Freesound Forums

Hi,

i am thinking of buying a zoom h1 for recording foley sounds.

things like
sound of water splashing,
brick falling on concrete,
glass shattering,
metal scratches,
metal dragged against concrete
foot steps etc.

i wont need to record outdoors so wind and ambient sounds wont be an issue.
i dont care about ui,battery charge,weight etc.
i went through some comparison videos and sample sounds but i cant quite tell.

will the zoom h1 be sufficient???

Thanks in advance

ps: i dont have enough money to buy anything else.

Mics of h2 are good for your recordings. Only handling noise can give some problems cause of plstic housing.

Simple and good recorder.

used it for two years.

good to know, ... i take it that you mean h1 and not h2.

Yes I mean h1.
99 euro dollars is good price.

H1 is very good. But klankbeeld is right, handling noise can be a problem.
For my recordings, I tend to set the H1 on a hard surface (a bench, a wall, a table. Sometimes even the floor) and just point it at what I want to record.

Recording outside will not work without a windshield. I imagine that is no different from other recorders: an exposed mic will pic up even the slightest breeze - when you listen to the recording afterwards, sounds like you recorded it in the middle of a tornado!
So, for outside recordings you need a windshield. There is an acessories kit which includes a windshield (simple foam ball that goes over the mics), a tripod and a handle (so you can hold the recorder without to avoid handling noise). All these things are useful.
- But if you just want the windshield, you can pickup one very cheap on ebay or something like that.

For more serious outdoors recordings, the simple foam shield is not enough. You will need a "dead cat" shielf which has lots of "hair" and thus can protect from real windy conditions (recording at the beach for example, or on an exposed roadside).
I have done some recordings at the beach with my simple foam shield, but can only do that when there is no wind.

Still, the foam shield is all you will need if you want to record yourself in your back garden smashing glass bottles, scraping metal sheets or simply the bird songs in the morning.

Wow, thanks AlienXXX, learned quite a bit from this!

Go.
Zoom packs excellent mics into their gadgets for the money. Of course, there are more expensive solutions that sound a lot better (but you DID post something about being on a budget, so I won't elaborate...), and I use them too, but my H2 has been a faithful and handy tool for many a quick location recording. A lot of the stuff out of my H2 went into the mixes of productions (by me and others) for major European broadcasters, so it won't just play for amateur stuff, if you know how to use it.
Afaik, the H1 is cool too, and you definitely won't get a better bang for your buck.
As for windshields: if you're doing foley in your basement, you're fine without one. If you're outside doing location stuff, as the previous posters said, you WILL need one, go for a Rycote or something similar, DON'T cut costs on that one, or, as also posted before, you will be in a world of hurt once even a little breeze picks up.
Concerning the handling noise: A pistol grip connected to something like this:
http://www.musicstore.de/en_EN/EUR/Pro-Audio/Microphone-holder/Fame-EA18/25-elastic-holder-18-25mm-rubberband-black/art-REC0003467-000
should serve you well, if you plan to record stuff while walking around the place.
Have fun!

Good enough? If everything else is ideal, yes. It can be surprisingly usefull.

Great? Perfect? Almost never. There is grain, noise, lack of depth, lack of definition. Yep you get somewhat "ok" results out of zoom. Yet once you want your recordings to sound realistic, you won't be satisfied. Not if your monitoring is worth the name.

Cheap(ish) way out? Line audio mics http://lineaudio.se/CM3.html with second hand sound devices mixpre-d and recorder with digital input is something to consider. Night and day.

There are of course some fine mics. Sennheiser MKH range, Schoeps, Neumann... even Rode is better than any built in mics.

While you're right, of course, I may point out that the OP did say he can't afford more.
Please show me where you can get a used mixpre-d in acceptable shape for anywhere under 5 times what the H1 costs.
Add the cm3s (which I will admit sound amazing for their price, that IS good advice...) at 100 bucks a piece, and we're looking at 700$ at the till if he's lucky. And then he hasn't gotten a recorder yet.
And yes, of course the result of recording with a H1 will not remotely reach the level of something done with a pair of Schoeps and a 552, and there is more thought to be put into gain management etc.
But you can get there, and you start driving in the Corolla, not the Lamborghini.

Lots of sounds in this website recorded with the Zoom H1.
Search them up, listen and decide if the quality is good enough for you.

Thanks for the quick responses!!

Ill be getting the zoom H1.

i didnt know about the handling noise.thanks for pointing that out.

i doubt i could get my hands on a second hand mixpre-d & recorder so its not
an option,and as blaukreuz pointed out,ill start off with something simple.

---------

For anyone looking into the Zoom h1,following links helped me a lot.

http://freesound.org/browse/tags/h1/zoom/

Zoom H1 vs Tascam DR-05: Audio Shootout & Comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lAMoN17mLk

Audio Test! Rode Video Mic Go vs Zoom H1 vs Tascam DR-05:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf3TDKnFHQE

Thanks again!!.

I'm sorry I have this tendency to push people towards highend. Perhaps I'd like this site to have more schoeps/sound devices sounds than zoom sounds .

Jokes aside. Even when one buys kit dedicated to external mics, all-in-one recorder remains relevant for many things when you need to go lightweight or stealthy. So it's kind of parallel thing.

@ matucha: I most heartily agree with you! However, when I'm, e.g, on a holiday, I can't take along my favored recording rig, the wife simply won't have it! (She already rolls her eyes when I'm sitting in a Vienna coffee house and pull out my H2 to capture some atmo...) Also, the stuff I record with the 552 is usually not mine to share on Freesound (I will ONLY ever post stuff here I can clear as CC0) more's the pity!
Hi-end is great! And I would always encourage people to aspire to that, after they've seasoned themselves on the H1 or similar.
But I've had a listen to the stuff you've uploaded, and you certainly know how to rock a field recording, so you're cool with me!

Sound quality is OK, I also have a Zoom H1 for special purposes. But if you make stereo recordings e. g. atmosphere sounds it will not cover the whole stereo basis, which means the sound is squashed to the middle between the loudspeakers. The distance (or angle) between the mics is to small.
For mono recordings it does the job.