4-track recorder uses Smartmedia flash rom. Includes 93 effects, drum/bass machine & built-in mic preamp.
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Introducing the H4 Handy Digital Recorder. The next big thing from Zoom. The H4 features 2 studio-quality electret condenser microphones configured in an X/Y pattern for true stereo recording. It also includes 2 combination XLR-1/4 in. input jacks with phantom power for use with any external microphones of your choice. And the H4 is loaded with onboard studio effects such as compression, limiting and mic modeling. An 1/8 in. headphone jack is also provided for monitoring. The H4 records on to Secure Digital (SD) media, a 512MB SD card is included with the unit. Learn More...
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292 People rated this product : 7 out of 10
26 People wrote reviews









9 out of 10
Feature:
Zoom has this tendency and I have used a lot of their stuff: They pack a little bit of all sorts of stuff into one item. It can be a live guitar tool, a recording tool, a goofy little drum machine to dink around with, a microphone, or a mastering station. I like having so many things to play around with, and when I had mine, I was travelling a lot and this, my guitar, bass and hand drum were all I had with me and I liked that it still allowed me to experiment around with so many different idea angles to come from whenever I got bored. As a recorder/mixer it does what its meant to, and a lot of the guitar effects are really fun to play with (a lot of them are useless too, but thats why they let you program it). I would have given it a 10 except the drum/bass machine is not intuitive enough to get a good vibe from unless you WANT it to sound like a drum machine.
Quality:
I lived with this thing in a backpack for 3 years and the only things that ever failed on it were the data dial started skipping and became harder to just twirl to get where you want when selecting effects - that and one of the volume sliders lost its cap. It saw a heck of a lot of abuse in the time I had it and toughed it out until I sold it a couple months ago. We used to call it "The Magic Box".
Value:
Other than the card issue, there is nothing I DON'T like about the magic box.
Desirability:
It was 'The Magic Box' and the center of my band's creative outlets for 3 years as travelling musicians. I miss it very much. I'm sad that it became obsolete because of media format. Still... I miss The Magic Box and would get another one when I have the opportunity. I can deal with the card problem, it just frustrates me.
Sound:
I enjoyed a lot of the gtar amp sims... especially the rect-big and beatle sounds. I wasn't too impressed with a lot of other ones, but really I only use a couple of tones anyways. I liked having access to so many options though. The bass sim is laughable but I didn't want it for that, and the drum machine sounds like... well... it sounds like a drum machine. I guess it works if you want to make cheesy pop or simplistic beat music but its no sub for real drums. The internal mic is absolutely awesome in my opinion, but careful it will pop if used for close in singing. decent mic technique is a must. I usually used it on hi-gain setting from 2-3 feet away rather than closing in on it. One last thing - and this makes the whole thing seem worth it to me... the MASTERING and SEND effects are so easy to use and a lot of them drasticly improve your end mix. By the end of my stint with this thing, I no longer used it for 4-tracking, but just input my mix externally, added a hint of verb and dialed thru the preset mastering until I found something tight. It was extremely easy to get a good semi-pro final result like this.
Ease of Use:
If you aren't dumb, you'll get the hang of it quick enough. Well - some aspects of it. The learning curve is pretty steep at first unless you are just recording, overdubbing and mixing using the presets. When you start digging around with track editing, bouncing, cutting and pasting, drum programming and so on, it's good to have your manual handy for reference. It isn't "ease" of use - but after a while the book becomes less and less necessary.
Support:
The data cards it uses no longer exist. You are stuck with the card that came with it. Sad really because everything about this little thing is so cool except for that. I hope they reissue it using a more updated format for storage. I am pondering getting another one just for all it's other handy little gadgets. But as a standalone recording studio it is no longer viable because you will run out of card space before you get to your final bounces. You'll have to have something outboard to mix onto unless you use lo-fi mode, use very few tracks, or delete each project once it's finished.
Overall:
I think I've pretty much summed it up already. lose a point for the data problem, lose a point for the silly drum machine (but only 1 point - because its still a programmable drum machine - it's just hard to use and I'm lazy about meticulous programming)
Submitted: 6/2/2007
Style of Music: shao-lin temple style ultramodern uber-rock









9 out of 10
Feature:
The best feature is that it's tiny. That means I can keep it with me all the time and when the muse arrives I'm ready to go.
Quality:
For what it is, it's laughingly good sounding.
Value:
For the price, what more do you want?
Sound:
Amazingly good quality built-in mic for the size of this unit. Could use a bit more input gain.
Ease of Use:
Could be layed out better but I got used to it pretty quickly.
Support:
N/A
Overall:
I looked around a bit before buying this. The size, sound quality and multi-track ability were most important to me.
I wanted something I could use to jot down song ideas and vocal arrangements quickly and painlessly. This unit has turned out to be perfect for that!
One thing I hate about it though is that it uses a Smart Media card. What? You can't even find these dinosaurs anymore.
Submitted: 2/6/2007
Style of Music: Alternative, Jazz
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