room S111A 

3699 Roger Street 
Port Alberni, BC  V9Y 8E3          

250.724.8743

home office

Amblewood Multimedia Consulting

126 Amblewood Drive
SaltSpring Island BC V8K 1X2

250.653.4099

mobile 250.208.9567

klokeid at uvic.ca

Terry J. Klokeid

klokeid at uvic.ca

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