[RNLD] H6

[Amanda Rose Hamilton]

Dear Mark et al,

Hello!  I have just returned from three months in the field in the Northern Territory (Australia) and used a Zoom H6 as my sole recorder.  I thought it did really well, and I am very happy with it (though I have never used the H4N so I can’t make a direct comparison).

First, I was really satisfied with the sound quality that’s achievable from two top-mounted mics that come with the recorder.  In general, when recording with more than one speaker, I used the omni mic, which I thought had excellent pickup.  In a few instances, with just two speakers, I used the XY mic, which really is quite directional—so much so that you really do have to have your speakers sitting at either 90 or 120 degree angles to each other (those are the two directional settings for the XY mic, and switching back and forth between the two is very easy, as you just twist the mics themselves).  In other words, I found the XY pretty effective at reducing background noise while still remaining easier to set up, and less cumbersome, than additional lapel or head-mounted mics.

I also found the set-up quite convenient.  To switch from one input to another, you just push the button corresponding to that input.  (I never came anywhere close to using all the inputs at once, though, so I can see how that feature might strike some as unnecessary.)  Adjusting the recording levels is also very straightforward, as there is a separate dial corresponding to each input.  The colour screen makes level checks at a glance easy to do.  I recorded for probably an average of 2-3 hours per day and changed the batteries maybe about once every eight or nine days, to the best of my recollection.

One big advantage of the easy set-up and level-checking ability, as I see it, is that it means it’s quite easy for language consultants who haven’t used recorders before to learn how to operate the machine.   I taught a number of people how to use it, and they all felt comfortable with it pretty quickly.

The only disadvantage of the H6 that I could foresee would be if you were moving around a lot while recording, or trying to carry the recorder in some kind of bag while recording (with radio mics, obviously)—the dials controlling the levels might get moved inadvertently.  This was never a problem for me, though.

Anyway, from my experience I think the H6 works really well and is very convenient to use.  I hope that helps with your student’s considerations!

All the best,
Amanda

PhD candidate
Linguistics  |  School of Languages and Cultures
3rd floor, Gordon Greenwood Building
University of Queensland
St. Lucia 4072   AUSTRALIA



From: Mark W. Post [mailto:markwpost at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2016 4:24 PM
To: RNLD list <r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: [RNLD] H6


Dear Listmembers,

Has anyone field-tested the Zoom H6 <https://www.zoom-na.com/products/field-video-recording/field-recording/h6-handy-recorder> yet? One of my students is interested in taking it out, but I personally can't see that it adds any features that langdoc people would be interested in, and might have a few undesirables. Specifically, although the swapping-around of different capsules is certainly cool, and while the internal mics for Zoom recorders are certainly *pretty* good, they're nowhere near as good as good-quality 3rd party mics are, so this seems a little gimmicky to me - am I wrong? Also, I'm concerned that the colour LCD display on the H6 might eat up batteries faster than the H4n display did. And I can't think of any reason we'd want sooooo many independent XLR inputs, unless there's a really complicated mic setup (like a ritual performance, in which you want both a headset on the principal speaker and some other sort of mics on a lot of other people, and you actually have the money for all of the mics and the time and inclination to actually do some signal mixing afterwards). So it seems to me to be a pretty specific tool which most people recording monologues and 2-3 person interactions can probably do without, or at least won't offer any advantages over the cheaper H4n. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Mark
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