[LAU] Looking for advice on a field recording device

[Kevin Cosgrove]

On 26 July 2013 at 15:26, Philipp Überbacher <hollunder at lavabit.com> wrote:

> I finally want to buy a small field recording device, a zoom H* or
> similar, and I hope that some of you have experience with some of those
> devices and can give me some advice.
> 
> I want to use this device to record interesting sounds wherever I am,
> so it should be relatively small and and fast to start recording. I
> also intend to record lots of quiet or relatively far away sources, I
> want to record bird songs rather than guitars. As far as I've seen
> those devices use SSDs or similar storage media, so I assume they don't
> make any noise on their own, right? I guess the microphone should also
> have a low self-noise.

I like everything about my Zoom H2, except for one thing.  The
line in jack is not very durable, and mine is intermittent on
one side of the stereo pair.  It's got 4 mics, and I can select
either pair, or both pairs for recording.  I'm pretty good now
at selecting a good sounding place in a room to record music.
I've used it at family gatherings to record conversations, etc.
I've had it for about 5 years now, and recorded 400-500 hours
of material.  The SD card makes it super easy to transfer to my
computer.

If I had a chance to start over, I'd buy a Zoom H4n for what I
hope would be more rugged line in jacks.  That would mean I'd
need to forgo the 2nd pair of microphones.  I would be willing to
part with my H2.

Good luck with your search....

P.S.:	You could use a smart phone and a microphone for this.

--
Kevin